Mark has just been talking on the radio about how the kid doesn’t have to say the pledge and is even free to leave the room. That is so right, of course, but you know what infuriates me even more? There’s about 15 fringe loons in this country who run around filing these lawsuits about how the pledge coerces them, and the Patriot Act chills them, and subway searches frighten them, and a tiny nativity scene under a big Christmas tree offends them. And to appease their oh-so-tender sensibilities (after all, we’re not talking about them coming to serious harm of any kind), 300 million people have to alter their lives. What kind of lunatic system is that?

Was it Mencken who made the quip about a puritan being a person who fretted that someone, somewhere might be having a good time? Puritans got nuthin’ on fringe Lefties … and the federal judges who love them.