Frank Capra was on to something.

TCM showed Mr. Smith Goes to Washington tonight. I've seen the movie at least five times, and each time taken away from it something different. Say what you will about corniness; Capra understood core American values: honesty, an individual's right to dignity and freedom, and the obligation to speak truth to power, no matter what personal risk is involved. Tonight I was struck by how completely relevant this film still is. Sadly. And in particular by the scenes in which the newspapers and radio stations in Mr. Smith's home state are controlled by a corrupt political machine so desperate to hold on to power that it will say anything to keep the citizenry in the dark.

We can't give in to cynicism; it's the controlling party's biggest weapon. Mr. Smith is alive today and cheering us on through the words of E.J. Dionne Jr.

But the progressive and the reformer have a problem with what passes for unadulterated patriotism. By nature, the reformer is bound to insist that the country, however glorious, is not a perfect place, that it is capable of doing wrong as well as right. The nation that declared "all men are created equal" was, at the time those words were written, the home of an extensive system of slavery.

Most reformers guard their patriotic credentials by moving quickly to the next logical step: that the true genius of America has always been its capacity for self-correction. I'd assert that this is a better argument for patriotism than any effort to pretend that the Almighty has marked us as the world's first flawless nation.

and John Kerry.

I think patriotism starts with telling the truth. Truth is the American bottom line. I don't think it's an accident that among the first words of the first declaration of our national existence it is proclaimed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident...".

Patriotism also means dissent -- when it's hardest. The bedrock of America's greatest advances--the foundation of what we know today are defining values--was formed not by cheering on things as they were, but by taking them on and demanding change.