It was a stroke of ceremonial genius. At the D-Day 75th anniversary commemorations at Portsmouth, how to ensure that the assembled heads of government – and perhaps one in particular – would not sound a sour note? The Queen would do her part splendidly, of course, as she had done at D-Day 60 and D-Day 50. But how to keep the others on script?
With a script. So President Donald Trump appeared not to deliver his own remarks, but to read from the D-Day address of President Franklin Roosevelt.
FDR’s address is one of the most remarkable in the history of presidential speech-making, for it was not a speech at all, but a prayer, addressed to God. The president was praying, and invited the American people to join their prayers to his.
