# Obama's speech at the Tuscon Memorial **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 13, 2011, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-speech-at-the-tuscon-memorial/567420 "2011-01-13T03:16:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2011, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-speech-at-the-tuscon-memorial/567420/101 "2011-01-17T02:01:40Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > I’m not pissed off at him. I know he didn’t have any choice but to do this. I’m pissed off. . .actually, pissed off is too strong a word. . .I’m slightly sad about the nation that we make our presidents do things like this, and that we consider it appropriate for them to do so. 😕 What, you’d rather live in a country where they **didn’t?!** Isn’t this kind of thing just routine work for any prez or prime minister? It does some little good and no harm at all. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2011, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-speech-at-the-tuscon-memorial/567420/102 "2011-01-17T02:06:42Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > What was the national crisis? The national crisis **is** RW [Eliminationism.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=533537) Loughner might not have been any part of that, but, willy-nilly, he became a living expression of it nevertheless. Same way Timothy McVeigh really did (yes, really did) stand for the “Patriot” militias regardless of whether he had ever actually been in one. Same way Squeaky Fromme in her madness stood for the likes of the Weather Underground (even though her only known organizational affiliation was with the Manson Family). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2011, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-speech-at-the-tuscon-memorial/567420/103 "2011-01-17T02:08:52Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > People are murdered all the time in the United States without a President-filling stadium event. There was no crisis that needed resolve or support. :rolleyes: You can **and should** expect exactly this kind of response whenever the victim or intended victim is a Congresscritter. > [@Magiver](#): > > It would be just as admirable in the capital building. No, it wouldn’t. Think about it. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2011, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-speech-at-the-tuscon-memorial/567420/104 "2011-01-17T02:16:45Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > And he’s not a robot, he’s a man. Ermm . . . Actually . . . Well, never mind. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2011, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-speech-at-the-tuscon-memorial/567420/105 "2011-01-17T02:22:30Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Contrast that with the speakers at the Paul Wellstone funeral, and you see how this kind of occasion can blow up in your face if you try to take political advantage. But Obama is not that tone-deaf. :mad: :mad: :mad: If you want the Straight Dope on Wellstone’s funeral, go to [_Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right,_](http://www.amazon.com/Lies-Lying-Liars-Tell-Them/dp/0525947647) by Al Franken (Penguin Group 2003), Chapter 25: “‘This Was _Not_ a Memorial to Paul Wellstone’: A Case Study in Right-Wing Lies”: > [@](#): > > The crowd at the event, which had been billed as a celebration of the lives of the deceased, had a raucous energy. From where I was sitting, it all seemed just incredibly natural and human, the way grieving people often jump between crying and laughing. A group of Indians did some tribal drumming. A Soul band called “Sounds of Blackness” as dignitaries filed in. When the crowd saw Clinton on the Jumbotron, they went nuts. Same for Hilary, for Gore, and for Mondale, who was replacing Wellstone on the ballot. When Trent Lott’s face appeared on the screen, a few people booed. It seemed like good-natured ribbing. Lott broke out in a grin and waved. > > \ > > One of the eight eulogies that night, given by Wellstone’s best friend Rick Kahn, ended with a political call to arms that went over the top. . .. > > The trouble began when Kahn put too fine a point on what the crowd had to do to keep Paul’s legacy alive. “'We can redeem the promise of his life if you help us win this election for Paul Wellstone!” Huge cheers. He repeated variations of this several times, and the crowd stayed right with him. I could see how someone watching on TV might find this blatantly political battle cry just a bit too partisan for a memorial service. > > \ > > By one estimate, at least 630,000 people in Minnesota watched at least part of the memorial on TV. Reasonable people of goodwill were genuinely offended. And to people who only saw the ten-second clips that were later repeated and repeated on TV, it looked like Kahn and the crowd were being foot-stompingly partisan – that Wellstone’s death was being used for political gain. > > But Kahn’s speech was also full of phrases like “[our] hearts are now shattered” and “tonight we are filled to overflowing with grief and sorrow.” This speech was coming from someone who was crushed by the deaths of his best friend, his best friend’s wife, his best friend’s daughter, and three other very close friends. Yeah, it had some inappropriate moments. But I assumed people would understand, and cut the man a little slack. The next day the Republican Noise Machine cranked into action. Vin Weber called the event a “complete, total, absolute sham,” and that dishonest and despicable meme was fertilized and sown throughout the media. Kellyanne Fitzpatrick Conway claimed that the audience was instructed by a screen when to cheer and when to jeer, like a game show audience. (Not true – but there was a monitor for closed captioning for the hearing impaired. Would you expect less at a leading liberal’s funeral?) Rush Limbaugh claimed the mourners of one of the most beloved politicians in Minnesota history were a “planted audience” and “bused in the by AFL-CIO.” Neither statement had a shred of truth in it. 20,000 mourners attended – much more than the organizers expected; the stadium was only built to hold 16,000. The booing of Trent Lott was embellished into an orchestrated mass demonstration of anti-Pub hate. Christopher Caldwell wrote in _The Weekly Standard_ that viewers “turned on television to watch a solemn commemoration and found a rally devoted to a politics that was twisted, pagan, childish, inhumane, and even totalitarian beyond their word nightmares.” The liars just kept repeating their damned shameless arrogant lies until they became the common wisdom. Og damn them all! May their hemorrhoids resist surgery! May their tongues swell and their genitals wither! May the fleas of a thousand camels infest their pubes! :mad: :mad: :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2011, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-speech-at-the-tuscon-memorial/567420/106 "2011-01-17T04:01:00Z")
Franken is (no surprise) lying. I live in Minnesota, and I did at the time of the funeral. > [@](#): > > The next day the Republican Noise Machine cranked into action. Only if you consider the editorial page of the _Minneapolis Star and Tribune_, Jesse Ventura, and pretty much everyone else who was there and had the reaction I describe as part of this imaginary Minnesota right wing smear machine. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2011, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-speech-at-the-tuscon-memorial/567420/107 "2011-01-17T04:07:06Z")
I was at the Wellstone service. You’re completely full of shit. Franken’s description was accurate. It was several hours of respectful memorializing, interrupted by about ten minutes of politicking by Wellstone’s best friend. The meme that the wellstone memorial was a political rally is right wing media mythology. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2011, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-speech-at-the-tuscon-memorial/567420/108 "2011-01-17T04:28:45Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > You’re completely full of shit. Dial it back in **GD**. [/Moderating] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-speech-at-the-tuscon-memorial/567420.md?page=5)