Last Tuesday (Nov 19) marked the 150th
anniversary of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. President Barack Obama elected not to attend,
but instead, met Senators at the White House to persuade them not to impose new
sanctions on Iran, and to convince them of the merits of an agreement that will
allow Iran to continue to enrich uranium at low levels.
There is no doubt that is important! But it is also a revealing choice.
Lincoln's 2-minute speech is
remembered because it expressed, simply and elegantly, why hundreds of
thousands risked their lives for an idea: “that government of the people, by
the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” When President Obama previously sought to rouse
Americans to support a ‘targeted military strike’ on Syria, he failed to move
the nation. Now, he prefers to counsel
the nation to accept a weak compromise with tyranny.
The contrast is striking.
We all can remember how Obama
repeatedly likened himself to Lincoln. He
launched his presidential campaign from the Old State House in Springfield …
where Lincoln once served. He cast his
candidacy as the fulfillment of the promise Lincoln made at Gettysburg – “that
all men are created equal.” Like
Lincoln, Obama came up through the Illinois legislature. Like Lincoln, Obama became known for his
oratory. But Lincoln's speeches had
something Obama's never will. Lincoln's
speeches are admired; not just because they are well-constructed, but because
they contain timeless principles to which he devoted his career and to which he
committed the nation.
The fate of Obama's speeches is to
serve a political purpose … and then fade –
· Obama’s
speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention – an appeal to unity – launched
his national career. Today, it is
largely forgotten amidst the failures of his divisive presidency.
· Obama's
address on race in Philadelphia, in the midst of the 2008 presidential primary,
was praised by Chris Matthews and mainstream media as “a speech worthy of Abraham
Lincoln.” Yet just weeks after declaring
he could “no more disown” his pastor (the race-baiting Jeremiah Wright) than he
“could disown the black community,” Obama severed ties with Wright and his
church … and the platitudes of Philadelphia quickly cast aside.
Lincoln's speeches were more than
words … which is why his words are still cherished. The highlight of the commemoration at Gettysburg
in 1863 had been the 13,000-word speech by Edward Everett – a rousing, anti-Confederate
diatribe. But Lincoln did not distinguish
among Union and Confederate dead. All, he
suggested, fought in their own way for the same cause. He was committing the nation, and himself, to reconciliation.
Obama has never shown the same
inclination to put partisanship aside for the sake of the nation's needs. He has coveted the aura of Lincoln's charisma,
but has never humbled himself to learn from Lincoln's example.
For Obama to speak at Gettysburg, to
stand where Lincoln had once stood, would only sharpen the contrast. That’s the real reason he stayed away.
Rev.
Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain
(Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor,
Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel
Postscript: As part of the
150th commemoration of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, film-maker Ken Burns made
a documentary where he filmed all our living presidents (as well as Hollywood
personalities) paying homage to the speech … by reciting individual lines of
the speech rolled into one collage. Washington,
D.C. talk show host, Chris Plante, broke the story on WMAL: “Curiously enough,
in his version of the speech, President Barack Obama's delivery contained an
omission in a line that every other celebrity delivered as ‘that this nation,
under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.’
President Obama left out the words ‘under God.’”
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