Polling Lessons For Obama From Oklahoma City

If Obama gets a bump from the events of the past week, then all it will show is how effective even politicizi­ng tragedies can be.

I'm an old OLD liberal Democrat (both personally and profession­ally) and those on the right who have harsh words for Obama and the DLC-contro­lled Democratic Party about their behavior since the shooting in Tucson aren't far off from the truth.  The DLC-contro­lled Democratic Party has been playing politics with this tragedy, and it began inside the White House gates on Saturday just after the shooting.  

Just as Bush-Chene­y politicize­d 9/11, Obama has politicize­d this, too, but, frankly, in a way that I find more disgusting and exploitati­onal.  

Shortly after the news broke of the shootings on Saturday, the White House released these photograph­s that made me and everyone I know who saw them (including past and present profession­al Democrats) shake our heads in disbelief (some even gasped audibly):

#1 - Obama being briefed in the White House Situation Room on the shootings in Tucson.  Pictured, left to right, National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, incoming Chief of Staff Bill Daley, Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina, Director of Communicat­ions Dan Pfeiffer, and Assistant to the President for Legislativ­e Affairs Phil Schiliro. Also taking part in the call were Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr., Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano­, and FBI Director Robert Mueller (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) 

#2 - Obama talks with Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer on a cellphone in the hallway outside the Situation Room of the White House.

H0LY 'shades of planes circling the capitol on nine-eleve­n', Batman!


There was absolutely nothing remotely suggesting it was a national emergency, a terrorist attack on the nation, nor even any connection to the Tea Party (which even if there had been that level of threat, responsible government leaders wouldn't want to evoke a hysterical response by yelling "Fire" in this crowded and stressed theater). But the White House went into 'BushCheney on 9/11'-mode to exploit and play on the public's fears by releasing images like these.

If this wasn't bad enough, in the hours and days following, with all information to the contrary that this was a standard FBI-profile kind of mentally disturbed lone shooter, the White House and Democrats fanned out over the air waves to try to connect Loughner to the Tea Party and to Republicans (despite the fact that the FBI and Arizona police knew that Loughner's a registered Independent), "the result of overheated political rhetoric", and "all Limbaugh's and Palin's fault":

By 4:46 PM EST on the day of the shootings (1-8-2011) , Obama had moved to the White House State Dining Room to make this statement to the nation, and followed-up by official statements from these members of the Obama administration: Vice President Joe Biden, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Attorney General Eric Holder, and NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.

On Monday, 1-10-2011, I turned on my television to these images.

Two hours later, Obama apparently felt he needed to conflate images of 'presidential leadership ' and the shootings by turning the subject again to the tragedy in Arizona when he and France's president (Nicholas Sarkozy) faced the traditional photo op gaggle after their meeting in the Oval Office.

And then that national memorial service political pep rally, where Obama continued to promote the false notion that Loughner's actions were the result of Republicans' partisan political divisiveness.

Michelle Obama stretched it out for another day with her 'open letter to parents'.

There's so much wrong about how Obama and Democrats are handling this situation, and it's all because nobody in Washington, Democrat or Republican, is going to do anything about the real causes (gun control and expansion of mental health services) to prevent it happening again.

When you realize that, you understand that how Obama and Democrats have acted, what they're saying was calculated, a political strategy to bash Republicans decided upon within the first minutes/hours after Loughner opened fire.

We lose all credibility doing that, and those doing it, perpetuating it, need to be denounced and drummed out of the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party needs real public servants (and not DLCers behaving as Republicans) to address the People's problems and working to prevent tragedies like what happened in Tucson from ever happening again.