Never let a good crisis go to waste.
President Obama exhorted Americans to refrain from partisan bickering and urged the country to embrace the idealistic vision of democracy held by 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green, the youngest Arizona shooting victim and an aspiring politician who is set to be buried Thursday in the first of half-a-dozen funerals.
Speaking to an arena audience of about 14,000 and even more in a nearby football stadium and at homes across the country, Obama drew on themes of unity, patriotism and heroism as he tried to help the nation make sense of a tragedy that unfolded as citizens were exercising their most basic of rights, meeting with their congresswoman.
Christina and five others were killed and 13 injured Saturday in a shooting rampage as a crowd waited to meet Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head and left gravely wounded. Obama revealed during his speech that she had opened her eyes for the first time shortly after he visited her bedside.
Obama focused on memories of the victims and the heroism of those who sprang to their aid after the gunfire. He steered clear of the political tit-for-tat that has consumed much of the dialogue since the massacre while acknowledging the “sharp polarization” that has gripped the country.
He reminded the audience that the third-grader’s neighbor had brought Christina, a Little League player and newly elected student council member, to meet Giffords because of her budding interest in democracy.
“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,” he said. “I want to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as Christina imagined it. I want America to be as good as she imagined it.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110113/ap_on_re_us/us_congresswoman_shot_memorial
The names of those that were killed:
– U.S. District Judge John Roll, 63.
– Gabe Zimmerman, 30, Giffords’ director of community outreach.
– Dorwin Stoddard, 76, a pastor at Mountain Ave. Church of Christ.
– Christina Greene, 9, a student at Mesa Verde Elementary.
– Dorthy Murray, 76.
– Phyllis Scheck, 79.
Obama and his DemLeft pals have made a living out of vitriol and violence, but NOW he uses the murder of a child to serve his message of “living up to expectations”. Trust me, Obama. We knew all about you before you were elected and you behaved exactly as we expected.
B. Hussein sure sprinted to Tuscon real quick. This is the same assclown who took his sweet time getting to Ft. Hood when a muslim terrorist slaughtered 13 Soldiers and an unborn baby, insisting the all the while that we “not jump to conclusions”.
The murder of six innocent people is tragic. The media expoitation of the murder of six innocent people as fodder for its hatred of conservatives, is immoral and perverse. They saturated the news with scurrilous attacks on Sarah Palin, Governor Sharon Angle, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Tea Party patriots, whose only ‘violent’ act has been to vehemently oppose the socialist disaster created by Obama’s regime for the last 2 years. Free speech for them; for us, not so much.
But, I expected that.