The History News Network has picked up a slightly longer version of yesterday’s post on this topic. Here is a taste:
There is no conspiracy here. Obama did not omit the words “under God” because he was trying to rewrite the Gettysburg Address as a secret ploy to promote a God-less society. Instead, he was participating in a history lesson. Perhaps this minor controversy will now alert many to the fact that there were different versions of the speech Lincoln gave on November 19, 1863.
I hope history teachers will recognize this and use the various versions of the Gettysburg Address to teach their students how to think deeply and critically about some of our nation’s most important historical documents.
In the age of the Common Core, where close reading of texts has taken on a new importance in schools, an exercise comparing and contrasting the various versions of the Gettysburg Address could produce a wonderful pedagogical moment.
There is little historical value in employing the “Nicolay Copy” of the Gettysburg Address, because it's not what Lincoln delivered, and it omits “under God”–a great current controversy via the [in]famous Michael Newdow and the Pledge of Allegiance–which all the newspapers reported Lincoln said.
If there was no “conspiracy” here, it was surely scholarly malpractice, playing academic games with important things.
[Neither am I satisfied there was no agenda in whoever was responsible having Barack Obama read the version without “under God,” without an investigation into the truth which I doubt there will be. But to my knowledge, no individual has stepped up to say “my bad.”
As for conservatives “freaking out,” President Obama's lack of sympathy for religious expression is evidenced by the current Obamacare court battles against the Catholic Church over contraceptives, pro-life Democrat Bart Stupak over abortion, and the administration taking the side against the Lutherans in the Supreme Court case
Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. E.E.O.C.
So please, Dr. Fea, if there is suspicion of Barack Obama's motives and sympathies–albeit in fairness, as you point out, not on this occasion–it is not unfounded.