| 00:00:01 | Onewoman erroll giffords of
to recover, we remember
the six who died, including a
federal judge and a 9-year-old
girl.
|
| 00:00:10 | Captioned by the
national captioning institute
org--
noc rec 2>> hello, I am mark shields
sitting in for gordon peterson.
|
| 00:00:33 | Weeks like this make no sense.
|
| 00:00:35 | But once we paid tribute to the
victims.
|
| 00:00:38 | óqNAFUPRESIDENT OBAMA LED A MEMORIAL
Service in tuscon.
|
| 00:00:44 | >> The loss of these wonderful
people should mak everyone of
us strive to be better, to be
better in our private lives,
better friends and neighbors,
co-workers, parents.
|
| 00:00:58 | And if, as has been discussed in
recent days, their death helped
usher in more civility in our
public discourse, let us
remember it is not because a
simple lack of civility caused
this tragedy.
|
| 00:01:15 | It did not.
|
| 00:01:16 | But rather, because only a more
civil and honest public
discourse can help us face up to
the challenges of our nation in
a way that would make them
proud.
|
| 00:01:30 | [Applause]
>> at times like these, the
president is not simply the
commander in chief, he is also
expected to be the comforter in
chief.
|
| 00:01:41 | Colby king, do you think barack
obama successfully comforted the
nation wednesday?
|
| 00:01:46 | >> He covered addition to
speaking to the nation, but he
spoke for the nation also
speaking to tuscon, suffering
through the terrible tragedy,
and he cast the holding where it
belongs, on the problems of an
individual out there, and
not the finger-pointing and
point scoring that took place
that was really unseemly prior
to wednesday.
|
| 00:02:13 | >>>> I think the president
probably put an end to that
school is in no that was started
in the mainstream press,
PARTICULARLY -- aqNAFUSCURRILOUS AND
Innuendo that was started in the
mainstream press, particularly
"the new york times," and hisnoc rec 2
allies on the left, that this
was a product of the political
right.
|
| 00:02:43 | President obama refuted that,
which was healthy, but it was a
scandal what happened in the
four days between the attack and
the president's speech of this
unwarranted and obvious to
discredit -- obviously
discredited attacks that made it
glenn beck and sarah palin
accessories to a series of
murders of which they had
nothing to do.
|
| 00:03:06 | >> Comforter in chief?
|
| 00:03:11 | >> He did that as well, but it
was important to stop the malice
and incivil discourse of the
days prior to the memorial
service.
|
| 00:03:22 | >> We cannot have a two-minute
conversation without a little
bit of --
>> you don't think --
>>bqNAFU THE PRESIDENT, WHEN HE
Campaigned for the presidency,
really wanted to get away from
that.
|
| 00:03:38 | This is in some ways his comfort
zone, the kind of c@onversation
he wants the country to have.
|
| 00:03:46 | He was eloquent in promoting
that and getting the country
away, at least temporarily, from
doing that kind of thing.
|
| 00:03:56 | >> Jeanne cummings, your
reaction?
|
| 00:03:59 | >> Ino amrec 2 not sure he covered the
nation, but I think he put
events in context.
|
| 00:04:07 | He put that in the context of
the victims, the best way we can
honor them is to be better
ourselves.
|
| 00:04:14 | That is the kind of voice that
president obama had during the
campaign that appealed to so
many americans did in that
respect, he had a positive
impact with that speech.
|
| 00:04:27 | >> Even his strongest admirers
HAVE ACKNOWLEDGEcqD THAT HE,
Unlike president reagan or
president clinton before him,
has until now failed to connect
emotionally with the american
people.
|
| 00:04:38 | Do you think this week was a
change and that?
|
| 00:04:41 | >> I don't know if we have seen
any real sea change.
|
| 00:04:45 | Wenoc rec 2 have watched president obama
now for 3 or four years as a
candidatenoc rec 2, and his first two
years in office.
|
| 00:04:54 | He is who he is.
|
| 00:04:55 | He does not amount to the way
clinton does.
|
| 00:04:58 | -- Does not emote the way
clinton does good to the degree
he connects to the american
people, he sets out to do that
at an intellectual level.
|
| 00:05:12 | He is compassionate.
|
| 00:05:14 | If you look at polls, people
believe he is compassionate, and
they believe he is smart and has
good intentions.
|
| 00:05:20 | I think that is to obama is and
that is how he will connect, and
not as that emotional -- not at
that emotional level that reagan
and clinton could evoke.
|
| 00:05:30 | >> Nina?
|
| 00:05:32 | >> There was only one moment in
the speech were in use of
personal emotion, when he
started to talk about christina
green.
|
| 00:05:42 | You could see him pull himself
together.
|
| 00:05:45 | But he is a publicly
dispassionate person.
|
| 00:05:49 | I don't think it is going to
change.
|
| 00:05:52 | >> I don't see him that way, i
know a lot of people don't see
HIdqM THAT WAY.
|
| 00:05:59 | I SEE HIM IN CROWDS AND SEEdq
Crowds respond to him.
|
| 00:06:03 | It depends, I guess, on where
you are.
|
| 00:06:07 | I see him just inside people and
connect with people in a way --
excite people and attacked with
people in a way that even reagan
did, initially -- connect with
people no way that not even
reagan did, initially.
|
| 00:06:23 | >>dqNAFU HE HAD A PROBLEM, A CROWD
That was -- appeared in at
appropriate -- inappropriate, a
lot of according and holleringno
and cherry pie and it is as it
stood on its in -- a in hooting
and hollering in an auditorium
he was uneasy.
|
| 00:06:49 | He walked in with michelle,
there was cheering, and he
looked uneasy but what he did in
his speech, the first half when
he talked about the dead, again,
a he looked slightly
uncomfortable when that would
receive applause.
|
| 00:07:07 | Then he reached the point with
that electric moment when he
said she opened her eyes,
"gab@by opened her eyes," and
that is when the motion that
everyone experience was in tune
with the enthusiasm of the
audience.
|
| 00:07:23 | He repeated it four times, and
the second half of the speech,
inspirational, referring to the
9-year-old girl, was successful.
|
| 00:07:32 | It was an amazing display of
oratorio skill in capturing and
harnessing an audience.
|
| 00:07:40 | >> High praise indeed.
|
| 00:07:44 | Sarah palin talked about the
shootings in a video posted on
facebook.
|
| 00:07:47 | >> Acts of monstrous criminality
begin at end with the criminals
who commit them, not
collectively with all the
citizens of a snotate, not those
who listen to talk radio, not
with maps of the screen
districts used by both sides of
the aisle.
|
| 00:08:02 | Journalists and pundits should
not manufacture a blood libel
that serves only to incite a
very hatred and violence that
they purport to condemn.
|
| 00:08:11 | >> Pundits, bloggers, tv talkers
had a lot to say about sarah
palin this week.
|
| 00:08:18 | She released a video on facebook
to comment on the tuscon
no
did she unintentionally make a
story about yourself and not --
herself and not tuscon?
|
| 00:08:31 | >> She did not make it about
herself.
|
| 00:08:35 | Within@ hours of the shooting,
which had no connection to her
what to overcome her name was
linked in the ap, "new york
times," all over the airwaves,
linking her and onother
conservatives with the shooting
spread this is a species that
should never had to be made
there was nenover a shred of
evidence about any connection.
|
| 00:08:53 | By mid-week, we learned from a
friend of the loughner,
he did not listen to political
radio, did not watch tv news.
|
| 00:09:03 | He was not interested in the
news, not in the politics, was
not of left or right.
|
| 00:09:08 | This was an act of prchizophrenic.
|
| 00:09:12 | There's no question he was
acting under mental illness.
|
| 00:09:16 | Not a shred of evidence.
|
| 00:09:18 | Why did her name come up?
|
| 00:09:18 | Those who brought it up are the
ones who have to answer to that
that was calumny, and I am
waiting for apologies from those
who raise that name from the
beginning.
|
| 00:09:33 | >> Sarah palin is a central
figure, and that whole thing of
"blood libel," there was intense
reaction.
|
| 00:09:43 | >> I agree with charles that
there is certainly no evidence
she is linked -- he is linked
with her in any fashion.
|
| 00:09:53 | However, once she chose to make
a video, then she bears
responsibility for what she said
in her own video.
|
| 00:10:01 | In that sense, I think it isno
widely thought -- well,
republicans I have talked to, as
well as observers of politics,
believe that the tone was off,
and that was more about what she
experienced, and was widely
upset about.
|
| 00:10:19 | But if you are going to decide
to make a statement, she would
have been better off being more
attuned to the victims and the
tragedy that had occurred in
tuscon.
|
| 00:10:34 | It seems to me that sarah palin
seems ambivalent about her
future.
|
| 00:10:40 | She has spent a lot of time
doing things that probably don't
set up a presidential campaign,
like the reality tv show.
|
| 00:10:47 | Now she is moving@ in a different
direction, perhaps trying to at
least reserve the right and do
more professional things.
|
| 00:10:54 | But in that environment, she has
got to start doing it right, and
she missed it.
|
| 00:10:59 | >> She did not say anything --
she went aground for awhile,
then she does this super-
polished the video in front of
the fireplace with an american
flag, almost as if it is a
presidential arrest,
teleprompter, will hold 9 yds.
|
| 00:11:18 | She does it the day the
president is going to speech.
|
| 00:11:22 | I don't know who her advisers
are, but that is not smart
politics.
|
| 00:11:27 | Just assuming the @noc rec 2"the blood
libel", it is out of ignorance,
which is what I do assume, you
don't make a story about your
denial.
|
| 00:11:39 | You have a conversation with
a friend or reporter, but not
with that timing.
|
| 00:11:46 | It was such a strategic blunder.
|
| 00:11:48 | >> Colby king, michael gerson, a
bush
speechwriter, said that sarah
palin pastas addition wsarah
palin -- -- sarah palin's@ video
was ronald reagan and spiro
agnew.
|
| 00:12:13 | >> Sorry, I don't buy that
description.
|
| 00:12:16 | It is cute but it does not do
anything for me.
|
| 00:12:20 | Charles scott hammer said --
charles krauthammer said that
after the election, seven polish
and go back to alaska and read
--@ sarah palin should go back to
alaska and read.
|
| 00:12:32 | That is good advice to ta.
|
| 00:12:36 | The use of "blood libel," is out
OF IGNORANCE.kq
I don't think she understood the
concept that is about.
|
| 00:12:48 | The reason that they made the
connection, wrongly, sarah palin
to the shootings is because of
some of the imagery she used in
her own political rhetoric.
|
| 00:13:00 | It is not unique to talk about
prosser's and targets and things
like that, but when you say we
will resort to second and then
in response -- second amendment
response, but don't retreat,
remote, you'll have that
immediately come to mind --
don't retreat, reload, you will
have that immediately come to
mind.
|
| 00:13:28 | Was she unfairly attacked?
|
| 00:13:30 | Yes.
|
| 00:13:32 | BUT SHE HAS THIS PROBLEMlqNAFU OF
Going too far, and she went to
far with that stain of blood
libel and made herself the
victim, and she did not have to
do that.
|
| 00:13:42 | >> Just one point, it was
sharron@ angle who said "second
"
>> one other point, the person
who talked about being in the
crosshairs is the congresswoman
who was shot, and she said at
the time that words have
consequences.
|
| 00:13:58 | >> CHARLES THAT SOMETHING YOUlq
Wanted to add about blood libel.
|
| 00:14:04 | >> "The wallnoc rec 2 street journal" had
bad term in headlined the day
before in an opinion piece in
nobody -- that term in a
headline today before in an
opinion piece and up to complain
at all.
|
| 00:14:18 | Alan dershowitz, a liberal
democrat, a defender choose from@
the time sharansky to the
israeli defense forces, said
there was nothing wrong with
that.
|
| 00:14:29 | He himself used the word in a
report about the gaza
declaration, and the anti-
defamation league admitted that
it is @common parlance for a
false accusation.
|
| 00:14:51 | >> But they criticized her use
of the term.
|
| 00:14:54 | >> They had a mild rebuke after
admitting --
>> I read every word of the deed
statement.
|
| 00:15:03 | It was a criticism.
|
| 00:15:03 | -- The adl statement.
|
| 00:15:06 | It was a criticism.
|
| 00:15:07 | >> One overlooked part of this
is national mental health
policy, basically
institutionalizing people with a
desperate any political
implication when it comes to
this -- it institutionalizing
people with elvis.
|
| 00:15:23 | Any political implication what
comes to this?
|
| 00:15:25 | >> What reason facilities are in
trouble is because of funding
cuts, and we are not in a
position to throw money at them
again.
|
| 00:15:35 | We have had a virginia tech, a
number of these incidents, and
we're learning from them that
the community college he
attended is coming under
CRITICISM, BUTnqNAFU FRANKLY, THEY
Paid attention and try to get
him into treatment.
|
| 00:15:51 | It may well be this could have
been the next virginia tech if
they had noprojected a
student body.
|
| 00:15:58 | Even if we cannot fix
everything legislatively or
whatever, it is a conversation
that must take place.
|
| 00:16:04 | WE HAVE TO CONTINUE TnqONAFU LEARN
From these incidents.
|
| 00:16:06 | >> In some ways this is a legal
question.
|
| 00:16:10 | If you think about an
individual, one can add the
state in voluntarily lock you
up?
|
| 00:16:17 | That is the criterion for
denying you the right to have a
gun.
|
| 00:16:21 | Short of that, or criminal
conviction of some kind, what
are you going to say to people
you cannot have a certain right?
|
| 00:16:33 | People are not always crazy who
are accused of being crazy.
|
| 00:16:37 | On the other hand, we have a lot
of a very disturbed people out
there walking out and we don't
seem to have developed a way,
and I cannot think of one, to
force them into treatment.
|
| 00:16:47 | >> It has to do with the way in
which -- there is a stigma
associated with it.
|
| 00:16:57 | We don't talk about it, we don't
like to identify it as a problem@
with an individual in families.
|
| 00:17:02 | oqNAFUWE HAVE MADE A TERRIBLE MISTAKE
When we fail to great enough
mental health facilities to
handle people.
|
| 00:17:12 | Nowe hc ave2 a lot of people, look
outside, walking the streets who
ought to be getting the kinds of
services they are not receiving.
|
| 00:17:20 | They are talking to themselves
but we have all seen them.
|
| 00:17:22 | We know what this is about.
|
| 00:17:23 | >> Charles, the reality is that
it is not a powerful political
lobby.
|
| 00:17:29 | >> It also goes against our
ideas of autonomy.
|
| 00:17:33 | We thought it is a good idea to
have given up 50 years ago
putting people in mental
institutions -- snake pits
there were called, and
sometimes often is.
|
| 00:17:47 | The problem is we had swung so
hard to the other side.
|
| 00:17:50 | Every day we stepped over a
homeless person on the the
street who should be in a
shelter, cared for, which a
MEAL, WARMTH, AND THE REPEAT,pq
And we don't come because of the
worship of this autonomy to the
other end of this noskill is that
we end up with a virginia tech
or loughner in tuscon.
|
| 00:18:10 | >> How will the shootings at
arizona to the work of the
congress?
|
| 00:18:16 | >> Our hearts are broken but our
spirit is not.
|
| 00:18:22 | THIS IS A TIME TO LOCKpq ARMNAS AND
A prayer for the fallen and when
did -- and wounded and resolve
to carry on a dialogue of
democracy.
|
| 00:18:32 | They may not yet have all the
final answers, but we already
have the answer that matters
most, that we are americans and
will make it through this
difficult period.
|
| 00:18:47 | We will have the last word.
|
| 00:18:48 | >> Speaker of the house john@
boehner.
|
| 00:18:52 | He leads a house understandably
devastated about congresswoman
gabrielle giffords and the
events in tuscon.
|
| 00:19:03 | Jeanne cummings, the congress is
scheduled to start work next
week repealing health care but
is there a chance we will see a
difference in tone and rhetoric
and substance?
|
| 00:19:10 | >> It is a certainty that we
WIqqLL SEE SOME CHANGE.
|
| 00:19:15 | The speaker is talking to
members, telling them to be
mindful what happened this week,
and also to be mindful of the
messages from the midterm.
|
| 00:19:24 | John boehner from the get go has
set a very dignified ne in the
house.
|
| 00:19:33 | That is that he took out of the
election -- that is something he
took out of the@ election, that
the people want the government
to do its job but to stop all
the cats fighting.
|
| 00:19:47 | John boehner has absorber that
message and is trying to pass
that on to members.
|
| 00:19:51 | "
what they say is that it will be
different, that it will be faced
on policy disputes,
disagreements, rather than
ideological disagreements.
|
| 00:20:06 | It will be, I think, one of the
first health care debates we see
where we don't have a lot of
rage and fire and fury.
|
| 00:20:14 | >> Boehner has done some shrewd
things to take a couple of
people out of potential
leadership decisions to add very
incendiary rhetoric.
|
| 00:20:25 | That is before this happened
pratt having control over the
herd of cats he has got s going
to be extremely difficult.
|
| 00:20:36 | But if people can abstain from
calling each other the enemy or
socialists and communists, we
will have come out at least for
a week or two, done pretty well.
|
| 00:20:51 | I suspect that for republicans,
this is not what they planned.
|
| 00:20:56 | This takes some of the fire out
of the debate.
|
| 00:20:58 | It does.
|
| 00:20:59 | >> What do you call bernie
sanders if not a socialist?
|
| 00:21:04 | But on a serious note, the
speaker has done really well.
|
| 00:21:08 | He said the right tone from the
beginning after the election.
|
| 00:21:13 | He did not have a spirit of
trying.
|
| 00:21:16 | He talked about being given a
lease on the house -- he did not
have a spirit of triumph.
|
| 00:21:24 | He talked about being given a
lease on the house.
|
| 00:21:27 | There will be no change in the
agenda.
|
| 00:21:29 | It will be a change in the tone.
|
| 00:21:31 | There is no question that there
will be a change in tone to by
no c rec 2everybody.
|
| 00:21:36 | I think postponing the activity
of house for a week was
completely appropriate, and
presuming on a quiet note.
|
| 00:21:45 | Tiss -- tough
issues, and objectives@ on health
care reform is the proper id.
|
| 00:21:55 | ItqNAFU THINK IT WILL LAST FOR A
While, but no change in
substa.
|
| 00:22:01 | >> Colby, do you share the
optimism of your colleagues?
|
| 00:22:06 | >> Know.
|
| 00:22:09 | There will be a temporary
change, but the tone will not
change.
|
| 00:22:13 | There are consequences to
@
some may like the idea of --
when you concentrate on what
tq THEY'RE TRYING TO ACHIEVE BY
Repealing the health care reform
bill, it is the kind of thing
that stirs the juices.
|
| 00:22:28 | People will react to it.
|
| 00:22:29 | We will see it comes through in
the rhetoric of the floor of the
house, as it should.
|
| 00:22:35 | This is a very serious, serious
undertaking that the republicans
are about to do, because they
know they cannot achieve what
they want, but they will do it
because it drives, a political
point.
|
| 00:22:47 | Politically, you have to respond
to that.
|
| 00:22:51 | >> Final thoughts on this story.
|
| 00:22:55 | >> I want to live up to her
expectations.
|
| 00:22:58 | [Applause]
I want our democracy to be as
good as christina imagined it.
|
| 00:23:04 | I want america to be as good as
she imagined it.
|
| 00:23:07 | All of us, we should do
everything we can do to make
SURE THAT THIS COUNTRY LIVES UPuq
To our children's expectations.
|
| 00:23:16 | [Applause]
>> president obama remembering
9-year-old christina taylor
green, who was born on 9/11.
|
| 00:23:27 | As we closed the program, I am
struck and reminded by are fred
vq ALLEN GINSBERG -- OUR FRIEND
Allen ginsberg -- a white
republican judge was killed on
the way to meet his friend, a
democratic congresswoman who was
jewish.
|
| 00:23:49 | Her life was saved by an
injured, a mexican-american
intern and later by a
korean-american surgeon.
|
| 00:24:00 | >> Our dream for the best of
america, and the truth of the
best of america.
|
| 00:24:08 | There are parts that are not so
wonderful, and what the
president was calling on
everybody to do is help the good
part to triumph over the ugly
and evil part.
|
| 00:24:20 | I am cynical enough to be not
sure what is going to win.
|
| 00:24:23 | >> I did it is a beautiful
portrait@ of for our country is
today -- of where our country is
today.
|
| 00:24:32 | I wish we ever take it live up
to that portrait -- every day
could live up to that portrait,
and we don't.
|
| 00:24:38 | But perhaps that is something
else we can take out of this
tragedy, how diverse this
country is, how successful it
can be as a diverse country as
well.
|
| 00:24:47 | >> Colby, 20-year-old daniel
hernandez @heard the gunshot and
ran towards it, rather than
away, a natural reaction.
|
| 00:24:56 | >> That is why he is a hero and
why the president would like to
call him a hero.
|
| 00:25:01 | So many of the people run the
other way at the sign of danger.
|
| 00:25:04 | The fact that he did that
distinguishes him from a lot of
people in this country --.
|
| 00:25:09 | .
|
| 00:25:11 | >> Charles, did he come from
your medical experts and
background, pulled her up?
|
| 00:25:19 | >> It is a close thing, and she
was losing a lot of blood.
|
| 00:25:25 | They got to her in 38 minutes.
|
| 00:25:29 | A truly remarkable.
|
| 00:25:30 | A tribute to american
diversity, your wisdom, how
strong this the society we are
-- hero was and, how strong a
society we are.
|
| 00:25:38 | It should have been a week of
nothing but sorrow and grief in
answer to the, the thinking
@
unfortunately, it was a week or
a lot of calumny.
|
| 00:25:49 | The president rightly ended it
on the good note.
|
| 00:25:53 | >> Gordon peterson will be back
next week.
|
| 00:26:02 | Noc rec 2
>> for a transcript of this
broadcast, log on to
insidewashington.tv.
|
