1.) Having been part of my share of Memorial services it was kind of weird to see somebody speaking at a Memorial service to be cheered like they were being introduced on the “American Idol.”
2.) Brilliant political move by Obama to introduce his quoting of the Bible by saying …” Scripture tells us …” This repeated naked appeal to Scripture, politically speaking, helps Obama get away from the wide American suspicion that he is Muslim. I seriously doubt that Obama himself believes that Scripture is unique in its authority and yet the way he quotes it, it allows himself to represent himself as a “true believer.”
3.) I must admit that I don’t understand the National Catharsis that these types of things represent. I acknowledge that this likely speaks to something deficient in my character. It seems for many people this kind of event heals something in their souls. All I see is the unseemly parading of people’s grief by the people who are both grieving and parading. Perhaps it is because, as a Minister, I see a Memorial service as being a sending off ceremony, where that which is spoken of is the God who gave and the God who takes as well as a word regarding the person who had been given and was most recently taken. The Memorial service is not about those grieving, except to offer them comfort.
4.) Another shrewd Obama move to mention the medical community. Obama has been seen, with the whole Health Care debate, to be a man who repeatedly attacked the Medical community. By directly mentioning the medical community he subtly heals those old wounds.
5.) I don’t agree with the premise that is automatically assumed by everybody now that the National discourse is any more ragged than it has ever been. I’m old enough to remember the 60’s and the Vietnam protests. I’m old enough to remember the 70’s and the Watergate Scandals. I’m here to tell you that political discourse doesn’t get any rougher than that era. I am familiar enough with history to know of the jagged political discourse that existed during our founding. (Take a look at the history surrounding the Alien and Sedition acts.) I am familiar with the history of political discourse in the 1850’s – 1870’s. I remember the political discourse of Ted Kennedy when Robert Bork was appointed to the Supreme Court. I remember the political discourse surrounding the Clarence Thomas hearings. Bottom line …. American political discourse has always been rugged and it is no more rugged now then it has ever been.
When Obama calls for “speaking to each other in ways the heal and not wound,” he is giving sanction to the left’s unfounded insistence that the National discourse has somehow gone off the rails. It just is not true.
Now, having said all that, I am glad to embrace the ideal of dispassionate rhetoric while at the same time being realistic enough in my understanding of human nature to know that just isn’t going to happen.
6.) There was a brief reference to “being willing to challenge old assumptions in order to lessen the prospect of such violence in the future.” To my ears this sounds like a tee up to more legislative assaults on the second amendment.
7.) After the damage being done of several days of the mainstream media turning on Americans, Obama gets the credit for calling on Americans to not allow this event to cause us to turn on one another. That is pretty convenient and once again it is good politics. After his shock troops have done all the pillorying the President gets to look like the reasonable peacemaker in his plea for empathy and understanding.
8.) After his peacemaker routine Obama went into a extended Hallmark spiel. Be nice to your loved ones. In the end life is about how well we have loved and what small part we have played in making the lives of other people better. (I must admit that it is difficult to take this seriously given that I know how large a part Obama has played in making people’s lives worse.)
9.) Obama sought to cast a vision of America as one big family. A tip of the hat to this effort.
10.) Obama admits that a lack of civility did not cause the shooting incident but insists that we should be civil in our conversation in order to make the dead people proud. If the shooting didn’t cause the incident how does civility make the dead people proud? “Look Gabe, we died, and isn’t it wonderful, and can’t we be proud of how civil they are to one another in their conversation?”
11.) Obama ends the speech by calling Americans to be a good Democracy the way the 9 year old who died would have imagined it. The country must live up to our children’s expectations. Doing it for the “children” is pretty standard political fare, right up there with kissing babies.
12.) The final close is with Obama connecting the patriotism that was hoped for, for the child as expressed in signatures surrounding her birth photos with the necessity for American patriotism, even gesturing with his hand over his heart. REMEMBER, that this also has been an issue for Obama. Remember the photos from the campaign days where he is the only person on the dais without his hand over his heart during the Star Spangled banner. This closing and the gesture accompanying it helps to erase those concerns that have showed up in polling data.
It was a very clever speech for Obama, subtly addressing some key concerns that polling data reveals is on American minds. The speech helps erase the questions about his “Christianity.” The speech helps erase the questions about his patriotism. The speech shows him compassionate towards health professionals that have questioned that compassion. He wraps it all loosely around the deceased and tightly around the deceased nine year old. The door is left open for efforts on more gun control. He gets to take the high road on the outrageous slander that has come from his ideological compatriots while at the same time subtly affirming that the current political discourse is a problem.
Clever, clever, clever.
Good thoughts.
Also, what happen to you on facebook?
Brad
I have to say I have yet to listen to Obama make a speech. He is as irrelevant to me as can be.
On the topic of the Tuscan memorial, I have listened numerous times now to the start of Janet Napolitano’s reading of Isaiah. I may be wrong, but it sure does sound like she says, “that her inequity is pardoned.”