RUTHFULLY YOURS

Will someone please remind President Obama that Republicans are Americans, too?

Republicans do bleed and among the 12 patriots murdered yesterday at the Washington Navy Yard, surely a good number were not Democrats.

But only hours apart from the slaughter, Obama chose to go ahead with a speech on the economy, peppered with the usual malice against Republicans, as follows and as reported by Fox News: “I cannot remember a time when one faction of one party promises economic chaos if it can’t get 100 percent of what it wants.”

Neither the dead nor the grieving needed to be reminded that they belonged to the wrong party. Terrible timing.

Extended words of comfort to a grieving nation would have been much more welcome.

Instead, as most Americans kept painfully in touch with the latest on the Washington killings, hoping for some good news, Obama was off campaigning, still campaigning, still fiddling even as DC burned. Nothing seems to stop this president from making yet another speech.

Someone needs to remind this president that he is supposed to be the president of all the people all the time.

But yesterday, at the White House, he spoke to some of the people, celebrating his (alleged) economic recovery program.

Was this a day to celebrate anything?

Was this a day to care about anything besides the Navy?

Were people applauding his silver words as three miles away sirens were wailing?

He did mention the tragedy in progress and he offered the usual condolences. He explained that this why there had been a delay.

Delay? Americans dying at your feet deserve more than a delay.

There is indeed a time for everything; a time to laugh and a time to cry. This was no time for a speech on our fiscal crisis. Who gives a damn! This was a time to weep.

This was no time to blame.

As the Senate was on lock-down, as law enforcement personnel by the thousands rushed to the scene of bloodshed, Obama spoke about money.

That was indecent.

Someone needs to remind this president that the life of an American is as precious as the life of a Syrian. By gas or by bullets, people were hurt yesterday. It was a bad day for the Navy. It was a bad day for America. When it is time for our Navy Family to mourn, we all mourn. We are in this together.

Will someone please remind this president that half of us are the other party? Republicans (it may be assumed) did not vote for Obama, but Republicans live and die just as much as Democrats when Obama decides to draw a red line here or there and send us into battle.

After he got himself elected, once, twice, he became president for all of us, a fact that seems to escape this president.

Sink or swim, we are all in the same boat. But we do seem to be sinking.

New from Jack Engelhard, the novel: Compulsive

Jack Engelhard, a novelist for such moral dilemma bestsellers as The Bathsheba Deadline, The Girls of Cincinnati, and the classic Indecent Proposal, his memoir Escape From Mount Moriah, and Slot Attendant – A Novel About A Novelist, Engelhard’s partly autobiographical expose about the trials of making it as a writer, brings his words to the Communities page covering all topics, with special focus on the absurdity of human behavior and reaches around the globe.

Read more Jack Engelhard, A Novelist’s View of the World

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