HuffPo's Sam Stein shares the reasons why President Obama's speech was a winner...and Presidential

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Sam Stein

Political Reporter, The Huffington Post
Posted: January 12, 2011 11:27 PM

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-stein/obama-reintroduces-the-hu_b_808366.html

Obama Re-Introduces the Human Element to the Giffords Tragedy

WASHINGTON -- It is when there is a human element to his presidency that Barack Obama tends to stand the tallest. And on Wednesday evening, as he spoke to 20,000-plus at a memorial service at the University of Arizona, there was, if nothing else, an emotional honesty to what he had to say.

To a nation looking for clarity, Obama didn't pretend to have all the answers. There is, he noted, a tendency to demand "order" from "chaos," to try and "make sense out of that which seems senseless." Life doesn't always comply.

To a political culture looking for scapegoats, he asked for maturity. A lack of civility hadn't caused the shooting of 20 in Tucson, nor would it provide relief. "What we cannot do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on each other," said Obama. "That we cannot do. That we cannot do."

And for a community mourning, the president assumed only the role of fellow griever, trying to draw threads of optimism from the wreckage. "If this tragedy prompts reflection and debate as it should, let's make sure it's worthy of those we have lost," Obama declared, in a speech that his own aides insisted was one of his best.

[aquart]

1. Tucson now knows something about itself.

It knows what happens when the worst happens. It knows that the people around, all those strangers living in the same place, will risk their lives to help. That is a great thing to know. And a very high standard to be proud of, and to pass down the generations.

There was one madman doing harm, and everyone else doing good, doing whatever was possible to help.

For all the horror, this is what Tucson now knows for sure. And that's how it will heal.