‘So gallantly screaming’

When a politician starts beating the drum for a anti-flag-burning amendment to the Constitution, watch out -- he needs it to hide behind.

Future felon Randy Cunningham, the “Duke” of California’s 50th congressional district, proposed such an amendment not long before he went antique shopping with another future felon, a defense contractor who paid for the $12,000 worth of armoires and nightstands that Duke picked out as part of his fabulous bribe package.

In 2006, as Iraq was going speedily to pot, the Senate came up one vote short of passing a flag amendment.

Just a couple of weeks ago, as Iraq still swirled around the drain of history, President Bush was plumping for a flag amendment as a way to show “respect for the symbol” that American troops are fighting for. Not better gear, not better pay, not shorter deployments or a shorter war.

The Stars and Stripes is in fine shape -- as long as the product behind it, U.S.A. Inc., is in good standing. Protect the nation’s reputation, and you protect the flag. Damage it, and you could pass 10 flag amendments, weave it out of asbestos and still not save it.

If politicians want to protect a national symbol that gets mangled and beaten up nearly every day, how about that song about the flag?

The national anthem is almost as abused as one of Michael Vick’s dogs. Baseball games from now through the World Series will begin with someone mutilating “The Star-Spangled Banner.” An anthem-protection amendment? It practically needs a restraining order.

“Banner’s” music is an old English club’s drinking tune that was named for an ancient Greek poet who wrote about wine and women. Its octave-and-a-half range is so difficult, and its Francis Scott Key lyrics so uber-poetic, that you practically have to be drunk to sing it. Even Whitney Houston was savvy enough to lip-sync it at the 1991 Super Bowl.

I spent the evening of Bastille Day 2005 on the rooftop of a French friend’s Paris apartment, watching 360-degree fireworks light up the City of Light. As the French sang “La Marseillaise,” I joined in, thanks to having watched the bar scene in “Casablanca” at least 9,000 times. They returned the favor by taking an awkward stab at “The Star-Spangled Banner.” I was touched. I reassured them that nearly 200 million Americans don’t know all the words either, among them a lot of the people invited to sing it at sporting events.

What kind of national anthem is it if its people don’t know the words and can’t carry the tune?

The very wise Nat King Cole once warned, “If you do nothing else in your life, don’t ever sing the national anthem at a ballgame.” But there’s always someone who’s willing, with results that generally make me want to put my fingers in my ears, not my hand to my heart.

“The Star-Spangled Banner” is not some Beatles song to be covered, delivered ballad- or gospel- or funk- or torch-song- or jazz-style, as the mood suits. But, oh, the liberties taken in a song about liberty. Roseanne Barr’s crotch-grabbing yowl in San Diego; Marvin Gaye’s two-minute, 35-second-long R&B; version at the Inglewood Forum that was way cool but wasn’t recognizably the national anthem; Carl Lewis’ version that sounded like cats being strangled. He also didn’t know the words. The man won nine Olympic gold medals -- you’d think he’d know the song by now.

Combine all the miscues and missed words, even from pros like Robert Goulet and Johnny Paycheck, and the lyrics would read:

“Oh, say can you see, by the dawn’s early night/What so loudly we sang, at the daylight’s last cleaning/Whose bright stripes and broad stars/Through the per-u-lis fight/For the rampants we watched/Were so gallantly screaming.”

If that sounds right to you, there’s the problem.

All I’m saying is that we have to have some standards. If singers get it wrong, if Simon Cowell would wrinkle his nose, their fee is forfeited to pay for mandatory middle-school music classes. Let the ACLU scream -- the anthem deserves protection; we deserve better singing.

Or we could dump “The Star Spangled Banner” and pick a new national song. It’s not like George Washington used to sing it at Mount Vernon. It’s only been the national anthem since President Hoover made it so on March 3, 1931, the same day Cab Calloway recorded “Minnie the Moocher.” If Hoover flipped a coin to decide between them, he should have held out for two out of three.

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patt.morrison@latimes.com