Posted by Jed Lewison on Mon Apr 21, 2008 at 11:34 PM Pacific

ABC's top political reporter embroiled in patriotism scandal

In a shocking turn of events, ABC senior political correspondent Jake Tapper admitted on Monday that he had never heard of the "Stars and Stripes" -- a common nickname for the flag of the United States of America. Tapper also told the entire internet that he was unaware that "pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes" is an obvious reference to the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

After Tapper's stunning concession on his highly trafficked blog "Political Punch," speculation mounted that he does not have sufficient Patriotism(tm) to cover the 2008 presidential election.

Marc Halperin, Hillary Clinton's chief press liasion officer, said Tapper would be lucky to last a week. "Really, I think it's a matter of days before George Stephanopolous frog marches that Europe-loving freakshow out of the office."

Hillary Clinton's chief spokesmodel Howard Woolfson made a short statement available to the press.

Senator Clinton is appalled by Mr. Tapper's remarks, which were deeply hurtful to all Pennsylvanians -- and she hopes all big-state Americans -- because they came after 9/11, and 9/11 was an attack on our country, and Mr. Tapper's remarks were an attack on our country.

Wolfson added that he was pleased to have made the statement available because it allowed him to continue stonewalling Mother Jones reporter David Corn who has been hounding him for an answer on Hillary Clinton's view on President Clinton's pardon of two former Weather Underground members.

The firestorm began on Monday as Tapper offered a short post about Barack Obama's latest television advertisement. Tapper begins his descent into unpatriotism thusly:

"Who has what it takes to really bring change?" the Obama response ad asks. "To finally take on the special interests - not take their money.  Who made the right judgment about opposing the war and had the courage and character to speak honestly about it.  And who in times of challenge will unite us - not use fear and calculation to divide us."

Obama himself then says, "We are one people. All of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes.  All of us defending the United States of America."

It was only then that he confessed his confusion:

(Pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes? Huh.)

As Tapper would have known if he weren't a left-wing radical Marxian political theorist from Latin America, the "Stars and Stripes" is a nickname for the flag of the United States of America. (The Americans I know understand this without needing to look it up on Wikipedia, which offers "Old Glory" and "Star-Spangled Banner" as other nicknames.)

If Tapper weren't a French-Canadian socialist hell-bent on bringing Islamic radicalism to the United States of America, he would have known that Barack Obama was talking about pledging allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

For his edification, here's the Pledge of Allegiance (the author of this blog entry, being an American, can do this from memory):

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Yes, that's the classic version omitting "under God" which was added in the 1950s. What can I say, the author of this blog post is Old School.

The author of this blog post sincerely hopes that it helped Jake Tapper understand what every normal American already knows: your radical questioning of Barack Obama's patriotism is as big a joke as is this blog post.

(BTW, in case it was not clear, this whole thing is a joke, using an actual post of Tapper's to mock his and ABC's unrelenting questioning of Obama's patriotism.)

We're all rooting for you to snap back to your senses and we hope the patriotism police don't come to sweep you away!

Editor's note: May we recommend Andrew Sullivan's "McCarthyite Pointillism" as a companion to this piece.