I Think Her Fifteen Minutes Is Up

There was a marked study in contrasts this week between the video news release of Sarah Palin, and the remarks President Barack Obama made at the memorial in Tuscon. And it was clear to me on that day why he is the President, and she... is not.

Early in the day on Wednesday, Sarah Palin put out a video that ran about eight minutes long. It was her first public statement since the shooting in Tuscon that killed six people and has left Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in the hospital making slow, but apparently steady progress, as she recovers from a gun shot wound to the head. Palin has come under sharp criticism, on this blog and elsewhere, for her repeated use of gun metaphors and her now infamous map which placed several Congressional districts, including Giffords, in the crosshairs. It was inflammatory, and in light of what happened, it was in amazingly bad taste. This video news release was Palin's opportunity to show some remorse for how she has contributed to the toxic political rhetoric in the country. It was her chance to show introspection and grief for what occurred. It was her opportunity to appear "presidential".

She blew it. Big time.

Instead of noting that perhaps she should be more careful with her wild west approach to politics, she was defensive and kept casting the blame on the actions of a deranged individual. She blasted the media and those she perceives as her political enemies, using the term "blood libel", a term often used by anti-Semitics who say Jews want to kill Christian babies (and incidentally, Rep. Giffords is Jewish). She brought up how our founding fathers would settle disputes with duels as if 18th and 19th century ways are still legitimate in the 21st century. And she struck the most amazing tone deaf note when she defended her statements about "a call to arms" to her supporters during the last election; that wasn't about guns: that was about voting. Methinks this lady doth protest too much.

In contrast, President Obama, who has not lived up to the expectations of many, found his center on Wednesday night. His speech, in which he acknowledged the acromonious nature of our political debate, called for a truce. Not just for us, as a nation, to stop searching for blame when evil strikes, but also to start looking at each other through the eyes of the youngest victim in this tragedy, Christina Taylor Green. What can we learn from her? She was eager to meet her Congresswoman. She was engaged in the world around her. And she lived her short life with an eye toward a bright future, having been born on arguably one of the darkest days in our nation's history, September 11, 2001. He was gracious. He acknowledged the woundedness and the loss experienced by those whose family members were injured or killed. And he called on us as a nation to grow up from this experience.

He was presidential, and his remarks hit a home run.

I am one of the few, according to popular polls, that still believes that when we foster anger and violence in our culture, it can result in something as awful as what happened in Tuscon. Was Jared Loughner motivated by right-wingers to commit this crime? The pundits, the politicians, the people say "No". I don't say the right-wing loaded the gun or told him to shoot it. But I have no doubt that the anger stirred up in this country primarily by the right has a negative effect on the sane, and can cause a feeding frenzy in the warped heads of the insane. We can't stop evil, but we can slow it down considerably. And I believe the President has asked for us to rethink our way of dealing with one another because he understands that point.

Sarah Palin apparently does not.