Matthew Yglesias blazes with a rightous fury over plans to read the Gettysburg Address at the 9/11 commemoration (in this post). He says,

It must have been hard for Abe Lincoln to come up with something suitable to say on that occassion, but I'm pretty fucking sure he didn't mark it by re-reading a 150 year-old speech. Nope, methinks he wrote something original. A classic piece of oratory... Was 9/11 not a big enough deal to be worth the effort of someone trying to come up with some new text?

Although I agree with his point, we should keep in mind that the Gettysburg Address was not the headlining event of that day, it was nearly forgotten. Yes 9/11 deserves a new text and a classic piece of oratory, but don't expect that classic piece of oratory to be the headlining event of the main commemoration. Expect it to be something that we nearly forgot at the time, but that will grow over time...