Two Steps Forward, Only One Step Back

Even National Review's Rich Lowry thought President Obama's speech at the Tucson Memorial Service "magnificent."   I'm not so sure.  Oh, I suppose that all things considered  it was good enough, but....  (You knew a "but" was coming, didn't you?)

As president, Obama represents the entire country and is therefore entitled, indeed expected to use the first person plural pronoun "we" when he delivers a speech.  This is particularly so when the speech is of the nature of the one he gave yesterday.  However, when he came to that part of his address where he said that "we" all need to dial the rhetoric back a notch, I must confess, it bugged me...and more than a little.  The President:

But 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 happen to think differently than we do -- it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we're talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds....Bad things happen, and we have to guard against simple explanations in the aftermath.  For the truth is none of us can know exactly what triggered this vicious attack. None of us can know with any certainty what might have stopped these shots from being fired, or what thoughts lurked in the inner recesses of a violent man's mind. Yes, we have to examine all the facts behind this tragedy. We cannot and will not be passive in the face of such violence. We should be willing to challenge old assumptions in order to lessen the prospects of such violence in the future. But what we cannot do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on each other....As we discuss these issues, let each of us do so with a good dose of humility. Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let's use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy and remind ourselves of all the ways that our hopes and dreams are bound together.

It is no doubt true that both sides in our national debate, in order to buttress their respective cases, sometimes employ rhetoric that is undeniably over-the-top.  But it most certainly is not true that both sides do so equally. 

Note first that we are only recently removed from a long period during which most of the Left was inflicted with some strain or other of  "Bush Derangement Syndrome."  I'm referring here not to the many occasions in which they reflexively disagreed with the previous Administration over policy, but instead to the manner in which they disagreed.  "Bush lied and people died" was perhaps the least of their vitriol.  Note also that this syndrome was replaced not by a return on their part to some semblance of civility, but by what appears to be an even more toxic, "Palin Derangement Syndrome."  Finally, and most importantly, in the present case, it is the Left, not the Right, that jumped to unwarranted conclusions about the cause of Saturday's massacre,  immediately making scurrilous accusations about who was to blame and why.

"We" are not the cause of the ugliness that has marked the last few days since the shooting.  What ought to have been a somber national occasion, uniting us all in grief and sympathy for the victims and those closest to them, was sullied by the Left, and by they alone.  The same Left that comprises Obama's principal political base and that he, as a politician, most directly represents.  

While I do not think Obama's words yesterday were delivered cynically, with the explicit purpose of protecting the Left by making us all somehow equally culpable for what occurred in Tucson or its aftermath, I do believe it may well have that effect nevertheless.  By asserting that we all are responsible for the current, less-than-civil rhetorical climate and that we all must share in the burden of improving it, he made it very difficult for the next person to argue vigorously about almost any issue.  This is not good for conservatives.

Even before the speech, David Harsanyi, for one, sensed that something like this was happening anyway and warned conservatives against falling for it.

But this impending conversation about civility and our climate of hate is not only a useless one, it also is meant to discourage dissent. It is a rigged talk, because not only do we — by any standard and context available — reside in a highly civil and peaceful political system, violence is almost non-existent. The Tea Party didn't pick up pitchforks and storm the White House; they knocked off Republicans in primaries.  Now, we may want to have a conversation about our policies regarding the mentally ill or the need for more gun control (though I may disagree with the outcome) because, after all, they are relevant to the horrible events of the past week. But conservatives should be wary of any national dialogue about civility or any beer summit about the specter of political violence.  It is nothing more than a setup.

How, exactly, are conservatives being setup?  Imagine, for example, the debate to come in the Congress as the Republicans move to repeal or restrain much of the Democrat Party's agenda.  The disagreements are likely to become quite heated again.  Or will they?  Will Republicans feel as free now as they did before to argue passionately against that agenda?  Might it be the case now that they will feel the need to muzzle themselves somewhat lest they be shamed by the Democrats, along with a compliant media, who, on cue, can be counted on to resurrect the recent memory of Tucson?

Of course, you may protest that this will work against the Democrats as well.  Perhaps, but as I mentioned in an earlier post, much of the Democrats' craziness is already discounted by the American public.  The Democrats are the party of the Left and as such they are identified with a good measure of radicalism.  Radicals, as everybody knows, say and do outrageous things, that is what we expect of them.  It's kind of like Bill Clinton with his numerous sexual indiscretions and serial lies and perjuries.  Why, that's just Bill being Bill after all.  Tell us something we don't already know.

Conservatives, by contrast, do not enjoy this same political advantage.  When we speak too loudly or intemperately, we pay a price for it simply because it is not what the public expects of us.  Obama's speech served to highlight this already existing distinction.   

Unfortunately, besides calling attention to it, I'm not sure much of anything can be done to arrest this  dynamic now.  And especially so since the President's speech has been so well-received, by conservatives even.  But then we've been called hate-mongers before and it didn't stop us.  We shouldn't let an otherwise well-delivered speech stop us either.