The Circle of Our Concern

On January 12, 2011, a stunned nation learned of the horrific violence in Tucson, Arizona. A charismatic young congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, was meeting with her constituents in a local supermarket when a gunman opened fire on her and the crowd. By the time he was wrestled to the ground he had wounded nineteen, including Giffords, and killed six--among them Tucson's chief district court judge and a nine-year-old girl. A week later millions of mourning Americans watched and...
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On January 12, 2011, a stunned nation learned of the horrific violence in Tucson, Arizona. A charismatic young congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, was meeting with her constituents in a local supermarket when a gunman opened fire on her and the crowd. By the time he was wrestled to the ground he had wounded nineteen, including Giffords, and killed six--among them Tucson's chief district court judge and a nine-year-old girl. A week later millions of mourning Americans watched and listened to the memorial service for those killed, and heard the President's meditation on their lives and deaths. President Obama spoke lovingly of each of the fallen, then gathered their deaths in a larger context. "The loss of these wonderful people should make every one of us strive to be better," he said. "Our task, working together, is to constantly widen the circle of our concern so that we bequeath the American dream to future generations." President Obama's speech was immediately and widely hailed as a healing balm, perfectly pitched for the moment. Yet his speech is only the latest in a long tradition of American presidential addresses, from Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address to more recent speeches after accidents, terrorist attacks, and massacres from Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush--speeches that seek to find meaning in the tragic, hope in the hopeless, and light in the darkness. This small book contains the complete text of President Obama's speech, as well as the complete texts of President Lincoln's Gettysburg address, President Reagan's speech after the first space shuttle tragedy, President Clinton's speech at the memorial service for the Oklahoma City bombing, and President George W. Bush's speeches after the second space shuttle tragedy and the Virginia Tech massacre.