Last night, for his first time in office, Barack Obama sounded
like the president of all Americans.
Obama famously burst onto the national scene in 2004 with an
address to the Democratic Convention in which he
declared, “there is not a liberal America and a conservative
America — there is the United States of America.” During his own
run for the presidency four years later, he would echo this
post-partisan theme.
But the first two years of Obama’s presidency have been
contentions ones. While he may not have introduced polarization to
American politics, he certainly didn’t help matters. Just days
after being sworn in, he admonished Congressional Republicans with
whom he was negotiating an economic package, boasting:
“I won.”
When he encountered political resistance as he set about
remaking America, he either directly or through surrogates
portrayed political opposition as not just wrong, but illegitimate.
Americans expressing their views in town hall meetings became
“angry mobs” and “Astroturf.”
As political defeat loomed in last fall’s midterm elections,
Obama urged Hispanic Americans to vote for Democrats as a way to
“punish
our enemies.” Just last month, in announcing a tax deal he had
struck with GOP leaders, he
blasted Republicans as “hostage takers” and said he was
“itching for a fight” with them.
On Saturday, the nation was shaken when news broke of an
assassination attempt against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords which killed
six and injured a dozen others. Unfortunately, our noxious
political atmosphere was on full display as liberals immediately
seized on the tragedy and attempted to blame Sarah Palin, tea
parties, and the right-wing media for the attack even before
anything was known about the assailant.
Subsequent evidence has produced no known links with the alleged
gunman, Jared Loughner, who appears to be a mentally disturbed
individual without any discernible political ideology or partisan
leanings.
“They need to deftly pin this on the tea partiers,” one Democrat
had anonymously advised the White House
via the Politico. “Just like the Clinton White House
deftly pinned the Oklahoma City bombing on the militia and
anti-government people.”
In what was billed as a defining moment in his presidency, Obama
took the stage at the University of Arizona last night with a clear
choice. Was he going to use this occasion to score political
points, or was he going to finally live up to the promise of his
candidacy and attempt to bring the country together?
Fortunately for the victims of this tragedy, and for America, he
chose the latter route.
While the campaign rally feel of the event (complete with
cheering and whistling from college students in the audience)
seemed jarring at first for a memorial service, Obama struck just
the right tone in his remarks. He paid moving tribute to the
victims and emphatically stated several times that harsh political
rhetoric was not the cause of this attack.
“(A)t a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized
— at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all
that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than
we do — it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure
that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way
that wounds,” Obama said. “Bad things happen, and we must guard
against simple explanations in the aftermath.”
He continued, “For the truth is that none of us can know exactly
what triggered this vicious attack. None of us can know with
any certainty what might have stopped those shots from being fired,
or what thoughts lurked in the inner recesses of a violent man’s
mind.”
Obama went on to say that those who lost their lives should
inspire Americans to be better. “And if, as has been discussed in
recent days, their deaths help usher in more civility in our public
discourse,” he said, “let’s remember that it is not because a
simple lack of civility caused this tragedy — it did not —but
rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can
help us face up to our challenges as a nation, in a way that would
make them proud.”
The phrase “it did not” was not in Obama’s
prepared remarks, and it’s to his credit that he felt the need
to inject those words to make it abundantly clear that political
rhetoric was not a factor in the shooting.
Instead of using the bully pulpit to “deftly” pin the blame for
the attack on his political opponents, Obama used it to deftly tell
liberals: “Enough! The partisan blame game is unjustified by the
facts and does a disservice to the victims.”
Ultimately, he did what a president should do at a moment like
this — rise above the politics of the moment and lead the nation
as a whole.
It may no longer be politically correct to say such a thing, but
last night Obama fired, and he hit the bullseye.
