Mark Halperin has declared the God Debate a closed issue, but he’s the only one who is.  Jim VandeHei of Politico marvels at the debacle created by Democrats in their attempt to first excise God and recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital from the party platform, and then attempt to correct the first error by compounding it exponentially with a floor fight.  It’s exactly the kind of distraction that Democrats should have seen coming, and one that left them in the Kerryesque position of being against God before half of them were for him:

It’s not closed on CBS this morning, either.  Their morning show featured key Obama aides David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett attempting to shift blame to everyone else over the platform debacle:

CHARLIE ROSE: He didn’t know it was not in?

VALERIE JARRETT:  He — he was not aware —

DAVID AXELROD: Honestly, Charlie, he had, you know, he was counting on others to — he has some other duties, and responsibilities.  So, when he learned that what had been in the platform had been taken out, he said, “Put it back in.”

ROSE: He learned yesterday?

AXELROD: Yeah.

That, however, conflicts with the version of events the Obama campaign presented to Politico yesterday:

Two platform planks sparked division at the Democratic National Convention here Wednesday.

Things got so bad that President Barack Obama was forced to personally intervene, ordering language mentioning God and naming Jerusalem as the rightful capital of Israel be added.

Obama had seen the language prior to the convention, a campaign source said, but did not seek to change it until after Republicans jumped on the omissions of God and Jerusalem late Wednesday. And even then, it had to be forced through a convention hall full of delegates who nearly shouted down the change.

So first he was aware of it but chose not to make an issue of it until the controversy arose. Now, he was unaware of it completely until the controversy arose.  Obviously, Team Obama is having trouble getting its story straight, but even beyond that is this question: Is this leadership?