Heh. Sometimes, William Safire surprises me.
(I also like the fact that he used to think the first line of the Pledge of Allegiance was "I led the pigeons to the flag")
The only thing this time-wasting pest Newdow has going for him is that he's right. Those of us who believe in God don't need to inject our faith into a patriotic affirmation and coerce all schoolchildren into going along. The key word in the pledge is the last one.
The insertion was a mistake then; the trouble is that knocking the words out long afterward, offending the religious majority, would be a slippery-slope mistake now.
The justices shouldn't use the issue of standing to punt, thereby letting this divisive ruckus fester. The solution is for the court to require teachers to inform students they have the added right to remain silent for a couple of seconds while others choose to say "under God."
I basically agree... yet there's something troubling about the "Heck, we can't undo it now, it will offend too many people!" argument. Try applying it to the current hot topic, gay marriage, or going back a ways, slavery. Making kids include the phrase "under God" is certainly nothing compared to denying people the right to marriage or freedom, but if something violates our Constitution, it violates our Constitution, no?
There's so much in the news to comment on right now, what with the 9/11 commission testimony, the Clarke book, the assassination of the Hamas leader, the ethnic violence in Kosovo... but I don't have anything particularly wise or amusing to say about any of them, so I won't right now.
