Obama takes opportunity Palin missed

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Obama takes opportunity Palin missed
Jonathan Martin (Politico)   – Thu Jan 13, 4:27 am ET

In the span of a single news cycle, Republicans got a jarring reminder of two forces that could prevent them from retaking the presidency in next year.

At sunrise in the East on Wednesday, Sarah Palin demonstrated that she has little interest — or capacity — in moving beyond her brand of grievance-based politics. And at sundown in the West, Barack Obama reminded even his critics of his ability to rally disparate Americans around a message of reconciliation.

Palin was defiant, making the case in a taped speech she posted online why the nation’s heated political debate should continue unabated even after Saturday’s tragedy in Tucson. And, seeming to follow her own advice, she swung back at her opponents, deeming the inflammatory notion that she was in any way responsible for the shootings a “blood libel.”

Obama, speaking at a memorial service at the University of Arizona, summoned the country to honor the victims, and especially 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green, by treating one another with more respect. “I want America to be as good as Christina imagined it,” he said.

It’s difficult to imagine a starker contrast.

[snipped]

But for much of the eight-minute talk she was defensive and showed little interest in doing anything other than channeling the understandable resentment of her ideological kinsmen over the blame-casting. And that won’t appeal much to a political center that — even while they may not think Palin is in any way responsible for Tucson — preferred more conciliation even before the jarring attempted assassination of a member of Congress.

Even on the right, her talk was seen as a missed opportunity.

“The strongest way to rise above would have been to talk about suffering, tragedy, hope, strength and recovery,” said former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer. “Instead, she followed the more conventional political route and made it about herself rather than the victims.”

At a moment when even the famously combative Fox News chief Roger Ailes was saying take it down a notch, his most famous contract employee did just the opposite.

[snipped]

Further, Palin’s pushback served to reinforce the message behind Obama’s speech, providing the president with an opportunity to transcend both the immediate finger-pointing on the left at Palin and other conservatives and her angry denunciation and counterattack.

What attracted so many centrist voters to then-candidate Obama in 2008 wasn’t any of his policy prescriptions but rather his pledge to change the conversation in Washington. He hasn’t done it yet and has, at times, not lived up to his own stated desire to bring down the temperature. But his fundamental political worldview is that most Americans prefer conciliation over confrontation.

And, speaking to a capacity basketball arena filled with leaders of both parties and those touched by the tragedy, he appealed to that spirit.

“Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let us 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 our hopes and dreams are bound together,” implored the president.

The speech was a vivid example of the promise of Obama and a reminder of why, even after so many missteps, he remains a formidable figure.

[snipped]

What few Republicans wanted to say for attribution — but what was manifestly clear — was that Palin had made Obama look even bigger than he was.

Her argument for conflict-oriented politics lent itself as the near-ideal foil for his plea for civility. It was a clear contrast and, for Republicans, a dispiriting one.

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