It's worse than I thought

OK. Let me compose myself for a second before we begin here, because this whole thing made me want to shoot myself in the face and not seek immediate medical attention.

The scene: Last night's Democratic debate between Hills and the O. It's going along fine, so far so good, blah blah blah, until HEY! YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD BE COOL? LET'S TAKE SOME VIDEO QUESTIONS FROM AVERAGE AMERICANS! OK! Super! So who do we have up? Ahhhh, let's see, what's on the mind of Nash McCabe of Latrobe, PA?

She wanted to know - hold me, please, lest I have a seizure - why Obama doesn't want to wear an American flag pin.

OK. Deep breaths here. OK. No, I'm alright. I'm alright.

For those of you who are confused by this question - and believe me, you have every right to be - there was a mini-flap a few months back when someone noticed that O didn't wear an American flag pin which climaxed, somewhat hilariously, with some idiot Republican congressman going on some show on MSNBC to bitch about this and then Dan Abrams noticing that he's not wearing one either. In a sane world, this madness would have ended there. But no. Nash McCabe is troubled.

Now, instead of giving the appropriate answer - which would be "What in the fuck kind of retarded question is that?" - O said he thought the flag was groovy and that in the general election, people would focus more on the issues than whether he was wearing a flag pin.

Is this really where we're at? You get a chance to ask a question of one of the three people in contention for the Most Powerful Job on the Planet, and you choose to ask about lapel jewelry? Gosh, Nash McCabe, I guess things in Latrobe must be fucking fantastic if the most troublesome issue facing you there is the placement and use of flag pins. Jesus Fucking Christ.

You know what this whole thing reminds me of? This:

UPDATE: Thanks to reader Corey, who found this NYT article, we have learned that the flag pin issue has troubled Nash McCabe for some time!

“How can I vote for a president who won’t wear a flag pin?” Mrs. McCabe, a recently unemployed clerk typist, said in a booth at the Valley Dairy luncheonette in this quiet, small city in western Pennsylvania.

Mr. Obama has said patriotism is about ideas, not flag pins.

“I watch him on TV,” Mrs. McCabe said. “I keep looking for that lapel pin.”

No, it's not from the Onion, I promise. Mrs. McCabe, may I suggest that you divert your undoubtedly sharp intellect to matters more pressing - like how it came to be that you're recently unemployed. We are truly fucked.