Our President Kept It Classy

[Conan71]

Kudos Mr. President:

"Obama bluntly conceded that there was no way to know what triggered the shooting rampage and cautioned America to avoid dwelling on the role of incendiary rhetoric that could sully the memory of the victims."

If this tragedy prompts reflection and debate — as it should — let's make sure it's worthy of those we have lost," he said. "Let's make sure it's not on the usual plane of politics and point-scoring and pettiness that drifts away in the next news cycle."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110113/ap_on_re_us/us_congresswoman_shot_memorial

Interesting to note that Christina Green was born on Sept. 11, 2001 and unfortunately her life ended as part of another of the more painful days in our country's history.  It's hard for me to look at her picture, it really drives home the senselessness of this horrible act.  My heart goes out to the families of all the victims.

[Gaspar]

He gave the best speech of his career.  The crowd was weird and the minions were handing out T-Shirts, but his address was outstanding.

[Hoss]

I kept hearing people say that this could be his "Oklahoma City" moment.  I hate that they used that term, but understand why they did, as the country rallied around President Clinton after the Murrah Building tragedy and his subsequent and very eloquent address at the Memorial Service there.  I know many people that were first responders to that tragedy that will never be the same.

It was a little weird, hearing the crowd cheer and applaud, but many of the major network personnel there indicated it's kind of how the community was feeling after the tragedy.

The response the CiC got after informing the crowd that Rep Giffords opened her eyes for the first time was awesome.  Great moment in a week of tragedy.  For sure.

Now...let's hope that ALL sides of the political spectrum listen.

[Conan71]

This will starch some shorts, especially for anyone with ODS.

I'm not so sure President Obama is the "radical" that people on the far right keep painting him as.  I think he's probably a very introspectful and pragmatic man and more of a centrist than conservatives realize but he's got to try to placate the liberal bloc who helped advance his election.

I've been very, very hard on him as I've not seen many great leadership moments out of him since he was innaugurated, the worst being when he deferred to former President Clinton several weeks back after a meeting.  However, I think this was a great leadership moment.  I did not watch the service last night, nor listen to it.  I simply don't care for wall-to-wall coverage when I can read a summary afterwards and do my own digging if something needs clarification.

I'm hoping with the departure from the administration of some of the people whom I thought helped contain his own thought process and were wanting to advance their own agendas, we will see a more confident and "presidential" Obama emerge.  I often think he was left stammering when he went off script because he was speaking to or about points which he didn't necessarily espouse himself.  I believe he sees the danger in trying to maintain a hard-line liberal agenda since less than 1/2 the country identifies themselves as "liberal".  Time will tell.

[we vs us]

I'm hoping with the departure from the administration of some of the people whom I thought helped contain his own thought process and were wanting to advance their own agendas, we will see a more confident and "presidential" Obama emerge.  I often think he was left stammering when he went off script because he was speaking to or about points which he didn't necessarily espouse himself.  I believe he sees the danger in trying to maintain a hard-line liberal agenda since less than 1/2 the country identifies themselves as "liberal".  Time will tell.

Good observation.

[waterboy]

It was kind of weird to see people applauding, yelling and whistling at a somber event like that but it was a college campus, and it was a chance to vent some emotions. AZ has been getting a lot of negative views and this one gave them some positives. There was also crying and serious demeanor for sure.

I thought the AZ governor did a good job as well. Seems like each decade has its head clearing moment. The fifties was the HUAC with McCarthy, the sixties was MLK,...can't remember the 70's too well- perhaps the NIxon debacle- the 80's had several, the nineties with Murrah and of course 911.

When he said, "we are all heartbroken" referring to the 9 year old girl it was quite moving. Any parent could feel that emotion strongly.