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Tim Grieves believes it is stupid to care about what language the national anthem is sung in, and the vast majority of the responses agree. As many have noted Bush hisself has sung it in Spanish, and as Grieves points out State Department's own web site contains the official version in Spanish and other languages.
I agree that most of the objections to singing it in Spanish are demagoguery at play, including by Bush hisself. But Grieves and without exception so far the other responders, miss the main point: The current Spanish version is not a translation but a rewriting of the song, to make a different political statement. Examples: ". . . We are brothers, it's our anthem . . . It's time to break the chains . . ."
G. Sower argues that we should follow the example of the Christians, who translated the bible into multiple languages in order to spread their word. But a more correct analogy would be translating the Koran and labeling it the bible, or vice versa.
What was stupid was the politically tone deaf belief that this ploy, regardless of the merits of the political statement, wouldn't be noticed and backfire.
