The Misanthrope's Corner.(Ninth Circuit's ruling on Pledge of Allegiance)(Column)(Brief Article)

Slipping in under the wire seems to be a specialty of mine. I graduated from public schools in 1953; "under God" was not inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance until 1954, so I am a member of the last class to recite the old version. It's still seared on my brain; now, whenever I have occasion to pledge allegiance, I always finish ahead of my juniors because I automatically leave out "under God."

Having slipped in under the wire, I will now fall between the slats. I am on both sides of the Ninth Circuit's ruling, and for all the wrong reasons.

My main impetus for siding with the court is contained in the statement by House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt, who said he saw "no reason to change the time-tested, venerable pledge." This was only to be expected from a middle-aged liberal who doesn't look a day over 14, but it goes to the heart of the issue. I might be able to work up the requisite conservative fury if "under God" had been in the Pledge all along, but where is the conservatism in defending something that new when it was not even carefully thought through in the first place?

"Under God" was stuck into the Pledge on the spur of the moment at the height of the McCarthy era as a tool to fight Communism, a Republican brainstorm propelled by the same kind of bipartisan mawkish naivete that makes liberals go dewy-eyed over "people-to-people" student-exchange programs as a force for peace. That our penchant for mawkishness remains undiminished was evident when a bevy of congressmen trooped out to the Capitol steps the other day and recited the Pledge, careful to shout out "under God!" like defiant pupils in a rehearsed plan to annoy the teacher.

Americans are suckers for empty gestures. Our doltish leadership is helpless to stop terrorism and the country is facing economic ruin from the corporate banditry of our neo-Robber Barons, so it's time to distract us with one of those all-absorbing hokey crusades that we do so well. It won't be long now before oil tankers start exploding, banks start failing, goldbugs start fleeing, and computer hackers figure out how to open the floodgates of Hoover Dam, but, as our grandstanding leaders well know, we will be too busy shouting "under God!" to notice.

The phrase suggests yet another kind of mawkishness to me: clutter. I dislike manger scenes on public property for the same reason. I don't care who is spiritually offended by them; I am aesthetically offended by their whatnot-shelf "too-muchness." The first time I lived up North, in Bayonne, N.J., I kept recoiling from the life-sized manger scenes in people's yards, six-foot saints in magenta and vermilion robes, with gilt halos affixed to coat hangers coming out of the backs of their necks. My reaction sprang from more than run-of-the-mill tidiness; I have a compulsion to create empty spaces. Call it agoraphilia if you wish -- it's my only chance to be a phile instead of a phobe or a thrope -- but I'm happiest when I'm getting rid of something. To my way of thinking, "under God" ...