I tend to avoid local news like the plague, but the wife was still up at 11 tonight, so we watched the local CBS station news to see how the fireworks went down on the mall. Channel 9 showed President Bush speaking in West Virginia yesterday, but we didn’t hear a snippet from his speech. (They probably thought, liberty, battle, stay the course, blah blah blah.) Instead, we got two soundbites from anti-Bush protesters, declaring how patriotic it was to criticize the president on the Fourth of July, and nothing from the thousands of people who showed up to applaud the president.

I don’t buy the notion that there’s nothing more patriotic than dissent. It’s true that dissent is a fabulous proof of freedom of speech, but it’s not necessarily patriotic, displaying a love of country. A patriotic person can disagree that this was was necessary. But many people who oppose the war betray the notion that America is a cynical or destructive player in global affairs, greedy for oil, using 9-11 as a flimsy excuse — the Michael Moore vibe. They should wear buttons saying “I love my country, but it’s really a greedy oaf that should stay home.”