<Facepalm>

Have you heard the latest thing that conservatives are seizing on to accuse Barack Obama of being a godless secret-Muslim socialist Negro?

Well it appears that Barack Obama's speaking positively of the Latin phrase E Pluribus Unum, on the seal of the United States since 1792, has given them a new reason to be shrill:

The culture wars have a new battlefield, thanks to a letter this week from the Congressional Prayer Caucus to President Obama. To the religious right, the motto "E Pluribus Unum," which has been part of the fabric of American democracy since it was emblazened on the national seal in 1782, has become a controversial, anti-God statement. See the Congressional Prayer Caucus letter:

http://forbes.house.gov/UploadedFiles/National_Motto_Letter_to_President.pdf

Obama referred, innocently enough, to the motto "E Pluribus Unum" in a recent speech, pointing out that the Latin phrase, first adopted by the Founders, means "out of many, one." This beautiful motto perfectly captures the spirit of pluralistic America, where one country is formed out of many states, and where one people - the American people - are formed from a melting pot of immigrants from all around the world.

Out of many, one. Indeed, the wisdom of the Founders, in enscribing "E Pluribus Unum" on the Great Seal of the United States, can't be questioned.

Or maybe it can. As the above letter shows, to Rep. Michele Bachmann and others on the Congressional Prayer Caucus, Obama's reference to "E Pluribus Unum" borders on unpatriotic. They say he should instead be promoting the motto "In God We Trust," which was adopted as the official national motto at the urging of religious conservatives in 1956, during the McCarthy era and at the height of the Cold War Red Scare.

Well, I get why they object to the phrase E Pluribus Unum. First, it's another hammer to use against a figure that they clearly see as an uppity (*insert epithet here*), and second, the basic idea of E Pluribus Unum is the acceptance is that people who are different from them, either in philosophy, theology, or pigmentation, are legitimate Americans, which fulfills them with horror.

They are really deeply repulsive human beings.