Over at the New Republic, Ed Kilgore has an interesting and perfectly reasonable piece about Tim Pawlenty’s electoral challenges in the 2012 presidential election. (Kilgore’s read tracks somewhat with Jay Cost’s, though he’s a little less bullish on Pawlenty’s prospects.) But one moment in Kilgore’s piece stands out. He writes: 

Ever since January 2008, folks on the left have been made uncomfortable by the phrase “take our country back.” And I’m sympathetic. The phrase is distasteful. Take it back from whom? From a particular set of politicians? From the majority of voters who elected that particular set of politicians? Isn’t the idea of America big enough that it never totally “belongs” to any discrete group?