"Nuestro Himno" and Republican stupidity

For more on the "Nuestro Himno" controversy -- another wedge issue manufactured by desperate conservatives -- see Steve Benen's update here. Seems that "in 1919, the U.S. Bureau of Education commissioned a Spanish-language version of 'The Star Spangled Banner,'" that "[t]he State Department's website... features four-separate versions of the anthem in Spanish," and that "Candidate Bush sang it quite frequently in 2000 while on the campaign trail".

Still, Senate Republicans are making an issue of it. Lamar Alexander has introduced a resolution "calling for "The Star-Spangled Banner" and other traditional patriotic compositions to be recited or sung solely in English" (see here). The bill's co-sponsors include Bill Frist, Mitch McConnell, Pat Roberts, Jim Bunning, and Ted Stevens, some of the most unabashedly partisan Republicans in the Senate.

But how would this work? Would violators be ticketed? Or perhaps deported? Would there be language police roaming around predominantly Spanish-speaking neighbourhoods? (Oh, and what about the First Amendment? Don't you love how these guys trample all over the Constitution when it suits them?)

As Steve puts it, "this 'Nuestro Himno' madness is a special kind of stupid.

(See also Shakespeare's Sister, Political Animal, Hullabaloo, and Preemptive Karma.)