TUCSON — When President Obama took the stage here Wednesday to address a community — and a nation — traumatized by Saturday’s killings, it invited comparisons to President George W. Bush’s speech to the nation after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the memorial service President Bill Clinton led after the bombing of a federal office building killed 168 people in Oklahoma City in 1995.
But Mr. Obama’s appearance presented a deeper challenge, reflecting the tenor of his times. Unlike those tragedies — which, at least initially, united a mournful country and quieted partisan divisions — this one has, in the days since the killings, had the opposite effect, inflaming the divide.
It was a political reality Mr. Obama seemed to recognize the moment he took the stage. And it was one he seemed determine to address, with language that recalled a central part of Mr. Obama’s appeal as a presidential candidate in 2008.
He called for an end to partisan recriminations, and a unity that has seemed increasingly elusive as each day has brought more harsh condemnations from the left and the right, starting here in Arizona but rippling across the nation. “What we cannot do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on one another,” he said. “That we cannot do. As we discuss these issues, let each of us do so with a good dose of humility.”
While some on the left sought to link the killing to the Tea Party movement or to heated speech from prominent Republicans like Sarah Palin, Mr. Obama pointedly noted that there was no way to know why the gunman opened fire, killing 6 people and injuring 14, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords.
“For the truth is that none of us can know exactly what triggered this vicious attack,” he said. “None of us can know with any certainty what might have stopped those shots from being fired, or what thoughts lurked in the inner recesses of a violent man’s mind.”
On a day when Ms. Palin posted a video accusing commentators of committing “blood libel” by suggesting her commentary had enabled the crime, Mr. Obama — speaking at times like a political leader, at times like a preacher — urged his audience and the nation to avoid recriminations, to “honor the fallen” by moving forward and by “making sure we align our values with our actions.”
“At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized, at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do, it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds,” Mr. Obama said.
When it comes to being emotive, Mr. Obama may never match Mr. Clinton or Mr. Bush. His voice sometimes wavered, but he is not the kind of leader whose eyes moisten at public events. Yet these are tougher times and he was, here and across the country, speaking to a tougher audience.
Even as it began, some conservative commentators were posting comments criticizing the memorial service for being overly partisan and more like a pep rally, and there were some boos in the hall when Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, spoke. Those reactions would have been hard to imagine, say, in the days after the Oklahoma City bombing.
“Last time there was uniform revulsion,” said Don Baer, who was the chief speechwriter in the White House for Mr. Clinton in 1995 and helped write Mr. Clinton’s speech. “This time, in the interest of condemning vitriol, all sides have become vitriolic. In some ways the country is more in need of a unifying voice that says, ‘Enough already.’ ”
Mr. Baer said that made the demands on Mr. Obama different than those on Mr. Clinton, and made Mr. Obama’s return to the language of his campaign — the call for an end to partisan rancor — so logical.
“The best message for President Obama,” Mr. Baer said, “is the one that brought him to national attention from the start: That there is not a red America or a blue America but a United States of America.”
The speeches Mr. Bush and Mr. Clinton gave were seen as turning points in their presidencies. Wednesday night’s event seemed less about Mr. Obama’s presidency and more about the state of this country. His calls during the campaign for an end to brutal partisanship appeared to carry little weight these past two years in Washington. There is no way to know if his similar call on Wednesday, under tragic circumstances, will have more traction.
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