President Barack Obama was wrong to skip the ceremony commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, particularly because he supposedly so admires Abraham Lincoln, says Salena Zito, an editorial columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune Review.
"What it underscores is that his embrace of Lincoln was always a political calculation and it wasn't really about identifying with him. It was just about exploiting the Lincoln experience," Zito told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.
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"You cannot go to the 50th anniversary celebration of Martin Luther King's impressive historic speech at the Lincoln Memorial and not go to the 150th of the Gettysburg Address. You cannot have one without the other," Zito said Tuesday.
"[It was] the most pivotal speech in our nation's history in terms of holding the Union together . . . and preserving the country. Ten sentences, 270 words, two minutes. And that was it . . . There is really no excuse for him not to be there."
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