God Bless America

To: Bruce Reed
Re: What Would George Do?

You wrote:

For a few months after 9/11, the U.S. did just that. Politicians who might earlier have caned one another on the House floor stood together to sing the national anthem on the Capitol steps.

They sang 'God Bless America'. I remember.

As an atheist, on a day when religious fanatics had murdered thousands of Americans, I felt appalled, not inspirited: steamrolled by a vision of not-quite-national unity, and disappointed (gravely so, given the circumstances) that the response to radical Islam was going to be (and I was right) a retreat into Christianity (or Judeo-Christianity, or whatever) rather than Enlightenment.

I'm clearly part of the problem of national disunity. The alternative seems worse. Convince me otherwise!