Listening to a rebroadcast of Forum from earlier today, an hour on "patriotism"...
Where did they find the gentleman on the phone? Such a troglodyte-like throwback to the bad old days, I rarely have the pleasure of hearing.
One fine moment was when he made the assertion that criticizing the president or his policies is unpatriotic, apparently with the proviso that it occur in a foreign country. At one point, someone called in and inquired whether the Republican party's years of public mud-slinging at Clinton was unpatriotic. "Well, they didn't do it abroad. I mean, I've been a critic of Clinton..." You don't say. Gosh.
And let's just hope he never criticized Clinton in the Bay Area, because according to him, "San Francisco is just like a foreign country to me."
Ah. The troglodyte is Gil Ferguson, retired Lt. Col. United States Marine Corps, former State Assemblyman and Chairman of the California Republican Assembly Publications Committee.
(And the counterweights were: Cecilia Elizabeth O'Leary , associate professor of history at CSU Monterey, is the author of "To Die For: The Paradox of American Patriotism"; Helal Omeria, executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations, Northern California Chapter; Eva Jefferson Paterson, executive director of the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area)
