Why the omission?

There is no shortage of folks suspicious of Pres. Obama's Christianity.  He seldom goes to church.  His daughters have not been raised in any specific faith.  He seems to eschew every opportunity to speak boldly what it is that he believes (except in the most vague and general ways).  I am willing to grant the President the favor of his own word and will accept what he says of his Christian faith.  That said, he repeatedly avoids moments to support his claim of Christian faith.

Consider this example...

Everyone knows that up to 10 versions of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address exist -- several in his own hand and six he acknowledged -- which differ slightly from the others.  None of the differences are substantial.  There is one that is curious.  Several do not include the reference to a nation under God even though the version transcribed at the November 19 delivery and the official version reported by the Associated Press at the time does include under God.  Numerous accounts at the time — based on the AP version of the speech which was transcribed and published at the time — corroborate the fact that Lincoln did, indeed, use the words “under God” in his final delivery at that day as the memorial was dedicated.  For curiosity sake I only note that the main speaker, a Mr. Edward Everett, said some 13,000 words and his oration is forgotten while Lincoln spoke ten lines and everyone remembers it.  Further curiosity lies in the fact that the Harrisburg paper panned Lincoln's words at the time and hoped no one remembered them; a judgement which was taken back now 150 years later by the same paper.

If you want all the details, you can access the curious story of the versions here or there...   What is most curious to me is that Ken Burns working with PBS had a project to have people learn the address and had a number of famous folks read the Gettysburg Address as part of this project.  What is interesting is that EVERY one of those who read, included under God and the version of the address they read was the same for each who read.  EXCEPT President Obama who was the ONLY one to drop under God from his reading.  When this was noticed and questions raised, Ken Burns group changed the web site to say that Obama had been asked to read a different version that did not include the words.  While this may be the truth, it seems curious that he would be the only one to read a different version on a web site designed to learn the address (in which the uniformity of the version would be an asset).

The above is the first version of the website and the screen shot below shows the changed website AFTER questions were asked about Obama's version NOT including the words under God.

Here is President Obama reading the Gettysburg Address but excluding the words under God.



My point is this.  The President is not stupid or uninformed.  He obviously knows the suspicion that exists about his Christianity.  He is an effective communicator.  Why does he seem to purposefully give us little things that tempt us to doubt his veracity?