OBAMA AND THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS:

In nine days, this town will commemorate the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s speech with a ceremony at the same Soldiers’ National Cemetery featuring the U.S. Marine Band, Gov. Tom Corbett and a reading of the Gettysburg Address.

One person who will not be among those honoring Lincoln is President Barack Obama. The White House gave no reason why the president would not attend.

According to the National Park Service, Obama has never visited the battlefield as president.

In 2008, Obama rolled out his presidential campaign in Springfield, Ill., where Lincoln announced his own presidential candidacy. Throughout that year’s campaign, Obama’s staff embraced similarities between the two men as part of his persona; he allowed them to encourage lofty comparisons — and, after he won the election, he re-created Lincoln’s 1861 train trip to Washington as part of his own inaugural spectacle.

He even took the oath of office on Lincoln’s Bible — twice. . . . His dismissal of the request shows a man so detached from the duty of history, from the men who served in the White House before him, that it is unspeakable in its audacity.

Ask almost any person in this historic town; even his most ardent supporters here are stunned.

Obama long ago veered away from any affinity he may have believed he had with Lincoln, which gives credibility to the criticism that his connection to Lincoln was always a political calculation rather than a true bond.

Obama is the perfect embodiment of America’s ruling class, a class that doesn’t really much like the nation it rules.