No, she hasn't gone and backed the Flag Desecration Amendment. No, Hillary Clinton wants to have her cake and eat it, too, so she's backing a federal law to ban flag desecration.

Because, you know, there's like a huge rash of flag burning happening in America, right? You see it every day, don't you? Your neighbor does it! Your school teacher does it! The fireman down the block does it! Kids studying French in middle school do it! John Kerry does it every day over his morning coffee before going to the office!

Her support of [Utah Senator Bob] Bennett's bill follows her position in Congress last summer, when a constitutional ban on flag-burning was debated. Clinton said then she didn't support a constitutional ban, but did support federal legislation making it a crime to desecrate the flag.

In her public statements, she has compared the act of flag-burning to burning a cross, which can be considered a violation of federal civil rights law.

Oh -- but not a constitutional ban! I guess that's supposed to appease freedom-lovers. I can hear it now: "I voted for the flag desecration law before I voted against the amendment." You laugh. But I predict you'll see something like that when she runs for president.

The Bennett-sponsored measure outlaws a protester intimidating any person by burning the flag, lighting someone else's flag, or desecrating the flag on federal property.

I suspect this law could backfire on the wingnuts. After all, what's more desecrating than:

• Putting a flag sticker on your car bumper. (Tailpipe exhaust and road grime are not sacred.)
• Flying a flag in the rain or snow. (That's against the rules.)
• Flying the flag at night in the dark. (Also against the rules. Come on, jerky boys! Don't you remember what you learned in scouting?)
• Sweating in an American flag t-shirt. (Pit stains could count as desecration, I think.)
• Wearing a flag on your underwear. (Skid marks are definitely desecration in my book.)

Oh, and you bikers? Better remove that flag from your jackets or The Man is gonna getcha! Football teams? Don't play any games on Federal property. Grass stains don't go with red, white and blue.

Also facing charges would be our armed forces, who properly dispose of a worn flag by burning it.

Then of course there's the United States Constitution, which will be cut at its most fundamental self-evident right -- freedom of speech -- in order to provide cheap pseudo-patriotic photo-ops for "public servants."

But political opportunists won't let practicalities or principles get in the way of a good pose and cheap rhetoric.

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