Maybe. There are a lot of people in the big city who don't mind the Pledge of Allegiance. But it's a lot more than that.

Let me go down the list:

After growing accustomed to the French social system -- with its cheap medicine, generous welfare, short workweek and plentiful child care -- life back in depressed upstate New York felt especially harsh.

Fawning worship of socialist Europe, especially France: check.

The school's reputation among our friends, other "second-home owners," was not good. "Do they even have a curriculum?" sniffed one New York City professor who kept a weekend home nearby. Clearly, Narrowsburg School was not a traditional first step on the path to Harvard.

Snooty condescension? check. (I have no hard evidence that the New York City professor was a liberal, but I'd bet my car's pink slip on it.)

Still, for the first few months, we felt uneasy. Eighty of Narrowsburg's 319 adults are military veterans and at least 10 recent school graduates are serving in Iraq or on other bases overseas right now.

...During the first few weeks, the words of the week seemed suspiciously tied to a certain political persuasion: "Military," "tour," "nation" and "alliance" were among them.

Uneasiness about the military and patriotism? check. Why on earth would those words belong only to one political persuasion?

The school's defining philosophy was traditional and conservative, starting with a sit-down-in-your-seat brand of discipline, leavened with a rafter-shaking reverence for country and flag. Every day the students gathered in the gym for the "Morning Program," open to parents, which began with the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by a patriotic song, and then discussion of a "word of the week."

Unease about traditional values and educational methods? check.

But it wasn't until our boy came home with an invitation in his backpack to attend a "released time" Bible class that my husband and I panicked. We called the ACLU and learned this was an entirely legal way for evangelicals to proselytize to children during school hours.

Shrieking terror that their child may be exposed to some god other than themselves or the Almighty State? check.

Instead, to counteract any God-and-country indoctrination he received in school, we began our own informal in-home instruction about Bush, Iraq and Washington over the evening news.

...As we crossed the George Washington Bridge and the Manhattan skyline spread out below us, I began to give him a variation on the "Africans don't have any food, finish your dinner" talk. I wanted him to understand how privileged he was to live in a place where bombs weren't raining from the sky. It was a talk I'd tried to have before, but not one he'd ever paid much attention to until that day, trapped in the back seat of our car.

In simple language, I told my son that our president had started a war with a country called Iraq. I said that we were bombing cities and destroying buildings. And I explained that families just like ours now had no money or food because their parents didn't have offices to go to anymore or bosses to pay them. "America did this?" my son asked, incredulous. "Yes, America," I answered. He paused, a long silent pause, then burst out: "But Mommy, I love America! I want to hug America!"

Teaching their child to hate America (and PLEASE. Spare me. There is NO other way to interpret these paragraphs. The kid didn't ask "Bush did this?") Check.

My husband and I realized, though, that Narrowsburg did more than mold our boy into a patriot. He can, it turns out -- despite the warnings of other city parents -- read at a level twice that of his new peers. Since we returned to the city, he has learned how to ride a bike, long for an Xbox, practiced a few new swear words and, somehow, learned the meaning of "sexy." He has pretty much stopped favoring red, white and blue.

The child's love of red, white, and blue "survived" the summer. It must have been a time of anguish for his parents.

Fortunately, away from that terrible "sit down discipline," and those horrible flags, he's picking up the things at school that good liberal kids should know. One wonders how long his reading level will stay above his peers.

You can fly to her defense...you probably really don't have a choice...but I'm disgusted.

An aside on the Vietnam veteran:

Finally, a burly, gray-bearded Vietnam veteran rose and said what no one else dared. After identifying himself, he choked out, "Kids, I just hope to God none of you ever have to experience what we went through." Then he sat down, leaving a small pocket of shocked silence. No one applauded his effort at honesty. On the contrary, the hot gym air thickened with a tension that implicitly ostracized the man, and by extension -- because we agreed with him -- me and my husband.

Nobody actually asked what he "went through," or what he was talking about. For many Vietnam veterans, some of the worst happened when they got home, and faced the hatred of people like Burleigh. We are only hearing Burleigh's interpretation filtered through her own prejudices.