President's Ground Zero Remarks Are Psalm 46

In the wake of criticism by some religious leaders that clergy were not included in the official memorial ceremony at the World Trade Center site in New York (New York Times, 9/8), President Obama's remarks at the ceremony consisted solely of reading Psalm 46. Neither in speaking, nor in the White House release of the official transcript of the President's remarks, was the source of the text identified. Last week Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said of the mayor's decision on who would participate in the ceremony: "Unfortunately Mayor Bloomberg's decision demonstrates the mindless secularist prejudice of the political establishment on our nation's Eastern Seaboard."