When the Ottoman Turks, under the leadership of Mehmet II, took Constantinople in 1453 and converted Hagia Sophia into a mosque they did not destroy the depiction therein of Christ, the Theotokos (The Mother of God, Virgin Mary) and the Cross, instead they covered them with white plaster. Centuries earlier during the reigns of the Iconoclastic emperors (eighth century) many figural depictions of Christ, Theotokos and the Saints were destroyed but many were just hidden from the public view.

Obama pursues a policy of hiding from public sight and dissociating the government from Christianity. During his speech in Georgetown University, and institution founded by the Jesuits, last April, the golden monogram JHS symbolising Jesus Christ was covered, allegedly to make the scene behind Obama look better for the cameras. It basically means that they covered the symbol of Christ to make a man look good. The Turks and the Byzantine Iconoclasts at least hid images out of moral convictions, however erroneous, but the guys organising Obama speeches only crave the satisfaction brought about by the immediate experience. Pure hedonism.

More recently a festival called 'God and Country' in Idaho was denied a flyover of military planes from the Pentagon. It is a festival in honour of the soldiers that fought and fight in America's many wars and has a notable Christian character. I may not agree with America's current wars and might not find much understanding for Evangelical Christians but this festival looks like well rooted in the community and the flyovers were a routine for 42 years, enough to call it a tradition. It is therefore quite worrying that the incumbent administration makes obstructions to a tradition far older than itself, much like the Iconoclasts of Byzantium, Ottoman Empire or Soviet Union. 

Besides the point, there is strange lull in the non-rightwing and non-Christian media on the Idaho story, at least my Google search does not show any.