Patriotism, according to the Star Tribune

As daily readers of the Star Tribune, we simply don’t have a pain threshold high enough to allow for reading its editorials, however much we rely on the paper for its local news and arts coverage. Until Hugh Hewitt drew our attention to it today, we had accordingly missed the Strib’s Sunday editorial instructing us all in the deep meaning of American patriotism.
According to the Star Tribune editorial board, it is important to understand that patriotism doesn’t mean much of anything in particular, but we can be assured that they themselves are avatars of it — whatever it is. Patriots “study the issues; they agonize over policy choices; they listen to all sides; they express themselves vigorously.”
Somehow we doubt that the Strib has done much studying about, or agonizing over, the issues of public policy to which the editorial is alluding. I guess that means that we doubt their patriotism, as they themselves define it. The editorial is “Patriotism/what it is, what it isn’t.”