In Tucson, Obama Urges Americans to New Era of Civility
The president directly confronted the political debate that erupted after the rampage, urging people of all beliefs not to use the tragedy to turn on one another. He did not cast blame on Republicans or Democrats, but asked people to “sharpen our instincts for empathy.”
It was one of the more powerful addresses that Mr. Obama has delivered as president, harnessing the emotion generated by the shock and loss from Saturday’s shootings to urge Americans “to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully” and to “remind ourselves of all the ways that our hopes and dreams are bound together.”
“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,” he said, “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.”
The president led an overflow crowd at the evening service at the University of Arizona in eulogizing the six people who died on Saturday and asking for prayers for the wounded, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who the authorities[...]
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Helene Cooper reported from Tucson, and Jeff Zeleny from Washington. David M. Herszenhorn, Janie Lorber and Jennifer Steinhauer contributed reporting from Washington.
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These are the kinds of things that really make me like this guy. I don't agree with all of what he's tryin' to do, but I think his heart is in the right place, and I think he's makin' the best approaches he knows how. (I think Bush did, too, but Bush was like a two-year-old throwin' a tantrum 'cause that was the best he knew to be. Obama's at least tryin' to act like an adult.)
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