New cheer for Team USA

San Jose Mercury News: With the Nov. 4 presidential election, we can now declare a winner in the shout-out for Americans’ allegiance.

“USA! USA!” — the battle call of the Bush era — is out.

“YES WE CAN!” — the collective summon to action, with echoes of Cesar Chavez and the barrios — is in.

How welcome the change.

For a quarter-century, conservatives have co-opted the nation’s initials, converting the spontaneous chant after the ice hockey defeat of the mighty Russians at Lake Placid into a statement of unquestioning patriotism. It became the vocal equivalent of a big flag pin. It dared you to find fault.

A better America

“Yes We Can!” is a call to work together to create a better America. It acknowledges we have problems. It symbolizes determination against the odds.

On Election Night, TV viewers watched the fall of one chant and rise of another. During John McCain’s concession speech in Phoenix, there was one last halfhearted refrain, “USA!” But the swagger was gone.

Fifteen hundred miles away, at Grant Park in Chicago, Barack Obama called on 125,000 supporters, some with tears in their eyes, to sacrifice for America. “And where we are met with cynicism and doubts, and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed: Yes, we can.”

With the election, “USA! USA!” resumes its rightful role as a cheer at the Olympics.