This is entirely not meant to be taken seriously, so I don’t want any comments, here or otherwise, proclaiming how progressive bloggers have lost their minds and are only focused on issues of no substance or significance. We haven’t, and we’re not. This is mainly for my enjoyment, and in no way represents the progressive community at-large.

I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but there seems to have been a shift in flag pin fashion. This recently caught my eye when I saw President-Elect Obama’s official portrait. Notice that he’s wearing a pin of the US flag, but that it’s not the style of pin that we’re most used to. There’s no wave. The pin is smooth, straight, and seemingly longer than what previous flag pins have been. I thought to myself, “Hmm, that’s different. I kind of like it.”

Then, while watching President Bush’s farewell address, I noticed something different about him too. He was wearing the same style of pin that Obama is wearing in his official portrait! There’s only one sensible explanation for this, we’re seeing an evolution in the flag pin design, and it’s likely that we’ll be seeing more of our public officials wearing this style, as opposed to the older wavy style that we’re accustomed to seeing.

Who’s setting the trend? This is slightly harder to determine. It seems that Obama had worn prior to and then returned to wearing the older wavy flag pin in April of last year, but was wearing the straight style by June.  Bush can be found wearing the straight style as early as August of 2005, but seems to have alternated a bit between the wavy and straight flags until the summer of 2006. So it seems Bush began wearing the straight style of the flag earlier, while Obama still experimented with the wavy pin until two years later. They seem to be in sync now.

It should be noted that John McCain, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi don’t wear either style of pin, at least in photographs readily available to me, and that Hillary Clinton wore the wavy style when she did wear a flag pin.

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1. The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund: Immediate and long term effort to aid Haiti