Yesterday, former Attorney General Ed Meese sent a letter to Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge raising concerns about the new Oath of Allegiance, which apparently will become official next week. Writes Meese: “Having read a draft of the new oath, I am concerned that the effort to simplify the words will weaken the powerful language and change the substantive meaning of this most important citizenship pledge.” He makes several compelling observations, including this one: “I note that the proposed language only asks new citizens to renounce their allegiance to a ‘foreign state.’ In an era of international but non-state specific terrorism, this singular reference is not sufficient. At the very least, an additional reference to ’sovereignty’ or other appropriate term should be maintained.” When will the Bush administation realize that it shouldn’t edit the oath on the fly and in near-total secrecy? Welcoming comments like these from Meese will only give us a better oath–and yet there’s this bizarre rush to implement something ASAP, apparently because Tom Ridge has an urgent desire to give a we’re-nice-to-immigrants speech.