President Bush has weighed into the debate over a Spanish-language version of our national anthem. Speaking at a Rose Garden question-and-answer session last week, the President declared: "I think the national anthem ought to be sung in English, and I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English and they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English."

Apart from the fractured grammar, there would be nothing objectionable about this statement, were Mr. Bush not plainly pandering to ugly nativist sentiments.

No newcomer can hope to advance in this country without learning English. Any immigrant knows that. Similarly, there is little argument that all U.S. citizens ought to be able to sing the “The Star-Spangled Banner” in English, although it is uncertain how many native-borns today know all the words by heart. And, certainly, “The Star-Spangled Banner”, which was formally adopted by Congress as our national anthem in 1931, ought to be sung in English on official occasions.

But does that mean that we can’t sing unofficial versions of “The Star-Spangled Banner” on other occasions? Or even have unofficial national anthems?

Jimi Hendrix sang a solo guitar version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Woodstock in 1969. The Democrats have fallen into the habit of performing a “soul” version of the national anthem at their conventions, because they find red-blooded patriotism embarrassing. (One of the reasons why they keep losing elections.)

Furthermore, the U.S. has had numerous unofficial anthems throughout its history. “Dixie” has been the unofficial anthem of the South since well before “the late unpleasantness between the states.” In 1900, the African-American poet James Weldon Johnson wrote a Negro National Anthem called, “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, which was popular until superseded by the anthem of the civil rights movement, “We Shall Overcome.” Before World War I, German-Americans liked to give full-throated voice to “Die Wacht am Rhein.” More recently, Gay Americans have claimed “San Francisco” as an anthem of their own.

In fact, the melody of “The Star-Spangled Banner” itself is not American, but derives from an old English drinking song called, “To Anacreon in Heaven” – the lyrics of which are too suggestive to be reprinted here.

The United States is a great nation. It is strong enough to survive the occasional and unofficial performance of its national anthem in Spanish. The only possible danger that might arise from this practice would be if the Spanish-language version were sung more often and more proficiently than the English-language version. And, as anyone who has tried to sing our national anthem lately can attest, such an eventuality seems hardly possible.

Newly-appointed White House Press Secretary Tony Snow says he wants to help restore civility to American politics. In stepping into his new job, Snow criticized what he called the “vicious, personal and sometimes unfocused warfare between Democrats and Republicans, or the press corps and the political class.”

The American people deserve better, in his opinion: “People at home are saying to themselves: ‘This isn’t what I remember when I was looking at the civics book,’ people still have a more exalted view of what government ought to be.”

While there’s only so much a press secretary can to elevate the standards of American political discourse, I have no doubt that Mr. Snow will do his best.

When he was appointed to his present position, I recalled a speech he gave about ten years ago at one of the excellent Ragan speechwriter conferences. On that occasion, Snow talked amusingly and self-effacingly about his career as a speechwriter for the elder President George. He also said something about his approach to White House speechwriting that I never forgot.

He was talking about Rose Garden speeches.

One of the dullest parts of the White House speechwriter’s job is writing Rose Garden remarks.

Week after week, year after year, select groups of Americans from Main Street America – Boy Scouts, Camp Fire Girls, clergy, representatives of civic, fraternal and professional groups, mothers concerned about this or that social problem, winners of national spelling bees, and so on – are herded into the Rose Garden to hear the President give them a ten-to-15 minute speech of welcome.

Imagine having to grind out all those speeches like sausages.

But Tony Snow said that he felt it was his duty to give those speeches his best effort. He put it this way: He said that many of those people had come hundreds of miles to stand in the Rose Garden. For most of them, it was the only time in their lives that they would visit the White House and see a President of the United States up close.

It was a special moment for them, and he said wanted to put something special and memorable in each of those speeches that they could take away with them.

Recalling that speech he gave a decade ago satisfied me that Tony Snow’s idealistic approach to politics is no snow job. I wish him well in his new post; the American people need and deserve a higher level of debate on public issues.

During the Reagan years there was some screwball partisan talk about "budget trials" in the 21st Century to hold accountable those who allowed the federal deficits to get completely out of hand. I say "screwball partisan" talk because the Democrats controlled the House of Representatives for every one of Ronald Reagan's eight years in office. So you couldn't indict members of the Reagan aministration for the deficits without indiciting their "co-conspirators" in Congress.

Given the present circumstances, however, the prospect of deficit trials is neither screwball nor partisan. Indeed, this recent statement by Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska) may one day be entered as an exhibit for the prosecution in some future budget trial:

"At some point, we have got to stop this madness here in Washington D.C....The American people are as mad at us about driving this country economically off the edge as any one thing....What we’re doing to this country is almost criminal.”

"Almost" criminal? I wonder if Sen. Hagel would make a full confession if he were offered immunity from future prosecution.

The boy was hopeless, the schoolmaster decided. Restless, inattentive and seemingly incapable of learning anything. “You’re addled,” he curtly informed the unpromising seven-year-old, and sent him home in tears.

But the boy’s mother was a tigress. No sooner had he sobbed out the schoolmaster’s cruel verdict, when she whipped off her apron, tugged on her bonnet and marched her son back to school to confront his tormentor. This boy is destined for greatness, she stormed at the cowed pedant. One day he would be famous and respected, while the schoolmaster would be remembered only as the dolt who couldn’t recognize a budding genius when he saw one. With that, the mother, who had been a schoolteacher herself, took charge of her son’s education and tutored him at home.

Most mothers have made equally extravagant predictions about their offspring at one time or other. But in this case, the mother’s fondest hopes were to be surpassed. Because the boy’s name was Thomas Alva Edison, and he never forgot the enormous debt he owed his mother. “My mother was the making of me,” he declared in his later years. “She was so true, so sure of me, and I felt I had someone to live for, someone I must not disappoint."

Remember, this Sunday is Mother's Day

When I heard that Sen. John McCain had accepted Jerry Falwell’s invitation to deliver the commencement address at Falwell’s Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, I was disappointed.

Previously, McCain had denounced Falwell – along with Pat Robertson, Louis Farrakhan and Al Sharpton – as “agents of intolerance” who were “corrupting influences” in American politics. But when McCain accepted Falwell’s invitation it seemed that his presidential ambitions had gotten the better of his principles. It seemed as if he was willing to go to Lynchburg to appease Falwell and the religious right as abjectly as a certain medieval German emperor had journeyed barefoot in the snow to Canossa to ask pardon of the Pope.

I was wrong.

Sen. McCain went to Lynchburg this past Saturday, but he did not compromise his principles one bit. Instead, he made an eloquent appeal to good Americans of all political stripes, calling on us to show a decent respect for each other, no matter how deep or how wide the divisions between us may be.

The nub of his speech was this:

“Americans deserve more than tolerance from one another, we deserve each other’s respect, whether we think each other right or wrong in our views, as long as our character and our sincerity merit respect, and as long as we share, for all our differences, for all the noisy debates that enliven our politics, a mutual devotion to the sublime idea that this nation was conceived in – that freedom is the inalienable right of mankind, and in accord with the laws of nature and nature’s Creator.

“We have so much more that unites us than divides us. We need only to look to the enemy who now confronts us, and the benighted ideals to which Islamic extremists pledge allegiance -- their disdain for the rights of Man, their contempt for innocent human life -- to appreciate how much unites us.”

At the end of the speech, Senator McCain cinched his argument with a moving personal anecdote:

“I had a friend once, who, a long time ago, in the passions and resentments of a tumultuous era in our history, I might have considered my enemy. He had come once to the capitol of the country that held me prisoner, that deprived me and my dearest friends of our most basic rights, and that murdered some of us. He came to that place to denounce our country’s involvement in the war that had led us there. His speech was broadcast into our cells. I thought it a grievous wrong then, and I still do.

“A few years later, he had moved temporarily to a kibbutz in Israel. He was there during the Yom Kippur War, when he witnessed the support America provided our beleaguered ally. He saw the huge cargo planes bearing the insignia of the United States Air Force rushing emergency supplies into that country. And he had an epiphany. He had believed America had made a tragic mistake by going to Vietnam, and he still did. He had seen what he believed were his country’s faults, and he still saw them. But he realized he had let his criticism temporarily blind him to his country’s generosity and the goodness that most Americans possess, and he regretted his failing deeply. When he returned to his country he became prominent in Democratic Party politics, and helped elect Bill Clinton President of the United States. He still criticized his government when he thought it wrong, but he never again lost sight of all that unites us.

“We met some years later. He approached me and asked to apologize for the mistake he believed he had made as a young man. Many years had passed since then, and I bore little animosity for anyone because of what they had done or not done during the Vietnam War. It was an easy thing to accept such a decent act, and we moved beyond our old grievance.

“We worked together in an organization dedicated to promoting human rights in the country where he and I had once come for different reasons. I came to admire him for his generosity, his passion for his ideals, for the largeness of his heart, and I realized he had not been my enemy, but my countryman . . . my countryman . . . and later my friend. His friendship honored me. We disagreed over much. Our politics were often opposed, and we argued those disagreements. But we worked together for our shared ideals. We were not always in the right, but we weren’t always in the wrong either, and we defended our beliefs as we had each been given the wisdom to defend them.

“David remained my countryman and my friend, until the day of his death, at the age of forty-seven, when he left a loving wife and three beautiful children, and legions of friends behind him. His country was a better place for his service to her, and I had become a better man for my friendship with him. God bless him.

“And may God bless you, Class of 2006. The world does indeed await you, and humanity is impatient for your service. Take good care of that responsibility. Everything depends upon it.”

It’s just one man’s opinion, but I think Senator McCain touched a deep chord among his countrymen in this moving address. I think Americans are getting tired of slash-and-burn politics. I think they are hungry for the kind of message that Senator McCain has just delivered. If so, his appeal for mutual respect between Americans of all shades of opinion could generate significant support for him in the political season ahead.

I have to admire President Bush's speech last night on immigration. It was not particularly eloquent, but it was sensible, well-crafted and persuasive.

The President began with an admirable summary of the core issue:

"We are a nation of laws, and we must enforce our laws. We’re also a nation of immigrants, and we must uphold that tradition, which has strengthened our country in so many ways. These are not contradictory goals. America can be a lawful society and a welcoming society at the same time. We will fix the problems created by illegal immigration, and we will deliver a system that is secure, orderly, and fair."

And then he offered five specific proposals to reconcile America's being a nation of laws with being a nation of immigrants.

In dealing with a highly inflammtory issue, with extremists on both sides, President Bush was clearly intent on appealing to the middle ground. Logicians would say that he went between the horns of a dilemma: He did not endorse the harsh, repressive measures against illegal immigrants demanded by one group of extremists, and yet he did not go as far as offering the general amnesty demanded by those at the other extreme.

It remains to be see how President Bush's proposals will fare in Congress, but I think his speech last night has enhanced their prospects for passage.

Note to aspiring speechwriters: Study this one.

Commenting on Sen. McCain's speech at Liberty University last Saturday, and President Bush's speech to the nation on immigration on Monday, kept me from noting an important milestone. May15 was the 150th anniversary of the birth of L. Frank Baum (1856-1919), author of the beloved classic, The Wizard of Oz.

So, in belated tribute to Mr. Baum, I award him the quote of the day: "I have learned to regard fame as a will-o-the-wisp, which when caught, is not worth the possession; but to please a child is a sweet and lovely thing that warms one's heart and brings its own reward."

Ninety years ago, on May 25, Henry Ford coined a saying that has been widely misquoted ever since as, “History is bunk” or, sometimes, “History is bunk, the way it is taught in the schools.”

In fact, what Ford told a Chicago Tribune reporter was this: “History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.”

The Tribune’s editors were incensed by the observation, and ran an editorial calling Ford an “ignorant idealist.”

Ford may have had some gaps in his education, and may have had his quixotic moments. In 1915, for example, he funded a peace commission made up of private individuals in a vain effort to negotiate an end to the First World War.

But if his remark to the Tribune reporter stamps him as ignorant, what would the Tribune’s editors have made of another famous comment on history by one Francois-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire: “History is nothing but a pack of tricks we play upon the dead”?

The Associated Press reports today that the Romanian government is returning Castle Dracula to its lawful heir, more than 60 years after it was seized by the Communists.

The castle, dramatically situated on a towering crag, never actually belonged to Prince Vlad the Impaler, who inspired the popular novel by Bram Stoker. But in 1920, it was presented by the people of the local town of Brasov to another royal, Queen Marie of Romania.

Marie, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria (known as “Missy” within the family), was then a fading international beauty with a gushing nature and a misguided sense of art. She fell in love with the romantic ruin and restored it, decorating it in a sort of neo-Byzantine style. When she showed the results to her family, one of her sisters shook her head and declared, “Really, Missy – at your age!”

When Marie died in 1938, she bequeathed the castle to her daughter, Princess Ileana. The current claimant is Ileana’s son, Dominic von Hapsburg, a New York architect.

The castle was extensively repaired between 1987 and 1993, and is worth an estimated $25 million. It is one of Romania’s top tourist attractions.

The new Hapsburg owner says he has fond memories of the castle from his childhood, before Romania’s royals were exiled from the country in 1948.

Perhaps he will welcome visitors to his newly-restored patrimony with the greeting offered to Jonathan Harker by the Dracula of Stoker’s novel: “Welcome to my house. Come freely. Go safely; and leave some of the happiness you bring!”

Joyce Kilmer’s career as a poet was cut short by sniper fire during the waning months of the First World War. His reputation today, such as it is, rests on a single work -- “Trees” –- one of the most parodied poems in the English language.

Yet Kilmer wrote other poems during his brief life, and some are still worth reading.

The poem quoted below is one of them. Read it to the end. If the last line gives you a shock, then I think you’ll have to admit that Kilmer was a poet after all.

Memorial Day

-- Joyce Kilmer

Alfred Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918) was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre. He lies in the Oise-Aisne Cemetery, Fere-en-Tardenois, France. On this Memorial Day, we honor him and all those who died in the service of our country.