NPR’s Ari Shapiro doesn’t stand for the national anthem and won’t recite the pledge of allegiance. Why? Because he places his position as a “journalist” above love of county. But, one wonders, does Shapiro understand that without this country he wouldn’t be free to be a journalist?
On his NPR blog, Shapiro was thoroughly pleased with himself for imagining that a job was more important than his country, so much so that he thought enlightening the world with the debate on his Twitter account over his lack of patriotism was warranted.
The NPR reporter noted that at a recent Romney rally he was one of the few that refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and that refusal made him take to Twitter with his anti-patriotism position.
As he Tweeted about his disinterest in our American traditions, he found that his Twitter followers agreed with him, or at least engaged in a “thoughtful Twitter dialogue” over his stand — or his refusal to stand, as it were.
Here one can almost hear echoes of Pauline Kael. Of course few people on his Twitter feed would find fault with his dearth of patriotism. After all, he lives in an NPR-fueled, liberal bubble-land. Like Kael, it’s a lock that Shapiro never met any actual patriots and wouldn’t associate with any if he had. In essence, the largest number of his Twitter fans will be people just like him, those that disdain patriotism or at least are sympathetic with the position.
But there was a method to Shapiro’s madness, in any case. You see, on top of burnishing his oh-so intellectual disgust for patriotism, Shapiro also had a single goal in mind for his piece. It comes at its end. There he bashes Romney for using the Pledge to highlight the great things about this country. That’s right, the real purpose of his anti-Pledge of Allegiance blog post was to bash Mitt Romney.
Of course, Shapiro has become an expert at bashing Romney. You’ll recall back in the first week of August when Shapiro helped mold NPR’s coverage into an Obama super PAC-style advertisement for Obama’s reelection by logging a very misleading report on Romney’s tax ideas.
But more outrageously, it was Ari Shapiro who was one of those “reporters” caught on an open mic colluding with each other on the best way to attack Mitt Romney over his statement on Egypt on August 12.
Shapiro may not stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, but he won’t sit down when there’s bashing of Republicans to be done.
Warner Todd Huston’s thoughtful commentary, sometimes irreverent often historically based, is featured on many websites such as Breitbart.com, among many, many others. He has also written for several history magazines, has appeared on numerous TV and radio shows.
