Commencement: It means “a beginning.” Right now, scholars nationwide are ruminating on this word as they receive diplomas and prepare for their futures. So, it’s fitting that yesterday marked my own commencement—I became an American citizen.

The United States has been very good to me. I moved here with my family 20 years ago, when I was 9. Since then, I’ve gone to college and graduate school, I’ve met and married the love of my life, and I’ve experienced all kinds of freedoms that most people here are lucky enough to be able to take for granted.

The Constitution has always protected me. I’ve been able to say what I’ve wished to say and worship as I’ve wished to worship (if at all). I’ve been a member of the press, and I’ve never felt the heavy hand of government censorship separate me from a story. The list goes on, and yet, unless you count taxes, this country has never once asked anything of me in return. I don’t have to enlist in the military or cater to the whims of a dictator. I don’t even have to pretend to like or approve of anything our government says or does. In fact, the First Amendment to this great document ensures my right to “petition government for a redress of grievances” if I so choose.

This has been an emotional week for me. I’ve bounced back and forth between exhilaration at the thought of finally being an American and a feeling of mourning for the Canadian citizenship I’ve now given up. I have to admit: There were moments when I had to fight off the urge to go north of the border and stock up on ketchup-flavored potato chips and poutine—neither of which I even eat. I just had this irrational fear that these childhood favorites might no longer be available to me—that I might be seen as a traitor.

Of course, this will never happen because Canada, like America, is a free country. And now that the ceremony is over, I harbor no regrets. I love the nation where I was born as much as I love the United States. I am proud to call both of these places home.

The Ceremony:

The ceremony I attended took place at Boston’s Faneuil Hall. I couldn’t think of a more appropriate venue: It was there that Samuel Adams and others planned important actions that would help America attain its freedom from Great Britain.

All across America, hundreds of thousands of new citizens take the Oath of Allegiance each year. We, like President Barack Obama and the 535 members of Congress, can vote and run for public office. We can make a difference and enact change. And in exchange, if our country needs our help, we have pledged to give it willingly and without reservation. Here is the full text of the Oath:

I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the armed forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.

I take these words seriously. If it is my right to vote or my freedom to speak my mind, then it is my duty to help my fellow citizens. And if I morally or ethically object to any of these responsibilities, then it is my right, my freedom and my duty to work within the laws of the land and petition the government to change things for the better.

It’s good to be an American.

Following the Oath of Allegiance, we each stood to represent our nations of origin as they were called. As the judge pointed out: While we were all Americans that day, America would not call for us to turn our backs on who we were.

I am a political moderate.

“Daily Show” anchor Jon Stewart discusses commentator Keith Olbermann’s return to MSNBC following a brief suspension for making unapproved political contributions.

There. I said it.

I could write paragraphs about how I sway a little left or a touch right, depending on the issue, but I would have to qualify each and every sentence with words like “usually” and “often,” and phrases such as “in my experience.” I have no loyalties to liberalism or conservatism, and so in the end, my stances on various topics come out sounding a bit wishy-washy.

It’s the plight of living in the aisle that so many politicians struggle to “reach across.”

Following last month’s “Rally to Restore Sanity” in Washington, D.C., some of my more liberal friends expressed great disdain at moderate “Daily Show” anchor Jon Stewart for acknowledging that left-wing commentators like MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann can be just as damaging to truth and public knowledge as his right-wing contemporaries: Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and so forth.

Indeed, here’s a clip from a January episode in which Stewart calls Olbermann out for attacking Senator Scott Brown (R-Mass.) as an “irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, teabagging supporter of violence against women and against politicians with whom he disagrees.”

Olbermann says that Scott Brown supports violence against women because, shortly after a Brown supporter screamed at a political rally that someone should “shove a curling iron up [opponent Martha Coakley's] butt,” Brown smiled and said “we can do this.”

I admit the timing doesn’t exactly work in Brown’s favor (see the following video), but it’s a long stretch to say that the statement was in any way related to the Coakley comment. More likely, since Brown was about to leave the platform, his smile and “we can do this” words of encouragement were just his closing gestures to his audience.

That said, there is no way to misinterpret Olbermann’s own words, where he likens Michelle Malkin (also not one of my favorite talking heads) to a “mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick on it.” Olbermann’s rant begins at 1:03.

To a moderate, Olbermann sometimes just goes to far, as does Malkin, as does Limbaugh, as do Bill O’Reilly and the whole crew. The most detestable talking heads on the left and right twist language to make opinions sound like facts. They make a living demonizing the opposition. But, as the late Democrat senator (New York) and United Nations ambassador to India, Pat Moynihan, once said, “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts.”

This twisting of language is the root cause for why so many lefties can say that “at least Olbermann is telling the truth” while many righties, by the same token, say the exact same of Rush Limaugh. Point out any misleading, corrupted statements from either-or, and supporters will claim hyperbole or that their favorite talking head was “just being facetious” (I’ve heard that one before). Point out similar misleading, corrupted statements from the other side, and those same audiences will spout angrily about “lies” and “deception.”

Here’s the thing about moderates. We see both sides to every coin. We can’t help it.

There was a great piece in yesterday’s Washington Post from one of my favorite living journalists, Ted Koppel, in which he lamented about “Olbermann, O’Reilly and the death of real news.”

Koppel writes:

We live now in a cable news universe that celebrates the opinions of Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly—individuals who hold up the twin pillars of political partisanship and who are encouraged to do so by their parent organizations because their brand of analysis and commentary is highly profitable.

The commercial success of both Fox News and MSNBC is a source of nonpartisan sadness for me. While I can appreciate the financial logic of drowning television viewers in a flood of opinions designed to confirm their own biases, the trend is not good for the republic. It is, though, the natural outcome of a growing sense of national entitlement.

…

Beginning, perhaps, from the reasonable perspective that absolute objectivity is unattainable, Fox News and MSNBC no longer even attempt it. They show us the world not as it is, but as partisans (and loyal viewers) at either end of the political spectrum would like it to be. This is to journalism what Bernie Madoff was to investment: He told his customers what they wanted to hear, and by the time they learned the truth, their money was gone.

It is also part of a pervasive ethos that eschews facts in favor of an idealized reality. The fashion industry has apparently known this for years: Esquire magazine recently found that men’s jeans from a variety of name-brand manufacturers are cut large but labeled small. The actual waist sizes are anywhere from three to six inches roomier than their labels insist.

Perhaps it doesn’t matter that we are being flattered into believing what any full-length mirror can tell us is untrue. But when our accountants, bankers and lawyers, our doctors and our politicians tell us only what we want to hear, despite hard evidence to the contrary, we are headed for disaster. We need only look at our housing industry, our credit card debt, the cost of two wars subsidized by borrowed money, and the rising deficit to understand the dangers of entitlement run rampant. We celebrate truth as a virtue, but only in the abstract. What we really need in our search for truth is a commodity that used to be at the heart of good journalism: facts—along with a willingness to present those facts without fear or favor.

Unfortunately, as Koppel goes on to say: “The transition of news from a public service to a profitable commodity is irreversible.”

And there you have it. We as a nation, as a planet, have turned our one source of truth and information into something tailored just for us and our sensibilities—into some ridiculous venti, skinny, half-caf, caramel-mocha latte-on-ice version of news.

We don’t have to hear about how the people we support aren’t necessarily the “good guys” today because all of that air time is now taken up with filler, hyperbole, conjecture, and brutal verbal attacks on the opposition that aren’t quite as clever as we (the Maddows and the Malkins) seem to think they are.

The worst part is, there’s nothing left to stop us.

My husband popped in the old Fight Club DVD last night. In these post-9/11, economically tanked times, I’ve begun to miss when America’s biggest problem was our disillusionment with our excessive consumerism.

“Boohoohoo! I drink my coffee at Starbucks! I must be a cog in the machine!”

All of that angst—it just seems so absurd now.