You can tell from the cadence of the pledge that “under God” was an addition, as lobbied for by the Knights of Columbus, during the height of the Cold War - to differentiate us from those godless Communists.
I can see someone who learned it pre 1954 reciting the original version from memory, but she wasn't pre 1954.
I don’t care if she was born in 1930. If she left out the “under God” it was intentional, and not just a trick of memory. 56 years is long enough to learn to include it.
Again, I have no problem with her doing what she did if she has a strong atheistic belief, but the odds are strong that she wouldn’t want a large share of her constituents to have a clue about any such belief.
What a person feels about religion is a personal matter. I don’t even care if they “go along to get along” by saying “under God” even if they’re not all that religious. But if they have a strong atheistic belief, yet look for votes by proclaiming a Catholic faith, then they’re blatant hypocrites and should be noted as such.
Here’s the one explanation I would buy from her: (Unfortunately, she didn’t come up with it) IF she objected to the inclusion of the words “under God” in the Pledge due to its coercive nature (requiring a belief in God to support one’s country) AND had shown past evidence of that position, THEN I would understand her reason for omitting the phrase when she personally says the Pledge, and would support her position. Note that this would also allow her to be a strong Catholic, i.e., no hypocrisy involved.
I personally don’t think “under God” should be in the Pledge of Allegiance, by the way, though I routinely say it each and every time I repeat the Pledge. It was a mistake to put it in, but it will be nearly impossible to take it back out. It will take a “Nixon goes to China” environment, where a devout Christian President explains his/her reasons for removing it (the reason stated above; it’s coercive and is unrelated to a pledge to support one’s country.)
By the way, should a devout Christian President ever actually contemplate such a move it would be worth going ahead with just to watch all the liberal talking heads explode on screen.
Cognitive dissonance at its best.