Mitt Romney’s misfire on the national anthem

“We are the only people on the earth that put our hand over our heart during the playing of the national anthem. It was FDR who asked us to do that, in honor of the blood that was being shed by our sons and daughters in far-off places.”

— Mitt Romney, Feb. 2, 2012

This is a strange one.

Kudos to Andrew Kaczynski at Buzzfeed for first spotting this claim, though it turns out that the former Massachusetts governor also said this at least once before, during a stump speech in Iowa in December.

The first part of this statement is simply wrong. As Kaczynski noted, Romney ran the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympics and surely should have noticed the many athletes with their hands on their hearts during the playing of their national anthems....

A spokesman for Romney did not respond to a query, but the candidate may be bringing this up to remind voters of a flap that occurred during the 2008 campaign, when then-candidate Barack Obama did not put his hand over his heart during the playing of the national anthem....

Actually, the U.S. Flag Code says that, for civilians, the hand should go over the heart during both the pledge and the anthem. But the language is precatory (“should”), not mandatory (“shall”). In other words, Obama may have violated a patriotic custom enacted by Congress, but no legal sanctions are authorized for failing to put one’s hand over the heart during the national anthem.

The flag code was codified into law during Roosevelt’s presidency but he appears to have had little to do with it. Certainly, the hand-over-heart salute was not done “in honor of the blood that was being shed by our sons and daughters in far of places,” as Romney put it.

The problem was |the salute that had been traditionally associated with the pledge had begun to look very much like the Nazi salute — and the United States was then at war with Germany....