Worse than being an atheist?

In No French please, people are watching Language Log says,

The last thing you want in American politics, apparently, is to be captured on camera understanding French, let alone speaking it. Rush Limbaugh would start portraying you as hardly American at all (he already does this with Kerry, in fact, having heard about these suspicious francophone abilities on the grapevine).

Geoff Nunberg pointed out to me that in Nebraska they once passed a law making it illegal to teach foreign languages in the schools, period. Foreign language learning is now, like sodomy, legal in all states; but these are not freedoms that a politician should brag about taking advantage of. Such is the determined linguistic isolationism of the USA. I would have thought that to have a US president (for once) who could argue fluently and convincingly in the native language of some other head of state would be a fantastic asset. But instead it is perceived as a kind of disloyalty, evidence of being an untrustworthy egghead, and you would lose millions of votes over it. It's both depressing and amazing.

Indeed, as Dennis Baron writes in Language Laws and Related Court Decisions,

The Nebraska Supreme Court accepted the state’s argument describing "the baneful effects of permitting foreigners who had taken residence in this country, to rear and educate their children in the language of their native land." The Court ruled that such a situation, because it proved "inimical" to the public safety, inculcating in the children of immigrants "ideas and sentiments foreign to the best interests of this country," fell within the police powers of the state.

It agreed as well that the teaching of a foreign language was harmful to the health of the young child: "The hours which a child is able to devote to study in the confinement of school are limited. It must have ample time for exercise or play. Its daily capacity for learning is comparatively small." Such an argument was consistent with the educational theory of the day, which held as late as the 1950s that bilingualism led to confusion and academic failure, and was harmful to the psychological well-being of the child. Indeed, (According to Hakuta [1985, 27], the psychologist Florence Goodenough argued in 1926 that the use of a foreign language in the home was a leading cause of mental retardation.

The US Supreme Court reversed the decision.

Anyway, I still think that being an atheist is even more dangerous to one's political career.

Update