When did "God Bless America" become a required finishing line?

this isn't on my priority list right now.

No biggie.

A little history on where "One Nation Under God" came from.

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/for-god-so-loved-the-1-percent/?nl=opinion&emc=tya1

So if you dig into the history a bit more, it really gets interesting in how that phrase has been perverted.

I get a chuckle out of the historical revisionist GOP nutbags who ignorantly proclaim that the US is a "Christian nation" and as proof for their poorly researched assertion they offer up the references to a higher power found in early political leaders' writings. The higher power in that Deists believed does not in any way resemble the imaginary friend that the fundies pretend to converse. If the US were a nation of Deists, we wouldn't be burdened with all the problems fundies have created.

a simple "thank you" was generally more common prior to reagan, with carter, ford, and kennedy giving god a mention once each.

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2011/01/22/will-obamas-state-of-the-union-rise-above-the-cliches-of-a-stal/

The truth is that almost every rhetorical conceit in a State of the Union address is recycled. John Kennedy, a president who endorsed a strict separation between church and state, ended his 1962 speech by saying, "And in this high endeavor, may God watch over the United States of America." God's next cameo came in 1977 when Jerry Ford (who might have heard a sneeze in the audience) ended his address to Congress by saying, "Good night. And God bless you." Jimmy Carter concluded all his State of the Unions with a simple "thank you." In 1982 (the same year that he began a State of the Union tradition by introducing heroes from the balcony), Ronald Reagan combined the Ford and Carter endings by saying, "God bless you and thank you." By 1984, Reagan slipped into full Kate-Smith-singing-Irving-Berlin mode when he declared, "God bless you and God bless America."

No president has departed from this seventh-inning-stretch formula since then with the exception of Bill Clinton in 1999. Facing an impeachment trial in the Senate, Clinton went with this wordy coda: "Let us lift our eyes as one nation, and from the mountaintop of this American Century, look ahead to the next one, asking God's blessing on our endeavors and on our beloved country. Thank you, and good evening."

I can't read his mind, but coming from the man who refused to don a flag pin when intimidated, I can give him the benefit of the doubt, and assume he may have deep Christian values that inspire the wish that God may bless America.

I almost forgot he refused to don a flagpin when the right griped about it.

Obama's made no secret that he's a Christian with deep Christian beliefs, so I believe he means it when he says it. It's sincere, unlike with Bush OR people like Newtie.

Obama was a member of a Christian church for a decade before he ever got into politics.

Carter never said it. Nixon never said it. Etc.

he didn't have to prove anything.

I can hear the RW militants and fundies protesting now, should Obama not say such a thing.

I did not hear Daniels say that and actually was quite surprised..

Case 1: if there *is* a God, perhaps He happens to be listening, and will, indeed, bless America.

Case 2: if there is no God, nothing will happen.

So it seems that the only possible results are positive or neutral. So might as well say it.

see:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_inconsistent_revelations

case 4: there *is* a (Judeo-Christian-Muslim?) god(s), and he/she is actively pissed off at politicians and/or football quarterbacks taking his/her/its name in vain by asking him/her/it to take sides against specific granfalloons and varieties of human nationalism.

see:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager ("Criticism")

case 5: there is no consensus-religion notion of god, and politicians are merely pandering to man's basest instincts, thus the "god bless the US" talk beginning with Reagan is actually a jingoistic slogan intended to distract us from our collective failings as a society.

With the understanding that a black, homosexual women will get elected president in the US before a white, male, atheist does, these are the bits of religious minutia that don't bother me much. They're inevitable in a country that's population self-identifies as 78% Christian.

As a person who was brought up southern Baptist, I still say things like "god damn it!" or use the exclamation "God!" sometime without even being aware of it.

with "...and no one else," which comes from the movie Head of State.


Cracks him up, every time.

....I get the distinct impression, it's a bit of a dig back to the "he's a Moslem" crowd.

Now that may just simply be my own paradigm, but there ya go. If I think it, surely someone else is thinking it too. I'm not usually that unique of a thinker.

God and America.

(unh...unh...unh...unh...)