©Rrk, Jan. ‘03   In the McCarthy era the insertion of “God” in the Pledge was a paranoidal defense against “godless” communism. Granting Michael Newdow that a corrective measure is called for, it will never come to pass because it is as permanently engraved in the minds of Americans as “In God We Trust” on currency. That the good doctor equates this aberration with “civil rights...as important and as serious as any in our history” is ludicrous. He thinks he is perceived as a “second class...