President Obama won nearly universal praise from leading political pundits and writers after Wednesday night's speech at the Arizona memorial for victims of the Tucson shooting, with several pointing out the contrast between it and Sarah Palin's video response to the shooting attack, which she released that morning on Facebook and which played repeatedly on cable news.
"The president hit all the right notes and had exactly the right tone," said former "Nightly News" anchor Tom Brokaw on MSNBC, shortly after the speech ended. "This is always a test of a presidency. We've been witness to it in our lifetime and through the course of American history."
Brokaw ranked Obama's words with several moving presidential speeches that followed national tragedies, such those from Franklin Roosevelt (the Pearl Harbor attack of 1941), Ronald Reagan (the 1986 Challenger disaster), Bill Clinton (the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing) and George W. Bush (9/11). "So, tonight," Brokaw said, "the president stepped into that role, and [offered] remarks that were tempered and memorable and comforting to those listening on television across the country but also in that hall."
There was some criticism of the speech. Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson said that, at 30 minutes, the speech went too "long and it did, in parts, lecture." Others said the tone was off, with the event appearing at times more like a campaign rally than memorial. Still, the majority of political commentators on air, from Democratic supporters to a few of Obama's fiercest critics, praised the president's speech.
"I think it does end the episode we've had for the last three or four days of this rancorous and, I think, malicious debate," said Charles Krauthammer on Fox News. "When the president himself says this is unknowable evil -- he quotes Job and says stop assigning blame -- I think that that chapter is over. I think he did it effectively."
Krauthammer added that he "wouldn't underestimate how this will affect the perception of the president," and that Obama performed "extremely well" in acting properly as head of state in amid tragedy.
"Thank you, Mr. President, for being the president of the United States of America," conservative TV and radio host Glenn Beck said at the start of Thursday's show. "Thank you for your speech last night. It was a great speech."
On Thursday's "Morning Joe," MSNBC commentator Pat Buchanan — who worked in both the Nixon and Reagan administrations — said it was a "splendid" speech in which Obama "took the nation up to a much higher level, to a higher ground, where everyone agrees."
Buchanan added that Obama was "almost 'first eulogist'" and spoke "the way Reagan did after the Challenger, as basically the father of the nation when part of the family has been badly damaged and some of our own have died." (You can watch Buchanan, and others on the right and left,.
But the political news cycle can't seem to churn these days without some discussion of Palin. And since the former Alaska governor was all over the airwaves Wednesday, several commentators contrasted Palin's video response — which spoke of "blood libel" perpetrated against her — and Obama's speech.
Former Bush speechwriter David Frum said on MSNBC Wednesday night that Palin had grounds to be upset with media coverage linking the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) with controversial rhetoric from the Palin camp -- such as a 2010 campaign map that depicted congressional target districts including Giffords' with gun sights, released the same day that Palin urged supporters not to retreat but "reload."
But Frum said such coverage was "not as hurtful as what was done to the people who are the actual victims here. … And you would think that this would be a moment where you could reach beyond your own personal feelings of hurt to something bigger."
David Corn of liberal Mother Jones magazine gave less ground to Palin. He said Obama "was wonderfully presidential, gave a marvelous speech, and spoke to really the better nature of our angels across the board," while Palin "tried to make this whole tragedy about her, and compared the criticism against her to the genocidal persecution of an entire people."
Click image to see more scenes from the Arizona memorial
AP
On Thursday morning, other political writers continued noting differences in Obama's and Palin's responses.
The Daily Beast's Lloyd Grove, in a piece titled "Mourner-in-Chief's Eulogy Puts Palin to Shame," pointed out the contrast in settings. The possible 2012 Republican contender "had to serve up her remarks, really a litany of complaints against her critics and political adversaries, while seated in front of a non-working stone fireplace, apparently at her home in Wasilla—a claustrophobic setting framed by an outsize American flag."
Obama, he wrote, "got to deliver his affecting half-hour of heartfelt reflection and soulful inspiration — repeatedly interrupted by standing ovations — to an arena at the University of Arizona filled to the rafters with 14,000 mourners" including leading political figures, Giffords' doctors and her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly.
And Politico's Jonathan Martin wrote Thursday on how "Obama [took] the opportunity Palin missed."
"At sunrise in the East on Wednesday, Sarah Palin demonstrated that she has little interest — or capacity — in moving beyond her brand of grievance-based politics," Martin wrote. "And at sundown in the West, Barack Obama reminded even his critics of his ability to rally disparate Americans around a message of reconciliation."
Posted By: DAVID JOHNSON
Friday, January 14th 2011 at 3:37PM
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