Obama’s non-Gettysburg address
I like to think I have some small ability, after five years of close study, to predict or at least understand many of Obama’s moves.
But I’m puzzled by this one:
In nine days, this town [Gettysburg] will commemorate the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s speech with a ceremony at the same Soldiers’ National Cemetery featuring the U.S. Marine Band, Governor Tom Corbett, and a reading of the Gettysburg Address.
One person who will not be among those honoring Lincoln is President Barack Obama.
The White House gave no reason why the president would not attend.
So, why? The answer isn’t “because Obama doesn’t care about Gettysburg.” That’s irrelevant, if true. This isn’t about sincerity, it’s about the visuals. And visuals are what Obama does best—and orating, and donning the mantle of Lincoln for ceremonial occasions (as well as adopting Lincoln’s Bible, his routes, and his venues). So what could be better, politically, than to give a speech at the place where Lincoln gave what was arguably his greatest speech, one of the greatest in our history?
It’s not just the current crisis mode of the Obamacare debacle, either, that has kept Obama away. I’m pretty sure the decision was made long before that. The only possible explanation that occurs to me is that Obama knows that any speech he could give at Gettysburg for the occasion would pale in comparison to Lincoln’s. But if he does think that, it would be a case of unaccustomed and unprecedented humility on his part.
Any ideas? Why would he want to thumb his nose at Lincoln and the turning point of the Civil War?
It’s an odd humility which would never speak, and yet, which by this mere silence would seek to preserve a superiority in seeming superior. A telling tale, though what it tells isn’t what it intends.
I don’t know either, but we should thank God he’s giving this hallowed ground a pass.
The Gettysburg Address was ridiculed by many at the time. One who didn’t was the keynote speaker at the Gettysburg Cemetery’s dedication, Edward Everett, whose own speech lasted something like 90 minutes. He wrote to Lincoln that he would flatter himself if he came anywhere as near the crux of the occasion in two hours as Lincoln did in two minutes. Everett recognized greatness when he heard it.
I’ve always summed up Obama as a:
–Bolshevik,
–anti-American,
–Islamist,
–Jew hater
–and a narcissist.
So when in doubt just chose from one of the above as it might apply to the situation.
I read a credible report that BHO ranks himself as one of the top four Presidents.
You read that right; top four, not bottom four where he belongs.
I believe the good citizens of Gettysburg asked him to come and read Lincoln’s own words on the upcoming anniversary. The president politely declined, explaining that the speech was far too short, and didn’t have enough I’s, me’s or mine’s in it for his own tastes.
Because it would also remind people that Lincoln was a Republican?
Because Obama doesn’t know enough American history to understand the important issues that Gettysburg brought?
“any speech he could give at Gettysburg for the occasion would pale in comparison to Lincoln’s. But if he does think that, it would be a case of unaccustomed and unprecedented humility on his part.”
I wouldn’t call that humility; I’d call it vanity. No matter what he says, it won’t compare favorably so he says nothing at all. That’s the “take my ball and go home” attitude we’ve come to expect of him.
In the end, whatever he said would be bullshit so I’m glad he’s chosen not to speak.
Lincoln was an emancipator. Obama fosters dependence.
“I’d call it vanity”
You nailed it, Matt.
I offer the following link as the best op ed you will read on the Obama Gettysburg snub. Salena Zito absolutely skewers Obama, but that’s not the reason it is unparalleled. Her focus on Lincoln clearly demonstrates that he is the simplistic equivalent of E=mc^2 as compared to Everett’s complex differential equation. A concept that apparently even Everett was quick to recognize even 150 years ago:
Eloquent, evocative and economy of words. This is op ed at its best and most profound.
The link:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/11/11/obamas_stunning_snub_120627.html
You know what I think is actually worse than Obama not attending the ceremony? That he’s sending Interior Secretary Sally Jewell in his place. A little-known member of his cabinet. JFK didn’t attend the 100th anniversary, but I think he sent former President Eisenhower in his place.
Maybe Obama really just not care about the “visuals” any more since he’s not up for re-election.
That should be “just doesn’t care about the ‘visuals’.”
T:
I already provided that link in the article.
Neo,
I’ve read several articles about the Gettysburg anniversary today. Your quote looked familiar, but I wasn’t sure of the source–clearly I didn’t follow the link.
My apologies.
carl in atlanta
Because it would also remind people that Lincoln was a Republican?
That rings a bell with me. I was going to snark that it was because Obama was a crypto-Confederate who didn’t want to pay homage to the Destroyer of the Confederacy, but your straightforward comments says it much better.
I also agree with others who said that a reason for not going to Gettysburg is because he didn’t want his speeches compared to Lincoln’s.
Perhaps Letterman could do a Ten Top Reasons for not going to Gettysburg.
1. I have a golf date in Florida that day.
2. Michelle wants me to weed the garden.
3. I’m manning a table at a Sidwell Friends fundraising bake sale, where my daughters go to school.
4. I have to attend the Army Navy Game. And DON’T ask me what date the game is played!
5. I will pay homage to a Republican President when Republicans in Congress vote unanimously to fund Obamacare.
6. If I had been President in 1861, I would have had the war won in 6 weeks, so I don’t see the point of honoring a doofus who took four years to do it. And if I had written the Gettysburg Address, I would have won the Nobel Prize for Literature for having written it.
7. Michelle and I are playing bridge with Ahmadinejad and Assad that weekend.
8. Joe Biden told me that his great-great grandfather. a leading mandarin for the Emperor of China, wrote the Gettysburg Address for Lincoln, so I don’t see the point of honoring a plagiarist.
9. I don’t like all those references to “freedom” in the Gettysburg Address.
10. I’m having a Town Hall meeting in Amarillo, Texas that weekend.
The President called and told me what is it with you wingnuts? do you want me to give a flowery speech, or fix the website? sheesh!
Obama hates this country. Gettysburg is a shining light of how even terrible war can lead to good. It is a positive thing about a place and people he hates, therefore he will not be participating.
Furthermore, it would remind the whole country that he is a charlatan huckster who could not tie Lincoln’s shoes. As soon as he spoke longer than Lincoln, he’d be an embarrassing failure exposed to the world.
Barry doesn’t do stuff like that.
T:
No need to apologize!
“Any ideas? Why would he want to thumb his nose at Lincoln and the turning point of the Civil War?”
Perhaps it’s not as mysterious as it first appears. Lincoln did NOT thumb his nose at a beaten south, he had no contempt for those “who cling to their guns and bibles”. Obama honoring the sacrifices of the Civil War implicitly denigrates white guilt and the calls for ‘restitution’ to blacks and their justifications.
Obama’s snub is especially noteworthy given his long embrace of Lincoln. Salena Zito, in her article “Obama’s Stunning Snub” points out that Obama,
To the reasons already offered for Obama’s snub, I suspect that key concepts in the Gettysburg Address itself may offer insight. Obama has consistently demonstrated opposition to these concepts.
Reflect upon these emphasized descriptive words and contrast them with what we know of Obama’s political precepts.
“our fathers brought forth a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
“gave their lives that that nation might live.”
“It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion”
“that these dead shall not have died in vain,”
“under God”
“a new birth of freedom”
“that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish”
It is “altogether fitting and proper” that a congenital liar like Obama would pretend to be a great admirer of Lincoln, while in actuality completely opposing Lincoln and all that he stood for…
Lincoln wanted the country unified. Obama’s aim is to cause division.
It would be obscene were he to attend. In that address, Lincoln said this is a nation conceived in liberty. Obama is taking away that liberty.
Lincoln said that the men who died there had consecrated the ground of that battlefield. Obama has no right to set his Un American feet on consecrated ground.
Lincoln said that in America government of the people and by the people and for the people would not perish from this earth. Under Obama, it has.
He has no right to attend as he had no right to lay a wreath today to honor our war dead. He is the one who closed the memorials the Veterans built with their sacrifice. All national memorials should be off limits to him.
I doubt it would occur to the president for a second that whatever he said is unworthy of being associated with Lincoln’s words. If anything, I think he reviles Lincoln’s veneration of the Declaration of Independence and the notion of self government so eloquently described in the Gettysburg Address.
Evil cannot touch Light and Goodness without being burned. Illusions can do only so much on this matter.
Obama doesn’t give a shit.
I agree with Walkj on this – motive doesn’t matter – just keep Obama away from that hallowed ground.
I agree with some of the posters above. President Obama doesn’t mind evoking the symbolism of Lincoln, but he is fundamentally uncomfortable with what Lincoln actually stood for. Therefore, he will not give the speech.
“It would be obscene were he to attend.”
As they say, that’s not a bug it’s a feature. Like when he said “God bless Planned Parenthood.” It was a huge middle finger given to the decent parts of America, I believe meant to demoralize us.
The depravity of his giving a speech at Gettysburg would actually attract him to do it. He’s being restrained by something else.
Golf courses + lazyness. He couldn’t even be motivated to go attend his own fund raisers in 2008, until Valerie Jarret asked him “do you want to win or not”.
Truth is stranger than fiction. And incompetence is not always the answer.
Evil is evil, regardless of motives.
It’s not like if evil changes its motivations, the result would be different.
People have a hard time fighting evil because they treat it as a person, who may stop fighting if you deal with their motivations. Evil does not stop fighting Good. It is not in the nature.
And the Left will never give up.
Obama is a jealous god and will have no other gods before him.
The Left always loved their man made gods.
The Teleprompter was broken…LOL!