Unbidden

I hereby state unequivocally that I never will seek the presidency of the United States of America.

Never mind that I have no money, credentials (although history suggests that’s no disqualifier) or constituency. (Lassitude Come Home readers are awesome, but the dozen of you do not, frankly, a “springboard” make.) I’ve concluded that, even if I had those advantages, I’d make past fringe candidacies like those of cult leader Lyndon LaRouche look like comparative juggernauts. My views, you see, make me anathema not only in the red states, but in swing and blue ones, too.

This is something I’ve long known, but it really hit home the other day when I read an article about the upcoming 10-year anniversary of “God Bless America” being sung in major league baseball stadiums. This was a practice instituted in the wake of the 9/11 attacks that continues today, as a manifesto to the terrorists skulking about the hot dog concessionaires (while defiantly boycotting Hebrew National) that Americans will “never forget” that awful day and, with God’s endorsement, will yet kick Muslim extremists’ pajama-covered behinds.

The article noted that, at most ballparks, the song no longer is sung during every home game. In most cities, including Washington, it now precedes “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” before the seventh-inning stretch only on Sundays and select holidays. At Yankee Stadium, however, it’s still sung during every game—New York having been where the Twin Towers fell, true, but the perennially full-of-themselves Yankees also deeming themselves more patriotic than we lesser Americans in other baseball markets. It was Yankees management, after all, who stopped physically preventing fans from leaving their seats during the non-National Anthem only after losing a lawsuit in 2008 that had been filed by an ejected fan. (Who may or may not have been a terrorist.)

Indeed, tomorrow afternoon I’ll be among baseball fans at Nationals Park who will be asked by the public address announcer to rise and sing about how the Deity “shed his grace on thee” (us) and how, thanks to Him, we Americans enjoy “brotherhood from sea to shining sea.” Never mind that we’ll be singing the song as code for “eat our missiles, Allah-lovers.” Then, there’s also the fact that tomorrow the hometown nine will be hosting the Philadelphia Phillies, whose busloads of drunken, xenophobic partisans can be counted on to enforce their own stay-in-your effing-seat policy during that Patriotic Pause.

You may be picking up by my subtle hints that I am not a big supporter of the singing of “God Bless America” during major league baseball games. That is true. And since we’ve already put to rest any thought of my seeking votes for president of this great country, I’ll go ahead and state my reasons.

I understand that baseball is seen by many people as synonymous with America. I mean, there used to be a rally-‘round-the-flag car-company jingle that lauded “baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet.” That’s fine, even though I personally could see the Almighty choosing something sportier, like perhaps James Bond’s Aston Martin. I have no issue with the communal singing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” before the start of each game. It is the national anthem, after all. Besides, the fact that it’s comically hard to sing poses the intriguing specter of disaster for every guest singer tackling it.

But, as I already noted, “God Bless America” is not the national anthem. It’s just another song that brags about the United States. Which we’ve already done at each game’s outset, by singing about how, despite the Brits’ best efforts to defeat us during the War of 1812, our resilient flag survived their cannon volleys and firepower to continue waving o’er “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” After all that bluster, do we really need to belt out a self-serving paean to the beauty of our mountains, prairies and “oceans white with foam,” too?

Then there’s the whole God thing. I love my country, and one of the things I love best about it is that it was founded on the principle of separation of church and state. Not coincidentally, one of the things I like most about our national anthem—aside from the tune’s origin as an English beer hall song, which kills me—is the fact that it mentions a supreme being exactly never. Conversely, it’s my personal belief that the use of religion toward nationalistic ends is one of the biggest underlying causes of strife and misery in the world today. As benign as “God Bless America” may sound to a lot of people, to me, it’s a slippery and well-worn slope from proclaiming that God blesses America to everyone from evangelists to politicians declaring—and inciting other people to believe—that nonbelievers aren’t “real” Americans, and that non-Americans, from Muslim Middle Easterners to secular Europeans, are guilty by theology of being our moral inferiors.

I’m not saying by any stretch that “God Bless America,” in and of itself, is evil, or, for that matter, that Kate Smith, who made it her signature song, didn’t have a helluva set of pipes. What I am saying is, we don’t need to be singing “God Bless America” at baseball games. In fact, my chances of becoming president now being roughly equal to those of Texas Gov. Rick Perry being endorsed by the ACLU, I’ll even add this opinion: “Honoring” the 9/11 dead by declaring that God is on our side (not yours, al Qaeda!) was a mistake on Major League Baseball’s part from the start.

So, let’s review. Thus far in the year-plus I’ve been writing this (obscure but nonetheless Google-able) blog, I’ve come out as an religious agnostic, a pro-choice liberal, a strident advocate of gun control and a harsh critic of the idea of American exceptionalism. If all that hadn’t been enough to ensure I never could win the presidency even with money, skills and a voter base, now I’ve gone ahead and dissed a 9/11-related sacred cow on the virtual eve of that dark event’s 10th anniversary.

You know what else? I’m so completely in the tank for women’s right to choose on abortion that Clinton administration Surgeon General Jocelyn remains one of my heroes for having once stated—and being excoriated for saying—“We need to get over this love affair with the fetus and start worrying about children.” (She also thought masturbation was healthy, and suggested schools consider teaching it. No more trial and error! I love this woman.)

And I’m going to go ahead and this put out there, too: I wouldn’t stop at gun control. I’d campaign on a platform of repealing the Second Amendment and jailing NRA President Wayne LaPierre for life without parole unless he agreed to disarm, disavow private gun ownership and, last but not least, personally lift James Brady out of his wheelchair and kiss his ass.

OK, I think my work here is done. Sorry if I disappointed anyone who was hoping someday to work on my campaign. I still may call on you as a character witness at my future treason trial under President Rick Perry.