MAKE THEM PROUD:

Obama's Bullseye (Philip Klein, 1.13.11, American Spectator)

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.” [...]

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.