Obama's speech tonight contained some beautiful lines, the tone set by a quotation from my favorite Psalm, one of the most poetic and comforting passages in the Bible:
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.
And it included some inspiring sentiments that the country has long needed to hear from a leader, such as the assertion that, "We may not be able to stop all evil in the world, but I know that how we treat one another is entirely up to us." But I confess that I missed most of them while listening to the speech, only catching them later as I read through the transcript. Because throughout Obama's live delivery, I could not get past the qualm Mike highlighted in his review--the disconnect between this stirring call to decency and civility, and the tragedy that was the reason for the memorial service.
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