Hearing a preschooler recite the Pledge of Allegiance during a patriotic holiday like 9/11 for a television rodeo series sounds like an advertiser's dream.

Washington state real estate broker Dave Retter created such an ad to run during CBS's broadcast of the Wrangler Champions Challenge rodeo. It stars his 4-year-old granddaughter whose recitation of the pledge on the YouTube video is too cute for words (Google: Windermere Our Future H264 1).CBS Sports however, didn't think so and rejected the ad, terming it "too political."The political argument is weak. Real pressure likely came from the atheist-agnostic-humanist community which for years has been actively campaigning to have the words "under God" removed from the Pledge.Roy Speckhardt, director of the American Humanist Association, has stated that the current wording of the pledge discriminates against atheists and others "who are good without a god, and we want them to stand up for fairness by sitting down until the pledge is restored to its original, unifying form."The original form he alluded to was first used in public schools in 1892 and did not include the reference to deity.On Feb. 7, 1954, President Eisenhower was sitting in Abraham Lincoln's pew at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church when the church's pastor, George MacPherson Docherty, delivered a sermon based on the Gettysburg Address titled "A New Birth of Freedom." He cited Lincoln's phrase "under God" as defining words that set the United States apart from other nations.On Flag Day that year Congress passed the necessary legislation and Eisenhower signed the bill into law.Eisenhower said: "From this day forward, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural school house, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty. In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America's heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country's most powerful resource, in peace or in war."For the last six decades, Congressional sessions have opened with the Pledge, as have schools and organizational meetings on all levels.It's hard to imagine what kind of moral compass this nation will be using by the time that adorable 4-year-old in the YouTube Pledge video is ready for college.By Jim Zbickeditor@tnonline.com