After questioning whether Obama is a real American, Michele Bachman of Minnesota startled me when she said on the Chris Matthews show:

What I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look. I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out if they are pro-America or anti-America.

Republican Rep. Robin Hayes of North Carolina said:

liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God.

So not only have we anti-Americans in Congress, we have them everywhere - they are called liberals.

What would you expect from a party that chooses a dame named Sarah Palin who said this:

We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard-working, very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation.

She sort of apologized. However, her message, and the message of many other Republicans, is clear. It's the same message power hungry demagogues have used for centuries. They - opponents - are not like us. They are communist, socialist, nazi, fascist, terrorist. Obviously, the preferred term today is terrorist.

Opponents are very different. They are not religious like us, not white like us, not Christian like us, not America-born like us, not small-town folks like us, not straight like us. They believe in evolution. They favor abortion. Horror upon horrors, they favor gay marriage. How can one call such people American?

You can tell who is an American, these demagogues say. He has an American flag in front of his house, he wears an American flag pin. He ties yellow ribbons to support our troops. He has a partriotic saying on his license plate.

None of these distinctions mean anything to an American. A person may be a great American whether we like him or not, whether we agree with him or not, whether we approve of what he does or not, whether he is a Democrat or a Republican. What counts is the person's attitude toward his country.

An American may show his concern for his country by serving in the Armed Forces. Another way is to serve in the Peace Corps. Still another way is to volunteer to help the needy and infirm. The easiest way to identify a true American, however, is by his or her support of American ideals. In the final analysis, American ideals are the true protection we have. What would this country be without its system of justice, its concerm for equal opportunity for all and with the civil rights of everyone - regardless of differences?

As a matter of fact, it is the tolerance one has for differences which stands out as the true mark of an American. A real American realizes that we all depend on each other, that we need to help each other and that unity is decidely better than division. As Barack Obama says:

We can disagree without being disagreeable.

A real American never calls another American anti-American.