Obama's Moment

An Opinion Column by Frank Finger

Say what you want about about the tragedy in Tucson, this was Obama's time to shine. I turned on my TV last night and sat transfixed as I watched a one-term President reach down inside and find the second term that lurked deep within.

The tone was pitch perfect, like an unfinished Beethoven composition suddenly completed from Heaven above. I was both soothed and moved, not so much at the victims (we've had days to think about and reflect on them), but at how presidential Obama was. On a scale of one to Presidential, he was Very Presidential. Last night wasn't about right or left, conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican. It was about President Obama and the way his dulcet notes can heal a nation in a time of prodigious longing.

The Democrats proved last night beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they are not just the party of any one side, they are truly America's Party. They know how to put on a show and rock the house when angst beckons at our door. Let me ask you a question. Who do you want in charge? Some party that is going to light candles, sing a few hymns, mourn with so-called "decorum" and then march us all into some illegal war? Or do you want a party that's going to throw an actual party?

What do you want to hear? Slow, boring "Amazing Grace" for the fiftieth time? Or "Go Ba-rack. Go Ba-rack. You're the President. You're the President."?

I know my answer.

I like parties. Everyone likes parties. Funerals are so depressing and passe. Obama promised change, and last night, we got more of it. He earned a standing ovation, not just from the roomful of people who rightfully worship him at a time when people desperately need someone, anyone to genuflect to, but also a standing ovation from my heart. I'll tell you what I learned last night - there's nothing like a memorial to remind us all of how to come alive!

Obama took those mass murder lemons and he made lemonade. Cool, refreshing lemonade, to quench our audacious national thirst, and not a moment too soon. We are a nation that finally has had enough partisanship and sniping. A country that has had it up to here with slick politicians who don't know how to poignantly crystallize a moment the way Obama did last night.

I wept at the end of Obama's speech, not for the victims or their families, but more at Obama's greatness. Say what you want, we have never seen a President like this. This wasn't mere Clintonian Triangulation, Obama went pure hexagon. This was double reverse triangulation by the new master of political geometry, President Barack Obama.

That cheering you heard every four words was the cheering in American hearts all across the land. When I heard the news on Saturday, my first thought after hoping everyone would be okay was, "Will we ever cheer again?". My addendum was, "And possibly even this week?"

And my question was answered last night, with a resounding "yes". My next question shortly thereafter was, "Could this be Barack Obama's 9/11?".

Yes it can, my friends. Yes it can.

A thank you, Mr. President, for giving us an historic, unprecedented speech of a lifetime. Again. Thank you for rallying our hearts and our minds, after days of hearing nothing but politicizing of this terrible tragedy from sick, deranged far right wingers. Slobbering mongrels from the Palin Wing who irresponsibly want nothing more than a country full of the twisted violence we saw on one sunny Saturday afternoon in Tucson. One sunny Saturday afternoon that was actually just a few days ago.

Thank you, Mr. President, for bringing us together in our time of exigency, and for crucially turning tragedy into triumph, the way only cartoon superheroes could do previously. But most of all, thank you for the t-shirt. Together We Thrive indeed.

You know, that would make one heck of a campaign slogan.

Frank Finger is a seven-time Pulitzer winning conservative columnist who writes for the Mega Independent. His best selling book, "The Conservatives: Why Did They Do This To Us?" is now in paperback. And his new book, "How ObamaCare Saved America, Even Before It Starts" will be in stores on January 25th.