There was a morning, little more than six years ago, when a plane flew low and wild over Pittsburgh.

The passengers had just learned that America was under attack. Their hijackers had turned the San Francisco-bound plane back toward Washington, D.C., on a suicide mission to destroy one of the nation's shrines to democracy.

On that morning, ordinary men and women decided this assault on our patrimony would not happen on their watch. And so the casual, cheerful phrase "Let's roll" took on eternal weight.

In my adult life, I have never been prouder of my country than I feel about that moment on 9/11's Flight 93. Winning the Cold War was a much broader national triumph, but its heroes were many, and the battle spanned decades. Likewise the civil rights movement.

I'd like to believe that if Michelle Obama, an intelligent and accomplished woman, had the chance to rethink the controversial statement she made last week, she'd choose some similarly noble or momentous event.

Something that wasn't about herself.

But politicians, usually so guarded, reveal what they really think in these spontaneous moments, and there's no getting around the judgment that Mrs. Obama's comment was either surprisingly shallow or self-centered, or both.

Critics and defenders immediately started arguing, loudly and gaseously, over her patriotism or lack thereof, but both sides missed the point. The problem is not that she isn't proud of her country; it's that she's proud of it for a not very admirable reason.

Last Monday at a Minnesota campaign stop, Mrs. Obama told a roomful of supporters, "For the first time in my adult lifetime, I'm really proud of my country. Not just because Barack is doing well, but I think people are really hungry for change."

Asked by a television reporter if she would like to clarify her remarks, she said she was "clearly talking about ... how Americans are engaging in the political process."

It's pretty silly to feel your proudest moment ever because your fellow citizens are undertaking the most minimal obligation of citizenship. Because they're registering to vote and paying attention to campaigns. Because they're doing what they're supposed to.

And since these newly involved voters she was celebrating have taken up the mantle of adulthood because they're drawn to her husband's candidacy, she was basically celebrating the Obamas.

On Tuesday, Cindy McCain, wife of Republican candidate John McCain, zeroed in -- not unreasonably, but heavy-handedly -- on Mrs. Obama's exact words and declared, "I'm proud of my country. I don't know about you, if you heard those words earlier."

Voters would not have "heard those words earlier" if they were relying on ABC News, which chose to say nothing about the controversy for two days. When the Wednesday evening broadcast finally and fleetingly addressed the matter, chief Washington correspondent George Stephanopolous, who was senior political adviser and press secretary for Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign, praised Mrs. Obama's "good damage control" and announced the episode "not a huge deal."

Some political spouses don't catch such media breaks. Just ask Mr. Clinton.

Barack Obama tried to clarify his wife's remark thus: "This is the first time she's been proud of the politics of America."

Really? There have been other, greater grass-roots movements in Mrs. Obama's lifetime, not least of which was the civil rights movement. The changes it bequeathed are so great that Mrs. Obama, the daughter of a plumber, is a graduate of two Ivy League schools while her brother, Craig Robinson, is coach of Brown University's men's basketball team. She and her husband are millionaires.

Perhaps these achievements, almost unimaginable at her birth, seem so ordinary now that they don't even spring to mind as something to be awed or humbled by.

The civil rights movement, however, was not about a mere politician, it was about a great idea -- something that Mr. Obama's candidacy so far lacks.

Hope is not an idea. It's a feeling. And, to borrow Mr. Obama's book title, "the audacity of hope?" Nothing is more mundane. Hope springs eternal.

My hope is that having a black candidate will soon seem so normal that he -- and his wife -- will be treated to the same scrutiny their white opponents receive. And I hope voters of every ethnicity will feel free to vote for or against him based on his ideas, not skin color.

We're not there yet, but we're inching closer. That would be something to be proud of.