Just finished watching Obama’s speech in Tucson, which mostly sucked.

Too soon to say that?

Of course, the stories of those who acted heroically were moving, but that was because heroes themselves are moving. Obama, perhaps deliberately, went with historical precedent in the tone of his speech: They have consecrated this ground, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who died here have thus far so nobly advanced. And as a result, he gave a speech which, unlike Lincoln’s, was mostly not notable and which will be easily forgotten.

I was also mostly left unmoved by the Eulogist-in-Chief. Yes, I know, it is kind to say that those who died represented the best of America, and it would be nice to believe that. But they were united only in the violence of their passing; it seems odd that all you need to do to become the best of America is to die in a tragic and telegenic disaster.

More moving, and more true, to say: these were everyday Americans who died, and everyday Americans who became heroes, so let us celebrate the living and the dead for who they were, not for what we wish to believe of them.

Obama did move me with his words, briefly and unintentionally, with a catch in his throat when he analogized Christina Green to “our own daughters,” and I was suddenly reminded that his children are the same age. It humanized him and touched me, more so because it did not seem planned.

But too much of the speech fell into the trap of the Kumbayah Democrat. “Please, can’t we all get along?” I’m sure his enemies have already forgotten the speech except when their interviewers remind them to make nice, and their interviewers will forget to do so shortly. If Obama wanted to make a difference, to really mark a line in the sand pre-1/8 and post-1/8, he blew it.

What would have been better? I thought I’d have to turn elsewhere for an example of rhetoric, but Obama briefly spoke from a place of powerful oratory, in the last few minutes of his speech:

I want to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as Christina imagined it. I want America to be as good as Christina imagined it. All of us, we should do everything we can do to make sure this country lives up to our childrens’ expectations.

That’s the man who has repeatedly moved me to tears with his words. That’s the man with a strong moral compass and an argument to make in its favor. That, essentially, is who I thought I was voting for, and the man who has too often been missing from office. Obama could have given a respectful, mournful, and powerful speech with this level of oratory, but if that speech was ever written, it was set aside for Kumbayah.

Too bad. If these deaths are to make a real difference in the American character, it is up to us, and Obama could have been the beginning of that. 9/11 just made us angry and fearful. Oklahoma City did nothing for our character. And we absorb mass shootings weekly without a tremor. It appears that this will be going on for a while longer.