Much ado

Just in case there was any doubt that we are a NATION OF MORONS, consider the fact that people all over the country have dropped everything to seethe and bloviate about those kids over at OCC who have decided to "ban" the Pledge of Allegiance at their college.

Today, I went to FoxNews.com and typed in “pledge of allegiance.” I got 5710 hits. Their “Calif. College Ends Pledge of Allegiance” story, which is attributed to the AP, is repeatedly listed all over the site as “Breaking News.”

I checked out Fox's satellite radio, and, evidently, Fox Across America’s Spencer Hughes was on the "Pledge" case that very moment:

Pledge Paranoia! Orange Coast College in California has voted to ban the Pledge of Allegiance because they see no reason to swear their loyalty to God and the U.S. government! Spencer wants to know where our country’s values have gone!

WAIT! NOW HOLD EVERYTHING!

OK, then. Most news media, including Fox, were working from a version of the news story supplied by the Associated Press, which goes like this:

Calif. College Ends Pledge of Allegiance

Student leaders at a community college voted to drop the Pledge of Allegiance after a tense meeting in which one flag-waving pledge supporter berated them as anti-American radicals.

Orange Coast College's student trustees voted Wednesday not to recognize the pledge, with three of the five board members saying it should be dropped from their meetings.

Board member Jason Ball argued that the pledge inspires nationalism, violates the separation between church and state with the phrase "under God," and is irrelevant to the business of student government….

Coast Community College District spokeswoman Martha Parham said the decision was up to the students…. (Fox/AP)

This version of the story leaves wholly unclear WHICH BODY made the decision to forego the Pledge and TO WHOM or WHAT the foregoage applies. (Well, the story's title implies that the "ban" applies to the "college.") This sketchy AP piece seemingly has inspired hysterical rants about a small group of students "banning" the Pledge for an entire college.

NOW, IN FACT, as Thursday’s OC Register article made fairly clear, it was OCC’s STUDENT GOVERNMENT—and, in particular (here, the Reg was not so clear), it’s 5-member “Board of Trustees,” that decided that, henceforth, it would no longer recite the Pledge at its twice-weekly meetings.

We're talking about a meeting of five kids sitting in a room, wearing berets, making rules about how they will sit in that room and wear those berets.


Evidently, the five members of the ASOCC BOT are each called trustees. These “trustees” must not be confused with, and are not a part of, the Coast Community College District’s board of trustees, a body which, incidentally, includes that asshole Armando “Scam” Ruiz. (Remember his scandal?)

So this so-called Pedge "ban" isn’t such a big deal.

I agree with the students' "ban," I guess. And some of their reasons make sense to me. And they’re certainly not shoving their perspective on tens of thousands of students.

As things stand, if an OCC student wants to say the Pledge, then he or she can show up at the next meeting of the district Board of Trustees and Pledge his heart out.

(NOTE: the Coast Community College District comprises three colleges, including Orange Coast College.)