BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

In Tucson Wednesday President Obama said what needed to be said and he said it like Lincoln did at Gettysburg: This is an opportunity for us to come together so that those people did not die in vain.

It doesn’t matter what the pundits say or who they claim to be at fault. More than likely, fault lies with the evil demons that dwelled within one man in a whole universe of flying debris and unexplained phenomena.

“But 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—it is 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 said.

We can’t use this tragedy as an excuse to turn on one another, he said. “Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let us use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy and remind ourselves of all the ways our hopes and dreams are bound together.”

With words like that and those coming from House Speaker John Boehner, who said “the needs of the institution have always risen above partisanship. And what this institution needs right now is strength–holy, uplifting strength”, we can ignore those playing the blame game. We can rededicate ourselves to the kind of governance and the kind of political and social behavior that drew those who died in Tucson to Congresswoman Giffords.

We can turn this tragedy into triumph by changing our political behavior, isolating those who seek to divide us, and resisting those who seek to incite us. If we are successful, some good may come of this horror.

Unfortunately, if past is prologue, the public discussion of and renewed commitment to civility will be short lived. The words of the President and the House Speaker will fade quickly like a cheap pair of jeans. We will talk nice for a time, but we will soon forget; we will revert back to the behavior that, a week or a month before, we had condemned in the name of the fallen.

That is our nature, but it doesn’t have to be our destiny. Political incivility and the leakage of it into our society, is a plague upon our house. There has been no greater reinforcement of this reality than the demeaning and embarrassing, sophomoric reactions of the opinion leaders and pundits who have dominated the newspapers, Internet, cable television and radio broadcasts over the past three days, all trying to apply some ideological or partisan reasoning to an incident that is beyond reason.
We must change the tone and tenor of our partisan political discourse in every respect. Look back to Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords’ own race.

In August of 2010, Roll Call published a story, “ Arizona House Race Gets ‘a Little Nasty’.

The article was about the 8th District in which two Republicans were vying for the chance to run against her.

Roll Call quoted Tuscon’s state Senator Frank Antenori, who thought that “whichever one wins, they need to go after her. They can’t pussyfoot around her…” Referring to one of the primary candidates, Antenori said “Kelly is just a brawler, and a lot of people just want to seem him get through the primary so he can slap her around in the debate.”

You would expect that kind of tough talk from the manager of mixed martial arts boxer Brock Lesnor, but Antenori is an elected public servant who should have been trying to keep American politics out of the martial arts octogon.

Unfortunately, Antenori’s combative language, of course, has been commonplace in political campaigns since Jefferson ran against Adams . But, it’s different now. The consequences of combative and often abusive campaign behavior are more profound. First, there are no longer lines drawn between campaign and post-campaign behavior.

The difference now, as Bob Michel pointed out last November, is that “the distinctions between campaign and governing have disappeared over the years. Campaigning no longer stops on election day; it is merely moved to Washington where the bitterness and the refusal to budge on issues has become the norm.” Today, it is one continuous strand of stridency and anger.

There’s another distinction that CBS’s Bob Scheiffer pointed out Sunday in reference to the Arizona shooting the day before.

“…today,” Scheiffer said, “we live, as we were reminded yesterday, in a dangerous, hair-trigger time when tempers always seem near the boiling point and patience seems a lost trait. Democracy’s arguments have never been pretty, but technology has changed the American dialogue. Because we can now know of problems, instantly, we expect answers immediately. And when we don’t get them, we let everyone know in no uncertain terms. We scream and shout, hurl charges without proof. Those on the other side of the argument become not opponents but enemies. Dangerous, inflammatory words are used with no thought or consequence. “

And there is still another distinction that Scheiffer and others in the media are loath to face. Not only does modern technology distort reality, modern media, riding on the horns of that technology, actually encourage, and in fact, may drive incivility, anger, intolerance, class warfare, strident partisanship and human isolation in American politics and society in general. Scheiffer intimated as much when he said Sunday, “Worse, some make great profit just fanning the flames.”

The convergence of 24-hour-seven-day-a-week, year-round partisan campaigning, the instantaneous and expansive impact of new technology, and the corruptive influence of the modern media have left us all living in an incendiary, angry and destructive environment in which public discourse is all but impossible, human relationships are strained, and the public is left confused, frustrated and demoralized.

I would venture to say most of us tolerate all that noise and divisiveness when we wish we wouldn’t. Most of us are sometimes drawn to it, but mostly want it to go away. Most of us recognize that it oozes out of the darker shadows of our culture and that it contradicts religious beliefs and spiritual values we claim to practice in one form or another. But we tolerate. I find it breathtaking that so many of those who engage in abusive political behavior do so in the same breath they tout their religious beliefs.

So, regardless of why it happened, let’s join with the President and the Speaker in tribute to Christina-Taylor Green, Dorothy Morris, Phyllis Schneck, Dorwin Stoddard, Gabe Zimmerman, Judge John Roll and those who survived, especially Congresswoman Giffords, by rededicating ourselves and our political institutions to the practice of civility, common decency, mutual respect, tolerance and common purpose.

And, let’s have the courage and self-discipline to actually do it, changing our behavior, changing the rules and procedures that dictate how we govern, and changing the way we see ourselves through the eyes of the media by forcing change in the media itself.

Editors’s Note: Mike Johnson is a former journalist, who worked on the Ford White House staff and served as press secretary and chief of staff to House Republican Leader Bob Michel, prior to entering the private sector. He is co-author of a book, Surviving Congress, a guide for congressional staff. He is currently a principal with the OB-C Group.