Washington (CNN) -- President Obama began
working Monday night on the speech he will
deliver during a memorial service Wednesday for
the victims of Saturday's mass shooting in
Tucson, Arizona.
White House officials say Obama has determined
the broad idea of what he wants to say and is
working with his team of speechwriters on
drafting his remarks.
According to one White House official, the
president will likely continue tweaking the speech
throughout the day before his scheduled
Wednesday evening remarks.
While the details, tone and length of the speech
have not been released, Obama "will devote most
of his remarks to memorializing the victims," a
White House official said.
"As president of the United States, but also as a
father, obviously I'm spending a lot of time just
thinking about the families and reaching out to
them," Obama said Monday.
Like many presidents before him,
Obama is thrust into the position of
"mourner-in-chief" in the face of a
national tragedy. President Ronald
Reagan was the voice of a nation
grieving after the explosion of the
space shuttle Challenger in 1986.
"We will never forget them, nor the
last time we saw them, this
morning, as they prepared for the
journey and waved goodbye and
'slipped the surly bonds of earth' to
'touch the face of God,'" Reagan
said from the Oval Office.
President Bill Clinton's remarks
following the Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma, bombing in 1995 were
widely praised and were described
by many as a defining moment in his presidency.
"Let us let our own children know that we will
stand against the forces of fear," Clinton said at
the nationally televised memorial service in
Oklahoma City. "When there is talk of hatred, let
us stand up and talk against it. When there is talk
of violence, let us stand up and talk against it. In
the face of death, let us honor life."
From his impromptu remarks and rallying cry
atop of mound of rubble at ground zero in New
York to his memorable speech at Washington's
National Cathedral, President George W. Bush
faced a similar task of bringing the country
together in the aftermath of the attacks of
September 11, 2001.
"It is said that adversity introduces us to
ourselves. This is true of a nation as well," Bush
said. "In this trial, we have been reminded, and
the world has seen, that our fellow Americans are
generous and kind, resourceful and brave," he
said.
This will not be Obama's first time in this
unfortunate territory: He spoke after the West
Virginia coal mine tragedy in April 2010 and the
shooting at Fort Hood in Texas, in which 13
people were killed, in November 2009.
"It may be hard to comprehend the twisted logic
that led to this tragedy. But this much we do
know -- no faith justifies these murderous and
craven acts," Obama said during the Fort Hood
memorial service.
As is always the case, the big challenge is striking
the right tone, said presidential scholar Stephen
Hess.
"He has to give a lovely, passionate memorial
statement, a eulogy of grief, of hope perhaps for
the future, said Hess, a former adviser to
Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. "But it's
not a political speech and it has to be carefully
stated it's not a political speech.
"It's always a fine line like this. If he chooses to
step over the line and talk about things that
subsequently can be dissected as political ... then
he's made a mistake and he's done a disservice,"
Hess said. "But that, I think, is unlikely to happen,"
Hess said.
Source: Http://edition.cnn.com/2011/US/01/12/obama.arizona.speech/
0 comments:
Post a Comment