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President Barack Obama's 10-minute address to the nation in regard to the assassination of Osama bin Laden was an outstanding piece of rhetoric. Dressed in a dark blue suit with an American flag on his lapel and wearing a power-red tie, the President was sober, direct, unsentimental, very much in command, and yet, through compassionate facial expressions and vocal modulations, warm enough to achieve a bonding with his audience. How much of the speech he actually wrote I do not know, but he made it his and in the process at least briefly silenced those who find him aloof, indecisive, timid, somehow "other." His poll numbers will doubtless and deservedly leap; how much hang time they have--I'm guessing about as much as that of your correspondent attempting to dunk in a pickup basketball game--will be interesting to observe in the next few days and weeks.
Obama opened by stating the breaking-news fact that bin Laden had been killed, then spoke to the viewers' emotions by recalling images from the 9/11 incident that all retained and shared, and went on to create additional images of empty seats at dinner tables, parentless children, childless parents. He cared, leading the audience to care with, and for, him. He reviewed the effort that the country made to unite after that terrible incident and reminded us and the rest of the world of our better side: that we are one, regardless of religion, race, or ethnicity. Having thus established our good qualities, he validated his, and our, motive for bringing bin Laden to "justice" (which, he didn't have to say, connotes something ethically far beyond a desire for "revenge" or even "retribution"). He praised the military's tireless, determined effort to, in the pursuit of justice, control al-Qaida and track bin Laden. Then, having praised so many others for their efforts to disarm our enemies, in a shrewd political move he disarmed his own critics by crediting himself for pushing hard to find bin Laden and for approving a carefully targeted operation carried out with minimal harm to our own men and to the innocent. Without his decision-making, he implied, the operation could have been a disaster.
Next came caveats and qualifications designed to keep us from assuming that the battle against terrorism has been won, directly followed by remarks to assuage critics abroad. We must remain ever-vigilant against terrorism, he said, but we must never wage a war with Islam itself. He contrasted bin Laden with other Muslim leaders; bin Laden murdered Muslims as well as non-Muslims, he pointed out, and therefore true Muslims should actually welcome his death. To further link us with the good Muslims, he also noted that Pakistan's cooperation in counterterrorism has been, and will continue to be, essential to America. He then reiterated the suffering that Americans have endured, said that America will continue to defend itself and its allies relentlessly, and thanked our counter-intelligence and counterterrorism "professionals" (giving them added dignity by using that term).
Reaching his peroration, he appealed to the emotions once more by referring to the families who lost loved ones on 9/11, declared that they have never been forgotten, and called again for unity and a commitment to stand up for our values. In so doing, he stated his view of "American exceptionalism" (a concept the validity of which some of his detractors have long accused him of denying): we strive to make the world a safer place because of "who we are" (here proudly quoting the Pledge of Allegiance): "one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Then, for good measure, reassuring America and warning its enemies abroad, he invoked the blessings of God twice more in his concluding sentence. Mission Accomplished!
No doubt extreme left-wingers (anti-military, guilt-ridden) and extreme right-wingers (xenophobic, bullying) had misgivings about the speech, but I'm sure that Middle America did not. And I'm sure that Obama gained much political good will with it--for at least a week.
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