Leadership, Obama-Style
Unlike dictatorships, we participate actively in our government in the United States, and so it becomes our collective legacy – our goal is to ensure the best parts of our experience here persist while we seek to polish up and refurbish the areas that need improvement. It will always be a work in progress, thriving on the attention of the citizenry. I want my son to have the chance to follow his dreams, to prosper in a community that he contributes to, to enjoy what we continue to build in this amazing, messy democracy.
To stay the course we need leaders who step up and do more than take responsibility for their own actions, we need leaders who expect and demand that government become an increasingly effective tool for preserving our standard of living and our values: life, liberty — including speaking our minds and assembling to hold discussions — and the pursuit of happiness. The President has resisted the “attention-getting” approach that has dominated our information media in favor of a call for thoughtful, respectful unity.
“I believe that for all our imperfections we are full of decency and goodness, and that the forces that divide us are not as strong as those that unite us.”
President Barack H. Obama
12 Jan 2011 Tuscon, Arizona
The actions of a disturbed young man have precipitated national reflection, and for many a near-desperate search for proof that he is not “like us,” whoever “us” is in this context – because until we’re confident he was (and is) not “one of us” then our self-confidence in our identity is shaken. People “like me” would never shoot a Congresswoman to resolve our differences, right? People “like me” would never pull out a gun at a grocery store, killing and wounding bystanders, right?
We crave proof the killer is a part of some “other” group – that nothing we identify with is part of what drove this insanity. Yet President Obama did nothing to distance himself from Jared Loughner.
That’s the sort of leadership we expect from our President. He’s working to restore our confidence, to preserve our great country for future generations, and he’s doing it selflessly. President Obama didn’t travel to Tuscon looking for somebody to blame, let alone to stoke a witch-hunt; his speech showed that he continues to lead by example.
U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords
President Obama is optimistic about the future of this democratic republic despite such incidents. With a Federal Judge, an innocent child, and others snatched from their families by a senseless gunman’s bullets, with many critically wounded and fighting to recover – including the gunman’s ostensible target, U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords (AZ-8), the President called on us to honor the fallen, and be true to their memory.
Obama’s optimistic about our ability to become stronger and better, to heal — and so am I.
