Flashback: 'Obama White House ordered coverup of religious symbols for Georgetown speech'

The Democrat blogosphere and media complex spent much of the day yesterday blistering conservatives -- me included -- for misconstruing a Jake Tapper tweet. Tapper's breathless message from Ground Zero -- and the site of President Obama's first-ever visit to the World Trade Center memorial -- read "One minute to air and they decided to take the flag down from the live shot!"

I made the mistaken assumption that the President, often concerned with symbolism over substance, had decided to remove the flag from the background to avoid "spiking the football" (as Michelle Malkin put it). But that wasn't the case: apparently Tapper's hysteria was precipitated by a scheduled removal of the flag an hour after Obama had left the scene.

So the conclusion to which I jumped was provably wrong -- but, given Barack Obama's history, not out of character.

In April of 2009, the Los Angeles Times reported that the "Obama White House ordered [the] coverup of religious symbols for [the president's] Georgetown speech":

Surprising word today that President Barack Obama's White House asked Georgetown University to cover all religious symbols at the scene of the president's economic speech at the Roman Catholic institution Wednesday.

And the prestigious Jesuit university agreed... The Democratic White House explained the move as a desire to keep the backdrop for presidential speeches consistent and not distracting to the audience. The president, who has yet to select a local parish for his family in Washington, has described his religion as "Christian."

That's not all.

Obama's controversial decision to remove his U.S. flag pin during the 2008 campaign must have proven decidedly unpopular in David Axelrod's polls. He soon restored the American flag pin to his lapel.

Furthermore, President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and other Democrats have conspicuously redacted the word "God" from the Declaration of Independence and the Pledge Of Allegiance.

It's happened several times. It's not a coincidence.

Our founding document -- the Declaration -- enunciates immutable, God-given rights. But Democrats believe that only government can grant rights (e.g., the "right" to free health care).

In order to successfully prosecute their agenda, Obama and his sycophants have no choice but to supplant God with government. Sound crazy? I welcome other explanations for these uncanny "coincidences".

Given these incidents as background, it's no wonder many of us miscontrued Tapper's tweet. The conclusion we jumped to was entirely plausible.