President Barack Obama's
capacity for hypocrisy knows no bounds. Addressing the nation from Arizona, a state whose citizen's he has ridiculed, brow beaten and sued, he forgot it all and was true to his chameleon like form, claiming no role for the current political strife in the nation and subtly suggesting his opposition was responsible for a mentally ill person of no party affiliation who shot to death Republicans, Democrats and children.
"Obama settled on a theme of challenging the country to have a debate that is worthy of those who died. He tapped into the raging debate about the role of incendiary rhetoric without dwelling on it.
Right. Look, this guy wants his critics to go away, and thinks people dying in Arizona gets it done.
"Let's remember that it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy. It did not," the president said.
Yeah. Who is the instigator of the unrest we find in the country today? Whose policies were forced through against the will of the people? Whose Deputy Chief of Staff, in commenting to Democrat congressmen over their troubled town hall meetings, offered them the following:
"If you get hit, we will punch back twice as hard"
and who was the President who gave us this quote:
"If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun".
Not exactly a reach across the isle kind of guy.
After offering personal accounts of every person who died, he challenged anyone listening to think of how to honor their memories, and he was not shy about offering direction. He admonished against any instinct to point blame or to drift into political pettiness or to latch onto simple explanations that may have no merit.
Whose party looked to blame this shooting on Sarah Palin, Mr. President?
"At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized — at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do — it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds," the president said."
Most people would be ashamed to try to make political hay out of this tragedy. Not so for Mr. Obama. That's quite enough, Mr. President. Leave off giving advice to others and focus on taking it for yourself.
Update
The always reliable
Bobby B has a similar assessment of the President's efforts to teach the nation about civility... something akin to don't piss in my ear and tell me it's raining. He's done. He doesn't want to argue any more, no sense in talking to people that aren't going to listen.
I empathezize with Bob and hear his
"Don't throw your pearls before swine" wisdom. For my part, I'm not quite there yet. I still am willing to argue the conservative side, not that I will ever convince the die-hard types that have no trust in the people but place all their trust in government, but for others that may read the argument and be encouraged by it.
Update II
Blog pal Ilion has entered the fray with some interesting comments on the inconsistencies of the left leaning world view. Catch it
here.
We're not getting much of Mark Steyn lately, though of course he still will be found chatting with us all on the Rush Limbaugh show, and stopping off to speak with long time friend Hugh Hewitt:
David Warren has entered the discussion on the term 'Blood libel'. In truth, he had entered it earlier when he used the expression in a 
