The Right Words; Why So Late?

Carol Platt Liebau | January 13, 2011 12:45 PM

Last Monday, my post on the Loughner murders raised the question of whether President Obama would rise above playing the partisan blame game, and call off the attack dogs of the left.

His speech yesterday attempted to do just that, and he is justly entitled to praise for it. I am grateful that he rose to the occasion to deliver the kind of oratory that the occasion merited -- let us hope that he heeds his own, beautifully written and delivered words.

I do wonder, however, why it took so long for the President to make that call. We were treated to four days -- Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and most of Wednesday -- of ugly rhetoric and vituperation from the left, while The White House remained silent.

It's not clear to me whether this was (1) simple mismanagement; (2) an effort to make sure the anti-conservative message got wide play before attempting to appear "above it all"; or (3) waiting for polling data to learn what tack would resonate with the greatest number of Americans.

I don't mean to nitpick, but you can be darn sure that if national dialogue had been heading in some direction that the President clearly opposed -- as, say, in the Hasan shootings -- it wouldn't have taken him four days to make some effort to shut it down.