Tapped says we all should be outraged over this column by Cal Thomas.

On the eve of our great national birthday party and in the aftermath of Sept. 11, when millions of us turned to God and prayed for forgiveness of individual and corporate sins and asked for His protection against future attacks, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has inflicted on this nation what many will conclude is a greater injury than that caused by the terrorists.

Well, like all aspects of this pledge deal, I'm having trouble getting very worked up over it. If he'd said, "I believe it's a greater injury..." then I might say, what an idiot. But he's simply saying that many will conclude that, which may, as far as I know, be perfectly true.

Some people get pretty upset about God, and his name, and taking it in vain, and saying it or not saying it. I'm not one of them, though I try not to needlessly offend people whose beliefs differ from mine.

And to be honest, while I don't think that this particular decision is all that big a deal, I do think that bad judicial decisions can, and have, damaged more property and killed more people than the Islamists could dream of doing.

[Update at 12:46 PM PDT]

Orrin Judd agrees with Cal. Or at least he's one of the people that Cal's talking about.

Don't you see? If we can't say "under God," then the terrorists will have won!!!!!

Unless it's, if we continue to say it then the terrorists will have won.

Rand, what you're saying is, the law is an ass. Don't Muslims regard the ass as an unclean animal? Ergo, the law is unclean. It all makes sense now.

I see it more of a general backlash agianst PCism and the left. While the ruling maybe minor it was just enough spark for a lot of people to vent.

Nope, I reread it, and Thomas is still a dumbass. He's bloviating on about how the 9th court is stomping on god (I paraphrase, but that's the gist). That "many will conclude" bit doesn't read to me like he's just making an observation -- it's not quite the royal "we," but it is more like "me and others who think like me, this is how we feel!" And were people really praying for forgiveness of "corporate and individual sins" after September 11th? Maybe some people were -- I don't know since I don't assume to know the substance of the prayers of everyone in the US. The whole article just seems like stupid hyperbole, quite inappropriate for this time. I know -- it reminds me of that stupid lecture Clinton gave, where he basically said that heck, in another fifty or a hundred years the US probably won't be top dog anymore, which is a great thing to tell people who've just seen thousands killed in a terrorist attack.

I agree with Andrea that the 'many will conclude' was probably a royal 'we'. I am also quite sure that Mr. Judd is one of that 'many'.