President Obama makes a statement in the White House briefing room about the bombings that took place at the Boston Marathon April 15, 2013 in Washington, D.C. / WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES
Americans as a people "refuse to be terrorized," President Obama assured Tuesday, one day after twin bombs at the Boston Marathon left three of them dead and more than 100 others seriously wounded. On Thursday morning he arrives in Boston for an interfaith vigil honoring the victims of an attack being termed an act of "terror" but about which otherwise little is yet understood.
Commending the first responders, marathon runners and those at the scene and around the city of Boston who rose to the occasion and offered their assistance in the wake of the bombings, Mr. Obama on Tuesday offered as both a comforting hand to those shaken by the tragedy as well as a cautioning resolution to the threatening ethereal: "If you want to know who we are, what America is, how we respond to evil, that's it -selflessly, compassionately, unafraid."
"Consoler-in-chief": It's a role the president is familiar with, having been cast in it multiple times over the course of his first four years in the White House.
Obama to attend interfaith service honoring Boston victims
Obama: "The American people refuse to be terrorized"
Too early? Politics creeps into Boston Marathon aftermath
There was the mass shooting in 2009 at the Fort Hood, Texas army base, which killed 13 and injured 30. The 2011 assassination attempt of then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, killed six and hurt 13 others. Last summer, a gunman sprayed a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., with bullets, leaving 12 dead and almost 60 others gravely wounded. And then there was Newtown, Conn. - a massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School that killed 20 first-graders and six of their educators - hurtling into the spotlight the most potentially roiling debate over gun control in decades.
Now, anew in his second term, the president stands on a stage set that begs that tried-and-true consoler costume, but offers a script yet unknown to him: No defined suspects, no cut-and-dried crime scene, no natural transition to a political fight as catharsis for the victims. It's sheer terrorism.
He has history as a guide. Following Giffords's shooting in 2011, the New York Times published a piece called "Executive Consolation," outlining moments of despair that have tried presidents "as they try to strike a precise balance of resolve and sympathy."
On the evening of Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush from the Oval Office vowed to crack down on terrorism; three days later at Ground Zero, wielding a bullhorn, he responded to a worker who cried, "We can't hear you," pledging, "The rest of the world hears you - and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!"
In 1995, President Bill Clinton invoked scripture from the Bible to soothe a nation unnerved by the Oklahoma City bombing, and urged Americans to "overcome evil with good."
President Ronald Reagan in 1986, after an entire country had watched the space shuttle Challenger explode with seven astronauts on board, made the case that their work was not in vain: "I know it is hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen," he said. "It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave."
Summoning more or less the same level of rhetoric for which he's become known in the face of national tragedy, Mr. Obama, now, bears the same task Reagan did almost 30 years ago. Ahead of the Gipper's '86 address, R.W. Apple Jr. of the New York Times explained the president would have to "identify with the ensuing national grief - lead the mourning, in a sense - but he must also confine it and direct it," else the nation's mood would "evolve into a sense of national despair and futility."
Source
He has history as a guide. Following Giffords's shooting in 2011, the New York Times published a piece called "Executive Consolation," outlining moments of despair that have tried presidents "as they try to strike a precise balance of resolve and sympathy."
On the evening of Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush from the Oval Office vowed to crack down on terrorism; three days later at Ground Zero, wielding a bullhorn, he responded to a worker who cried, "We can't hear you," pledging, "The rest of the world hears you - and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!"
In 1995, President Bill Clinton invoked scripture from the Bible to soothe a nation unnerved by the Oklahoma City bombing, and urged Americans to "overcome evil with good."
President Ronald Reagan in 1986, after an entire country had watched the space shuttle Challenger explode with seven astronauts on board, made the case that their work was not in vain: "I know it is hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen," he said. "It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave."
Summoning more or less the same level of rhetoric for which he's become known in the face of national tragedy, Mr. Obama, now, bears the same task Reagan did almost 30 years ago. Ahead of the Gipper's '86 address, R.W. Apple Jr. of the New York Times explained the president would have to "identify with the ensuing national grief - lead the mourning, in a sense - but he must also confine it and direct it," else the nation's mood would "evolve into a sense of national despair and futility."
Source
.
.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment