Lepus, Are you thinking of the whole song or just the first verse?
For what it's worth, the third verse, with one or two very minor word changes, applies very much to America's current crisis -- especially to NYC:

"Oh, beautiful! For heroes proved in liberating strife
Who, more than self, their country loved and mercy more than life.
America, America, may God thy gold refine,
Till all success be nobleness and every gain divine."

That does not sound like Hallmark to me.

(Just change "in liberating strife" to "in times of strain and strife," or "in terrorism's strife," and it really fits.

Genie