Dayhoff Westminster Soundtrack: Amy Sullivan: Time Right Message Wrong Moment

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Amy Sullivan: Time Right Message Wrong Moment

Right Message, Wrong Moment

AMY SULLIVAN Wednesday, January 12, 2011 at 11:54 pm

58 Comments http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2011/01/12/right-message-wrong-moment/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+timeblogs/swampland+(TIME:+Swampland)

Obama's speech tonight contained some beautiful lines, the tone set by a quotation from my favorite Psalm, one of the most poetic and comforting passages in the Bible:

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,

the holy place where the Most High dwells.

God is within her, she will not fall;

God will help her at break of day.

And it included some inspiring sentiments that the country has long needed to hear from a leader, such as the assertion that, "We may not be able to stop all evil in the world, but I know that how we treat one another is entirely up to us." But I confess that I missed most of them while listening to the speech, only catching them later as I read through the transcript. Because throughout Obama's live delivery, I could not get past the qualm Mike highlighted in his review--the disconnect between this stirring call to decency and civility, and the tragedy that was the reason for the memorial service.

I suspect I was not the only one who squirmed uncomfortably at the implicit message: These victims did not die in vain; they died in part so that we might have a reason to call on Republicans and Democrats to cut it out and start acting like adults.

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20110112 Amy Sullivan Time Right Message Wrong Moment

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