Unpatriotic voters elect unpatriotic leaders

Unpatriotic voters elect unpatriotic leaders: Column:
"...Since we can't keep an eye on everyone we deal with all of the time, we look for other traits, boiling down, essentially, to a conscience, that will ensure that they are more likely to act properly even when nobody's watching.
And if that's important in a spouse or employee, it's also pretty important in people, like political leaders, who do a lot of things out of the public eye, and who are subjected to a much greater variety of temptations.
Thus, we want our political leaders to be patriotic, in the hopes that, whatever they are involved in, they will put the interests of the country ahead of their personal interests.
Outward signs of patriotism are nice, but of course anyone can put a flag pin on a lapel, or place hand over heart during the Pledge of Allegiance.
Instead, just as we might trust a potential spouse or employee more if we knew that he or she had resisted temptation in the past, traditionally we look for signs that would-be leaders have sacrificed something for their patriotism, say by serving in the military, or otherwise putting themselves at risk for the country. 
We also look at their associations, behavior and general demeanor to see if they look like people who would feel guilty if they did something bad for the country, and virtuous if they did something good.
So that's why people care about patriotism in a president. 
Perhaps we need to pay closer attention to these questions where presidents are concerned, but perhaps we should go a step farther:
In a country like ours, where voters reign supreme, it seems as if concern about the patriotism of rulers ought to also apply to voters..."