.. so I had the sincere pleasure of calling his office today to tell him I'd prefer he'd focus on the couple hundred thousands Tennesseans without health care thanks to the insolvency of our state medicaid program. I also told them that continuing to follow this idiot president will only lead Lamar off a cliff, and that they might want to know about THIS:

From Kevin Phillips "American Dynasty," as reproduced on tbogg:

"When visiting cities like Chicago, Milwaukee, or Philadelphia, in pivotal states, [Bush] would drop in at Hispanic festivals and parties, sometimes joining in singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" in Spanish, sometimes partying with a "Viva Bush" mariachi band flown in from Texas."

http://tbogg.blogspot.com/2004/01/case-in-point-over-week-ago-i.html

Oh, the horror.

It's hard being continually embarrased by the small-minded, petty, vindictive right wing A-holes who clutter so much of the political landscape. This just in on a "Spanish language" national anthem:

In 1919, when the country was considerably more progressive, the US government commissioned a Spanish anthem, see:

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/02/spanish-anthem/

If only the whining idiots were capable of embarassment. You'd think once in a while they'd do a little research before running their big, fat mouths.

Apparently this has replaced baseball steroids and missing white girls as our favorite national distraction.

"So, Mr. Press Secretary, when will the President withdraw troops from Iraq?"

"The President is the decider and he decides when to --- Look! Over there! That guy is singing the national anthem in Spanish. Get him!!!!"

Watching fellow Americans getting worked up over such trivia might have been funny before the Bush Administration was emboldened enough by the patriotism following 9/11 to freely spy on its own citizens and to declare "enemy combatants" in a fictious war. Now that we know any of us can be held without charges or trial for years on end, in a setting where torture is inflicted with impunity, is "who gives a shit" the best response of the remaining 31%?

Seems to me the smartest thing the Christians ever did was translate the bible into every language they could. Makes it much easier to spread your word. And isn't that what we want to do, spread democracy? So translate democracy's greatest hits into every language possible - our national anthem, the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and yeah, how about the Pledge of Allegiance?

Show 'em what we're made of.

A bunch of foreign immigrants want to praise the FREEDOM and LIBERTY of the U.S.A. by singing the national anthem in their native language while a bunch of redneck American citizens tell them they cannot.

Perhaps these immigrants could make some money by teaching our native rednecks The Constitution and Bill of Rights.

So, our President thinks U.S. citizens should have learn to speak English. The Decider-in-Chief does realize, doesn't he, that this means he'll have to take lessons?

And how many of U.S. citizens he likes to idealize -- the ones "born here," the ones growing up speaking English -- know the words to the national anthem in English? How many can name the first five U.S. presidents? How many can find Washington, DC -- let alone other countries in the world, in some of which U.S. citizens are dying every day -- on a map?

It's frightening that the President's misdirection is working: "Don't look at these problems, including my potentially impeachable offenses. Look at this thing over here, instead!"

Oh come on, you say you don't care if the national anthem is sung in Spanish, Swahili, Pig Latin, or pirate talk, and then you link to sites for Pig Latin and pirate talk, but not for Swahili? FYI, Swahili is the most widely spoken African language, and one of the larger world languages, spoken by between 1 and 2 percent of the world's population (roughly 100 million people). While you couldn't expect to walk into any store on planet earth and purchase so much as a stick of gum in Pig Latin or pirate talk, you could easily live a rich and complete life speaking only Swahili. The language has a deep history, a substantial literature, and, yes, even thousands of websites, the most prominent and thorough of which is this:

http://www.yale.edu/swahili