"We're not touching this one with a fifty-foot pole."

The Supreme Court ruled today that a California atheist did not have the legal standing to challenge the constitutionality of the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, dismissing on procedural grounds a lower court's ruling in his favor but sidestepping the broader question of whether the pledge itself is constitutional.

The ruling effectively preserved the phrase "one nation under God" that is recited daily as part of the pledge by millions of schoolchildren across the country.

But by basing the decision on a procedural issue, the Supreme Court left open the prospect that a challenge to the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance could come up again.

From the start, I've thought this entire case reeked of stupid. It's stupid to have "under God" in the pledge, it was added for stupid reasons, requiring kids to say it is stupid, getting worked up over kids saying it is stupid, and suing to have it changed it stupid. Perhaps the most stupid came from people who, never having given the matter much thought, decided after the original decision that this was one of the most important issues ever and anyone on the other side of it was the devil. Stupid stupid stupid stupid.