Obama's powerful Tucson omission

[kpete]

Posted at 11:55 AM ET, 01/13/2011
Obama's powerful Tucson omission
By Jonathan Capehart

........................

The moment came near the end of his peroration on the need for civility in our national debate, and he tied it to the memory of slain nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green. The prepared text read:

******** I want us to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it. All of us - we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations.

But when it came to deliver the lines, Obama -- in either a rhetorical slip or a deliberate omission -- dropped the "us" in that first line. "I want to live up to her expectations," the president said.

For the first time in an address that soared at 30,000 feet, Obama came down to earth. Through a simple line, Obama powerfully and personally embraced his own demand of Americans. "All of us," he went on to say, "we should do everything we can do to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations." It was as if he were implicitly taking responsibility for whatever role he played in the nation's toxic political discourse. After a tragedy such as Tucson, that's what leaders do.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2011/01/obamas_powerful_tucson_omissio.html

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[emulatorloo]

2. That's a nice piece. Thanks for sharing it

(but the comments section scared the hell out of me)

[BeyondGeography]

3. Well, that was the highlight of the speech for me

Mostly because I know he meant it.

[girl gone mad]

4. When are you going to get started on that, Mr. President?

We can't wait forever.

[Clio the Leo]

5. Logic presumes....

.... that if she became interested in politics in 2008 and was excited at the prospect of meeting her Democratic Congresswoman, that she's likely (just like 99% of all people under age 18) a huge admirer of the President.

IF her parents confided this to him and, if I were him, I wouldn't have been able to get through that part of the speech without completely losing it.

[Ninga]

6. powerful thought.............

[denem]

7. That is STILL not what he said: His words were:

"I want to live up to her expectations. I want America to be as good as she imagined it."

It's so much more personal: A parent wanting the dreams of their children to be true, and recognizing, that those were also their dreams dreams they have passed on their own, the next generation.