I watched the Memorial event from Tucson last night and reluctantly offer this comment: it was an event without an identity.
On one hand, we had Bible verses and hymns. On the other hands we had the Star Spangled Banner (mangled by bad audio planning) and much speechifying.
Most jarring of all however, was the constant shouting and applauding and whistling from the audience. At one point they whistled and cheered one of the Bible readings. They whistled and cheered after every name of the fallen Obama mentioned. They even whistled and cheered randomly and mid-sentence when Obama was speaking. It was genuinely bizarre.
I found the audience behavior distracting, disrespectful and completely inappropriate to the occasion.
(Nice to see Sandra Day O’Connor again, but what were Eric Holder and FBI Director Mueller doing there? )
You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or democracy. But you cannot have both.
Whatever Works 
So it wasn’t just me that noticed the odd tone…
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Nope, you is not alone.
For some reason I went ot FOX News after the speech where all the usual suspects (but the smarter ones) were lined up to jibber-jabber. Charles Krathhammer AND Bret Hume both noted the odd pep rally tone, and BOTH complimented Obama for recognizing it and adapting. They praised him. A lot.
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As a viewer, I thought the tone was odd. But, maybe the people of Tucson needed to focus on hope rather than sorrow.
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I think that was it chappy . . . in any case, having said what I said, whatever worked for them is fine with me.
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Ms. Holland,
How dare anyone on Fox compliment President Obama. How dare they.
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I know Alan, shocked me too! 🙂
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Aside from the wildly inappropriate cheering, I found the outpouring of bible babble as cynical a pander to the thumpers of said bible as I have ever seen.
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That’s one of the things that made it confusing. I think they planned it to follow the kind of funeral service you’d have in a Church but the mood in the place was totally antithetical to that. They applauded when Obama entered and he was clearly embarrassed because he came in expecting a more formal event. But at the chaplain said, what the hey, it was their event.
(I’m never too fond of seeing top government officials reading bible verses in public.)
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Ms. Holland,
” (I’m never too fond of seeing top government officials reading bible verses in public.) ”
I caught some of that in the snippets I saw of the ceremony. I thought it might not be popular with those on the left. I find it part of the overall public relations tack to the right that the President will do for the next two years. Hiring Mr. Daley was the other big part of it.
Charles Krauthammer believes that many of the business people or more correctly corporate big wigs who gave the President big bucks in 08 to get elected, won’t be fooled again in 2012. Yes Obama did get plenty of evil corporate money.
President Obama is currently held in check from his Socialist tendencies by the coming election and the Republican House of Representatives. In a second term, and who knows if the House does not flip back to the Liberals, there would be nothing to stop the Obama of 2009-2010 from replacing the neo- Conservative Obama of 2011-2012.
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[President Obama is currently held in check from his Socialist tendencies by the coming election and the Republican House of Representatives.]
It’s utterly bizarre Alan that you think Obama is socialist. He didn’t even aspire for the depth of health care reform Nixon or Teddy Roosevelt or Truman or any of them sought. We they socialists too?
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