Joan Walsh: One nation, as good as it gets

[cal04]

President Obama, Daniel Hernandez and a Tuscon crowd remind us that e pluribus unum still makes sense
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joan_walsh/politics/2011/01/12/walsh_obama_speech

The event billed as a memorial service for victims of the Tucson massacre turned into what critics called a "pep rally," with cheering and hooting and hollering crowds. I don't understand what bothered people, because it was clear to me from the start: The University of Arizona crowd was celebrating the heroism that was on display last Saturday, when ordinary people became heroes and saved lives. And they were cheering the very idea of America.

There it was, folks, Saturday morning and again Wednesday night: our country, as good as it gets. Remember how great it looked and felt and sounded, when things inevitably get ugly again. Reagan-appointed Supreme Court Justice Sandra O'Connor, now retired, sat admiringly next to Daniel Hernandez Jr., the 20-year-old Gabrielle Giffords intern who helped save her life Saturday (who happens to be gay and Mexican American). Attorney General Eric Holder was side by side with Gov. Jan Brewer, whose racial profiling law he's fighting. The service began with an Indian blessing from Dr. Carlos Gonzales, who described his mother as Mexican, his father as a Yaqui survivor of "genocide," and his son as a soldier in Afghanistan, who praised "this great country, where a poor barrio kid from the south side of Tucson could get an education at a fine institution like the University of Arizona – and then, even better, come back and teach here."

Like it or not, that's American history: we are imperfect, descended from people who took land from Indians and Mexicans and who held slaves, but also from people fought for equal rights for everyone, and who, over time, managed to create laws and values and customs that (mostly) do that. Daniel Hernandez began his speech with the words "e pluribus unum" – out of many, one – and even if it's not an ideal we always live up to, it's the best idea we've ever had as a nation. President Obama delivered what I think was his best speech ever, but for a while Wednesday night, Hernandez stole the show, reminding us "what defines us is not difference…we are all Americans," and rejecting the label "hero," since he said, "The real heroes are those who have dedicated their lives to public service." Obama correctly differed with Hernandez, congratulating him as a hero for helping to save Giffords' life.

The president's speech was appropriately personal and moving, describing all of those who died, with vivid individual details, as well as the people who risked their lives saving the wounded. But he wrapped the speech around nine-year-old Christina-Taylor Green, and as the father of two young girls, Obama made that move feel more than rhetorical. Michelle Obama, often struggling with tears early in the event, wept openly as he discussed the child who wanted to be the first woman to play Major League Baseball (fittingly, as the granddaughter of managerial legend Dallas Green), who often remarked to her mother, "We have the best life," who was just elected to student council, and who went out to see her local congresswoman, "who might have been a role model." Giffords's "Congress on the Corner" outside Safeway last Saturday "was just an updated version of 'government by and of and for the people," Obama said. "That quintessentially American scene, that was the scene that was shattered by a gunman's bullets."

[applegrove]

1. You can bet Boehner made a mistake by not going.

[Iwillnevergiveup]

2. Excellent writing here!

Joan Walsh is one of my heros - a class act all the way.