Obama reads a version of the Gettysburg Address that omits God? Say it isn’t true!
Some conservatives took offense to the president’s reading.
“Lincoln added ‘Under God’ as he was looking out over battlefield. why would Obama remove?” Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said on Twitter.
White House spokesman Jay Carney on Tuesday gave a simple explanation for the reading.
“He read the version of the address that Ken Burns provided,” he said, noting that Burns is a “noted Civil War scholar.”
Specifically, Carney said that Burns gave Mr. Obama the “Nicolay copy” of the Gettysburg Address — the first draft of the speech, named after John Nicolay, the White House staffer who preserved it.
Ken Burns is such a silly liberal squish that I can imagine him wanting to chase God out of the occasion. However, in regard to Obama he either thought getting God out was a grand idea, or he was too unfamiliar with the Gettysburg address to realize the omission. Here is the background story on the inclusion of the phrase under God in the original speech:
We have five drafts of the Gettysburg address that Lincoln wrote: three have the phrase “under God” and two do not. That Lincoln spoke the phrase during the Gettysburg address we can be certain of, because three reporters were present when he gave the speech, and all three have “under God” in their accounts of Lincoln’s speech.
I like the exclusion by Obama, however. Lincoln was a great President who saw the will of God being worked out in the turbulent times that he led America through. Obama is a small minded, petty incompetent who degrades the office he holds. There is nothing “under God” about the current way this country is being led and Obama’s omission symbolizes that.
So! Was it a myth that AL wrote the GA on the back of an envelope on the train on his way to PA?
Anyhow, the zero would have been more content enunciating, “Allah.”
Yep. Lincoln had been working on the draft at the White House. Like all good trial attorneys however, he kept editing the speech until it was delivered and probably edited it in his mind while he was giving it.
Burns makes documentary films. He is not a scholar of any kind, just a manifestation of the worldview of the subculture that is public television. He is getting less subtle as he ages.
I haven’t watched all the clips of celebrities reading the Address, and I have no plans to. I don’t know if they all used different texts. I just don’t see a scandal here.
I don’t like the Nicolay text. It doesn’t use “that that”, which I love. There are times that “that that” is correct. “Propriety” just seems awkward. And of course, the “under God” is essential, and documented to have been in the actual speech.
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We have moved far away from our foundational beliefs as a people. Atheism has replaced the Judeo-Christian tradition. Profound disagreement now exists as to our identity and mission.
Iowahawk: “Trying to imagine what Obama’s poll numbers would be like without the entire media-industrial complex giving him a 5 year tongue bath.”
“President with 98% media approval hits 37% public approval.”
Despair is a sin.
“I like the exclusion of Obama, however…”
Good point Donald.
The passage from the Gospel rings loud;
“Those who give testimony on my behalf I will give testimony on their behalf before my Fathers throne.”
Then the opposite is true….
Father …. I know not this man.
Obama will reap his reward in the netherworld.
AMEN!
No God, absolute power by the state. No God, no immortal human soul, no free will, no freedom. No God, only beasts of burden.
Atheism destroys the persons who embrace it.