I may disapprove of what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it.

On my way down to CompUseless at lunch today, to pick up some junk for work, I saw an interesting sight.

At a large intersection, there were American flags waving from every light post. That in itself is not so interesting, as Old Glory is quite visible these days.

One of the flags however, was not blowing freely in the brisk wind. Instead, one of its leading corners was caught on the flag's bracket itself. So in effect, the flag was tethered to its post by three corners, instead of the usual two.

As a result, the flag was trapped, trying to wave in the wind but with only one corner free. Maybe I'm anthropomorphizing here, but it looked as though the flag was desperately trying to free its caught appendage from the pole. In fact, it looked a lot like our cat Gypsy does when she gets her claws caught in the rug, or in the furniture, pulling and pulling and trying to break free.

Quite frankly, I didn't like it. I didn't like to see the Stars & Stripes like that. Our nation's flag, flapping strongly in the breeze on a sunny day, the red and white stripes snapping in the wind, as the field of white on blue stars anchors the image, is one of the most beautiful sights I can imagine.

Seeing the flag trapped like that made me want to pull over to the side of the road, shimmy up the telephone pole, and free it from its predicament.

But then it hit me. Just like that flag which represents it, America is trapped.

Trapped in this war. We're in it now, for better or for worse, in it 'til the end. As a columnist recently wrote, Bush isn't going to pull out of Iraq like LBJ pulled out of Vietnam -- "he's a different kind of Texan."

But I can't help feeling that we're a lot like that flag. Besmirched, not up to our usual standards.

Trapped in a situation where we're not seen as a strong, confident, defender of the world.

Instead, trapped by our leaders' overconfidence and hubris, we're caught in a situation, where, like that flag, we don't look as good as I want us to.

While I still believe that America is the greatest country on earth, I kind of look on our nation right now the same way I looked at that flag.

I hope our nation has better luck getting out of our predicament than that flag did.