Obama’s Remarks in Tucson
This is one of the most remarkable speeches I’ve seen him give. I have my issues with Obama, but this was simply masterful.
I hope this can bring some sobriety to the discussion.
I believe we can be better. Those who died here, those who saved lives here – they help me believe. We may not be able to stop all evil in the world, but I know that how we treat one another is entirely up to us. I believe that for all our imperfections, we are full of decency and goodness, and that the forces that divide us are not as strong as those that unite us.
That’s what I believe, in part because that’s what a child like Christina Taylor Green believed. Imagine: here was a young girl who was just becoming aware of our democracy; just beginning to understand the obligations of citizenship; just starting to glimpse the fact that someday she too might play a part in shaping her nation’s future. She had been elected to her student council; she saw public service as something exciting, something hopeful. She was off to meet her congresswoman, someone she was sure was good and important and might be a role model. She saw all this through the eyes of a child, undimmed by the cynicism or vitriol that we adults all too often just take for granted.
I want us to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it. All of us – we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children’s expectations.
Christina was given to us on September 11th, 2001, one of 50 babies born that day to be pictured in a book called “Faces of Hope.” On either side of her photo in that book were simple wishes for a child’s life. “I hope you help those in need,” read one. “I hope you know all of the words to the National Anthem and sing it with your hand over your heart. I hope you jump in rain puddles.”
If there are rain puddles in heaven, Christina is jumping in them today. And here on Earth, we place our hands over our hearts, and commit ourselves as Americans to forging a country that is forever worthy of her gentle, happy spirit.
May God bless and keep those we’ve lost in restful and eternal peace. May He love and watch over the survivors. And may He bless the United States of America.
Barack Obama
Amen.
Update:
This section is especially apropos of the venomous discourse inspired by this incident:
[W]hen a tragedy like this strikes, it is part of our nature to demand explanations – to try to impose some order on the chaos, and make sense out of that which seems senseless. Already we’ve seen a national conversation commence, not only about the motivations behind these killings, but about everything from the merits of gun safety laws to the adequacy of our mental health systems. Much of this process, of debating what might be done to prevent such tragedies in the future, is an essential ingredient in our exercise of self-government.
But at 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.
Comments are closed.
I most particularly agree with the final paragraph and I hope the one before it bears out, too.
Good speach over-all, the sort of thing to be expected from a President in such a situation.
p.s. (I make that notation to clearly set off the following as being utterly secondary to the proceeding.)
I will only object, and this is a matter mostly of style common to all presidents of the modern age, that the United States is not a democracy and that there is a real difference between a democracy and what the United States is. The old name of the president’s own party the “Democratic-Republicans” even makes that point. We are a republic that is to greater or lesser degrees democratic. We are not a democracy that is republican. This isn’t a partisan thing. It is a basic matter of philosophy of government, comperative politics, and constitutional law. It is truth in advertising.
smf – I let your last paragraph through, but it was, in fact, off-topic. I only allow it because it is something I’ve been meaning to post on, and you reminded me (in other words, thanks, but let’s not get off-track.)
To clarify, I posted before the update, and thus the last and second to last paragraphs I was giving support to were those of the original sections.
Not that I have any particular objections to the new ones after the update.
I got that, smf – thanks for clarifying, though.
Marvelous.
It was a really good speech. My favorite line was the part you highlighted about not letting down Christina’s vision for the future. Just wonderful. And sad.
Yes that really is a remarkable speech.
I also really like the very last line of the entire post. We could apply the principle of speaking words that heal rather than wound to every area of our lives I suppose.
He said very good things, but the wild cheering, ovations, whistling and applause does seem a tad inappropriate for a memorial service.
Contrast this with the RFK video posted a few days ago, for example.
It struck me as a little strange too, Bruce – but I think Obama handled that well, too.
I believe the cheering and loud ovations were the release of painful feelings being replaced by hope for a better future and the hope that these tragic deaths will somehow give us the passion to be better human beings.
A very good speech.
It was a very good speech and I am thankful for it.