Blind Faith?

I saw two bumper stickers today (yesterday, actually-it's after midnight now) on the same car. They each said the same thing, "Blind faith in a bad leader is not patriotism", though the other said "bad leadership". Two obvious things here. First, that the dude couldn't decide which sounded more clever, so he pasted both on his trunk, and secondly, that it was in response to conservatives who question the patriotism of libs.

My first thought was, what do you call the blind faith of Obama supporters? But my next was that it was such a lame comment with some poor assumptions. What makes anyone think that those in support of Bush's response to terrorism is "blind faith"? What makes anyone think that we consider supporting our president is automatically patriotic?

Faith, in another person, carries expectations. I have hope that any president would have responded as strongly as George did, but I don't have faith than all of them would have. There was enough to suggest that Bill Clinton wouldn't have. There was nothing to suggest the manner of response Bush would take, only hope that he would respond strongly. Now, I have faith that he will continue, for the duration of his term, to do what he feels is appropriate to continue defending the nation. But it's hardly "blind" faith. It's based on his record regarding the war. I don't necessarily believe he will always do the best thing, but I have faith that he will try.

Now respecting whoever is president, or rather the office of president, is a form of patriotism, but that's not what those who question the existence of liberal patriotism mean when they do their questioning. They refer simply to national defense. Bush's actions were and are for national defense. The threat's existed for quite a while and it's patriotic to want to see the threat abated.

So despite that the bumper sticker is true insofar as the words are, I don't think it's appropriate if it indeed was intended as a shot at Bush and inaccurate since that's not how patriotic people think anyway.