Yikes, BigWill! Have you been hanging around Ann Coulter lately? Or maybe Carl Rove?

In reply to:

We're disagreeing about what it means to be an American.


Thank goodness nobody holds a patent on that label, or else a lot of us would be in trouble.

Listen.

I am an American. John Kerry is an American. George W. Bush is an American. Michael Moore is an American. Eugene V. Debs was an American. Joseph McCarthy was an American. Richard Nixon was an American. Timothy McVeigh was an American. Ted Kaczynski is an American.

My family is American and your family is American, but our histories and experiences are different. Do you believe it within your power or right to claim that your are MORE American than someone else?

There is no single definition for what it means to be an American. We are a country of individuals, each with our own views of the country and the world, and our place in them.

Each time you resort to the anti-US or un-American label, you harm your argument's credibility. John Walker Lindh is about the only person who deserves that label.