E-mails fly after flag column

© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 11, 2001

It's something most columnists spend every day attempting. But if you achieve it, you can't help feeling a little dread as well.

Touching a nerve.

And this TV columnist can't remember the last time a story touched readers' nerves like my Oct. 4 Floridian essay on TV anchors wearing red, white and blue lapel pins and ribbons, the shrinking tolerance for speech dubbed "unpatriotic" and Noam Chomsky's bounds of "thinkable thought."

For the record, about 45 e-mails came my way after the column, in which I suggested that TV news people take off their flag lapel pins and Old Glory-colored ribbons and conduct themselves more objectively.

To my surprise, 60 percent of the messages were supportive of my position. Others suggested I might be more comfortable living in another country, and a couple noted that the Pentagon is actually located in Virginia, not Washington, D.C., as I implied.

There were so many interesting comments, we've decided to reprint some of them here. Almost all were edited a bit, mostly for space.

These letters show the broad range of attitudes about the issue of journalists waving flags and the bounds of permissible expression in an America that was on the brink of war.

As we take the first steps in what will likely be a long and bitter military engagement, a debate like this one seems more necessary now than ever.

After the massacres of Sept. 11th, the American people realize that their most cherished freedom is not the freedom of speech (as you so arrogantly and piously contend) but the freedom to breathe. This is indeed a war for our survival. If -- as your piece indicates -- you don't have the stomach to do what is necessary to survive, then get the hell out of the way and let the rest of us do so. The least you can do in this case is just shut up!
Jeffrey B. Robin, M.D.
Altamonte Springs

Our daughter, who uses a wheelchair, was shopping with her husband (retired Navy) for a modified van. She found one that suited her disability. But it had a big U.S. flag attached. She told the salesman, "If I take it, I'd appreciate your removing the flag." He took instant patriotic umbrage. Her husband nodded and the salesman shut up.

She explained, "I don't wear my feelings on my sleeve or submit them to the public for their approval.' Important loyalties suffer and become corny when display of their emblems is made mandatory for inclusion by everyone in everything. Such "unity" is a surface display, and amounts only to a ticket to community acceptance.
Lois Hanna
Brooksville

Bravo! Now you might take on the Consortium of news outlets who have refused to publish the result of their (voter ballot) recount in Florida. Whatever happened to the people's right to know?
Marilyn Vessier
Franklinton, La.

I have nicknamed the extremists that are trying to silence the media and the everyday person: America's Taliban wannabes.
Dee Erlenbach

Please -- stay with the fluffy soft stuff! You are way off base today!
Billie Baker
St. Petersburg

Free speech is only free speech when it's exercised by a liberal. Otherwise it's "hate" speech. Sorry, the liberals' party is over. You had your day and blew it. Political correctness lies buried under millions of tons of rubble at the WTC.
Wayne Durham
Tulsa, Okla.

It's very alarming to hear, on a daily basis, so many comments that trample on the very principles that make America different from any other place on earth. A few nights ago I saw (talk show host Bill) O'Reilly on Fox News saying something like "Those who say we should understand these Muslim extremists are traitorous." Wow! (Fortunately, I don't watch O'Reilly very often any more, since the size of his latest contract apparently caused massive brain damage.)
John Pedersen
Madeira Beach

The most sickening part is the rush of manufacturers and opportunists to get into the marketplace with any symbol, even remotely patriotic, to capitalize on the hysteria. They're even selling American flags in my post office! To paraphrase that great American reporter, H.L. Mencken, "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the level of American taste."
John Deegan
Clearwater

Last I knew, we, the poor dumb public, elected our officials at the federal, state and local level to form public policy and govern. Who elected any of you, the self-proclaimed protectors of the public, to do anything? If I were an enemy of this country and looking to assess my greatest weapons in my fight with the USA, I would list the American press right at the top of my list. My president also said that if you are not with us you are against us. Therefore, if you and your liberal buddies cannot stand proud and support your country when it needs your support the most then you are enemies of the American people. There is no right or left, there is just American.
Gary A. Black
Palm Harbor

It is striking to me that in ways the average citizen in nearly any Islamic country understands the complexity and history of the current situation better than average American citizen, perhaps because they live it every day. Ironic that as we declare we are fighting for freedom throughout the world, we seem increasingly willing to sacrifice one of the fundamental freedoms our soldiers and citizens fought and died for on the altar of mindless patriotism.
Edward P. Morgan III
Seminole

Why don't you respect that "acceptable period of mourning" you speak of yourself? Hold your petty criticism of your colleagues until America regains a stomach for small-minded, unimportant shots at the rest of us for unashamedly wearing the symbol of our country and our unity. Where in the Constitution is the right to receive large sums of money for sowing the seeds of disrespect for our leaders?
Michael Hanna
Bayonet Point

We have, I believe, arrived at one of those amazing crossroads in history where the path we choose from here will determine the course of our nation well into the new century, and all its lofty vision and ideals will be either truly and fully realized or trashed. If you ask me, we're off to a ominous start . . . ethnic backlash, jingoism, heightened intolerance of criticism, serious talk of draconian political measures to curb terrorism. I'm hoping it's just the shock . . . (And) do you think you can find out why, when Saturday Night Live opened its show (Sept. 30) with Mayor Giuliani on stage surrounded by 15 or so New York City firefighters and police officers, the only "heroes" SNL staffers apparently could find were all white, Anglo males?
Louis Claudio
Safety Harbor

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