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Today is the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s delivery of the Gettysburg Address. Lincoln’s words helped heal our wounded nation. Lincoln predicted, “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom,” and he was right. The trajectory of the war and the nation itself course-corrected back to the republic our founding documents envisioned – a nation “conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” We are still that nation! Thank you sincerely to the beautiful people we’ve met on this book tour so far. They embody all the best of this great...

On Nov. 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address, one of the most famous speeches in American history. Here, 150 years later, is how the iconic speech might've been tweeted — with the requisite hashtags and retweets — had Lincoln delivered it today.

......."Today, to mark the anniversary, Twitter is arguing about why President Obama didn't say the words "under God" in his videotaped recitation of the speech. God bless America."......

On the surface, President Obama’s refusal to speak today at the ceremony commemorating the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is nearly incomprehensible. This is especially true given Mr. Obama’s acknowledged talent as a public speaker. There is also the widely held belief that he is in love with the sound of his own voice and passing up a golden opportunity to make his mark on history by walking in the footsteps of Lincoln is out of character for him. To compound the mystery is the way the snub was delivered. Rather than make the announcement of his decision...

Martin Luther King, Jr. modeled his famous “I Have a Dream” speech after President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, Allen C. Guelzo, Director of Civil War Era Studies at Gettysburg College, said at the Heritage Foundation on the anniversary of the latter speech. Lincoln’s famous address was one of the shortest speeches that became famous, given at a dedication ceremony for the soldier’s cemetery in Gettysburg. Even though it barely spanned 200 words, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address has been the focus of multiple studies and critiques. The speech was praised by many, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Ralph Waldo Emerson, at the...

Today marks the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address where he spoke eloquently about how our great nation would endure despite the ongoing Civil War. The short speech by Lincoln would go on to become one of the greatest speeches ever in American history and previous presidents have always honored the major anniversaries of this event. But not President Obama. Instead of standing upon the national park grounds of the battle of Gettysburg on the occasion of the 150th anniversary, he is spending the day meeting with editors of the Wall Street Journal and also with Secretary of Defense...

For the moment let's dispense with the discussion about whether some of these people deserved to be included, and keep the focus on those two words. As you see, in the mashup version, the words "under God" are included, delivered by Jimmy Carter. According to this story from Washington's WMAL Radio, all the participants when reading their full versions included "under God," with the exception of Obama. So what's that? The explanation from Obama's people is that he was working from an earlier draft of the text, known as the "Nicolay copy," which did not include "under God." Lincoln added...

If Barack Obama had delivered the Gettysburg Address:Four score and seven years ago, a group of exclusively white, privileged, Native-American-killing and often slave-owning land-owners brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in antiquated notions of liberty but what we now know ought to have been the Common Good, and dedicated to the proposition that all men, women, transgendered and hermaphroditic persons are entitled to equal things. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, actually deserves to endure. We are met on a great battlefield...

President Obama was unable to attend Tuesday's ceremony commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address because of scheduling issues stemming from the rollout of his signature healthcare law, the White House said Tuesday. Following stories questioning why the president had skipped the event, given his public affinity for President Lincoln, White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer tweeted that "it didn't work schedule-wise." In response to a journalist's Twitter query about what could be more important, Pfeiffer wrote: "Oh, I don't know, there's this whole website thing that someone suggested might destroy the [Democratic] Party." According to the president's public...

All is a twitter on Twitchy regarding Nobama's no-show at the a150 year anniversary of The Gettysburg Address. Some in the media are mocking Pfeiffer/Obama for their sarcastic tweets.

Chris Plante at WMAL Radio in Washington reported on his show Tuesday that President Obama joined a cast of 61 "noted lawmakers, politicians, news anchors and celebrities, including every living President, in reciting the Gettysburg Address" for PBS star Ken Burns, who made "The Civil War" documentary series. Everyone else delivered the address as Lincoln had written it, including the phrase, "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom." But in his version of the address, President Obama omitted the words "under God."

President Barack Obama is skipping events marking 150 years since Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address. This shouldn't be a huge shock. Yes, Obama has sometimes embraced the opportunity to compare himself to Lincoln. And what a historical opportunity to miss: The nation’s first black president honoring Lincoln’s legacy in person. But parks officials point out that the last sitting president to attend a Nov. 19 event in Gettysburg was Rutherford B. Hayes. No, what’s surprising is the White House's apparent explanation for Obama’s decision to turn down an invitation offered months ago: It’s Obamacare’s fault. Specifically, the HealthCare.gov debacle.

A new birth of freedom.(video)

Springfield, Ills, April 6, 1859 Messrs. Henry L. Pierce, & others. Gentlemen Your kind note inviting me to attend a Festival in Boston, on the 13th. Inst. in honor of the birth-day of Thomas Jefferson, was duly received. My engagements are such that I can not attend. Bearing in mind that about seventy years ago, two great political parties were first formed in this country, that Thomas Jefferson was the head of one of them, and Boston the head-quarters of the other, it is both curious and interesting that those supposed to descend politically from the party opposed to Jefferson...

Washington DC talk show host Chris Plante reported today that Barack Obama omitted the words "under God" from the Gettysburg Address when reciting the great speech for a Ken Burns documentary. Burns had filmed all living presidents as well as various Hollywood personalities and luminaries to pay homage to the speech which was delivered by Abraham Lincoln 150 years ago, today. Plante broke the story on Washington DC talk radio station WMAL on his mid-morning program, "The Chris Plante Show."

Ever since Abraham Lincoln delivered his stirring Gettysburg Address at that great battlefield in Pennsylvania 150 years ago, people have been parsing it. Almost immediately, Sen. Charles Sumner compared it to great Greek literature, a thought echoed by historian Garry Wills in our time. But Lincoln’s words weren’t Greek to his audience, and they aren’t Greek to us. As historian Allen Guelzo explained recently, the address is an example of democratic speech, words aimed at his audience that they could easily understand. The crowd gathered that day would have appreciated that the address was so short -- just 272...

It took 150 years, but a Pennsylvania newspaper said Thursday it should have recognized the greatness of President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address at the time it was delivered. The Patriot-News of Harrisburg, about 35 miles northeast of Gettysburg, retracted a dismissive editorial penned by its Civil War-era predecessor, The Harrisburg Patriot & Union.

A Disney animator-turned Lincoln historian believes he has found the second of only two pictures of the 16th president taken at the Gettysburg Address. The incredible discovery has caused no small controversy in the world of Civil War history - because it means two other images of believed to be Abraham Lincoln do not, in fact, show the president. Christopher Oakley, a professor at the University of North Carolina-Asheville, found the shot of Lincoln in March while combing over historical photos from the Gettysburg Address.

The first interesting form is the scorpion, which might first be thought to represent is known as Scorpius, but this does not appear to be the case.  This is due to the presence of the three birds to the middle right (A, B, C), these three most clearly correspond to the “Summer Triangle” stars, the three birds, one represented by each star: Cygnus, Aquila (aka Vultur volans), and Vultur cadens (Lyra).  The shape of the Aquila constellations holds the same general appearance as bird A, the angle of the Cygnus stars matches the shape of the body of bird B,...

Tian Jiamel a 58 year old woman has been arrested in Washington DC for defacing property. Tian Jiamel was arrested after green paint was found splattered at Washington’s National Cathedral. According to Fox News authorities planned to question Jiamel about two similar vandalism incidents including the Lincoln Memorial. A ‘language barrier’ delayed the interrogation. There doesn’t seem to be any Facebook or Twitter accounts with the name Tian Jiamel. Cathedral spokesman Richard Weinberg said the paint was discovered there about 2pm ET and was still wet. Linda St. Thomas, chief spokesperson for the Smithsonian Institution, confirmed green paint was discovered...