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.