A Multi-Lingual National Anthem

This is apparently what passes for controversy: Some Latin pop stars got together recently and recorded a Spanish-language version of the Star Spangled Banner. Some conservatives are up in arms about this.

Seriously.

While fretting about national symbols, we should ditch the bald eagle in favor of the red herring -- but more about that in a moment.

I learned of this "controversy" from the front page of The Washington Post. Not the front page of the Style section, mind you, but page A1. Above the fold.

From the Post:

Can "The Star-Spangled Banner," and the republic for which it stands, survive? Outrage over what's being called "The Illegal Alien Anthem" is already building in the blogosphere and among conservative commentators.

Huh?

Is this a joke?

My wife, a Puerto Rican, wants me to point out that the United States does not have an official language. (Neither does my household -- I don't speak a word of Spanish, which allows my in-laws to talk about me whilst I'm in the room.) But the problem here is even more basic than that. It's: Who cares?

(A quick digression: The anthem-related issue that drives me nuts is when demented Baltimore Orioles fans yell "O!" at the part of the song that starts "Oh say does that star-spangled banner yet wave..." It's annoying when they do it in Camden Yards, but they look positively dim-witted when they do it at, say, a Washington Nationals game.)

But I can't get my mind around the Spanish-language problem. No one is suggesting that a Spanish-language version of the song be sung in lieu of or alongside the traditional version at official and/or sporting events (and if they did, the appropriate response would be not frothing outrage but rather an eye-roll and quick move to a serious topic of discussion). No, what has happened here is that some people decided to pay homage to a beloved, 75-year-old (the anthem was adopted in 1931, according to the Post) national institution. On an album whose title translates to "We're Americans" (or so I am told). Hardly the stuff of society-splintering revolt.

(For what it's worth, the melting pot is not a mold into which we pour everyone to cool and come out as a Stepford American. There is pluribus in our unum and we're a better country for it.)

I suppose the answer to "why?" is two-fold. One is that this is the back-breaking straw for people who are put out having to choose between Spanish and English when they go to the ATM.

The second answer is that they (or at least some cynical, political strategy-plotting portion of they) would rather get people screaming about nonsense issues like a Spanish-language national anthem than, say, Iraq, or energy dependence, or congressional corruption, etc. etc.

A couple of weeks ago, HuffPo blogger Peter Allan (my brother) identified immigration generally as an unimportant issue meant to distract people from more pressing problems. The anthem "debate" is a distilled version of that.

That's why we should replace the bald eagle with a red herring. ("Red herrings" are false clues in mystery stories, meant to mislead and distract from solving the actual crime.)

To wit: Put yourself in President Bush's shoes at Friday's Rose Garden Q&A. Bush fielded questions about Iran, Darfur, gas prices and about the current round of White House deck chair-shuffling. How happy do you think he was to get a query about the language in which the national anthem should be sung?