Obama offers words of comfort at Arizona shooting memorial
Presidents throughout history have had to deliver speeches in the wake of tragedy to comfort the nation. Ronald Reagan did so after the Challenger explosion; Bill Clinton after the Oklahoma City bombing and Columbine shootings; and George W. Bush after 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the Virginia Tech shootings. President Obama is set to deliver his own speech tonight in Arizona to try and comfort a nation following the shooting of twenty people, that left six dead. How will President Obama approach the events, and their political impliations, from the scene of the tragedy?
Edward Widmer, a former speech writer for President Bill Clinton, and a historian at Brown University; and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a professor of communication at the Annenberg School for Communication, tell us how Obama goes about writing and delivering such an important speech.
The story you just read is available to read for free because thousands of listeners and readers like you generously support our nonprofit newsroom. Every day, the reporters and producers at The World are hard at work bringing you human-centered news from across the globe. But we can’t do it without you: We need your support to ensure we can continue this work for another year.
When you make a gift of $10 or more a month, we’ll invite you to a virtual behind-the-scenes tour of our newsroom to thank you for being with The World.