NBC Apologizes For Pledge Of Allegiance Edit

Did they think nobody would notice?  It was blatant and moments after it aired social network sites were burning up with criticism and anger.  It was NBC's omission of the words "under God" during the recitation of the pledge of allegiance by a classroom of children.  Also omitted was the phrase "one nation".

It happened during the produced opening of NBC's coverage of Sunday's final round of the U-S Open Golf Championship.  The criticism got so intense that during the broadcast lead anchor Dan Hicks read a prepared statement:

“We began our coverage of this final round just about three hours ago and when we did it was our intent to begin the coverage of this U.S. Open Championship with a feature that captured the patriotism of our national championship being held in our nation’s capital for the third time. Regrettably, a portion of the Pledge of Allegiance that was in that feature was edited out. It was not done to upset anyone and we’d like to apologize to those of you who were offended by it.”

The following day NBC continued to apologize saying the decision to alter the pledge was made by a small group of people and it was not approved by management. 

It overshadowed a tremendous outing by Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy who shot a record 16-under par for the four-day tournament at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland.

During his TV comedy show in 1969 Red Skelton did a segment on what the pledge of allegiance means to him. It'll put a lump in your throat.