Obama Brings Message Of Hope To Tuscon Memorial

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MICHEL MARTIN: I'm Michel Martin and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News.

In a few minutes we'll hear about a provocative new book that argues that pressuring your kids to achieve is good for them, even if it requires some steps that others might consider extreme. And then we'll have a special moms conversation where we'll hear what our panel of moms have to say about all that. The book is called "The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother." And the author will be here in just a few minutes.

But, first, a few more minutes with two people who know what it's like to try to help a president find words for situations for which there really are no words. They are speechwriters. Mary Kate Cary wrote speeches for President George H.W. Bush. She's now a blogger and columnist for U.S. News and World Report. Paul Orzulak wrote for President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, among other top public figures. He's a founding partner of West Wing Writers.

You know, before we took our break, Mary Kate was saying that the Gettysburg Address is kind of the gold standard for how to address just a traumatic national situation. And Paul, do you have another example of that that speechwriters like you look to?

PAUL ORZULAK: Yeah, well, in the modern era, I think every president has unfortunately had the moment to address a national tragedy. And the three recent remarks that come to mind, of course, President Reagan after the Challenger disaster, which was a four-minute speech, and President Clinton, after Oklahoma City, which really united a nation really in mourning at that time.

MARTIN: Hold on a second, I'll just play a short clip of that. I think we do have that clip, so people can, you know, remember that moment, if we are. OK, here it is.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED AUDIO)

BILL CLINTON: Those who trouble their own house will inherit the wind. Justice will prevail.

(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)

MARTIN: I'm sorry it was so brief, but just - but tell us what was the president trying to...

ORZULAK: The most memorable line; there it was.

MARTIN: Well, thank you. What was he trying to accomplish there?

ORZULAK: Well, it was a moment similar to this where there was a lot of discussion about, you know, different forces within our country that were, you know, denigrating either our government or our public life. And it was - the president took the moment not only to honor the victims who lost their lives that day, but to also to sort of remind us of our common humanity and the truths that we all share, the things that we all have in common.

And it allowed us to start a different conversation after that, at least for a time being, that really sort of rooted the nation looking forward on where we went from that moment, rather than backward on the tragedy that had happened. And I think the president managed to do that in a similar way last night.

One other thought about gold standards, you know, President Bush, after September 11th, has never been more eloquent. And his remarks were exactly what the nation needed at the moment.

But given that Martin Luther King Day we celebrate next week, I always think back to the unscripted remarks that Robert Kennedy made the night that Dr. King was assassinated when he was scheduled to speak to an audience in Indianapolis, who hadn't heard the news. And he got up and gave what is remarkable for its eloquence and what, you know, he did something that nobody else managed to do, which is to keep a city peaceful the next day.

MARTIN: And I have that, actually. We can actually play that for you if you'd like to hear it, just to remind people. Here it is.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED AUDIO)

ROBERT KENNEDY: We can make an effort as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion and love.

MARTIN: You know, similarly, Mary Kate, your former boss, in the days after the Los Angeles riots in the wake of the Rodney King verdict, also, you know, faced a similar, it's not quite the same thing, but a very sort of similar kind of tinderbox situation. It was already a tinderbox.

MARY KATE CARY: Right.

MARTIN: And, you know, these are some of his remarks. I'll just play those for you too.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED AUDIO)

GEORGE H: The violence will end. Justice will be served. Hope will return.

MARTIN: Talk to me about that.

KATE CARY: What made that speech interesting - one thing in common with Robert Kennedy and Obama is that both of them, apparently, wrote their own remarks. The story from last night was that there was not very much involvement from the speechwriting team and it was almost all Obama. And that's pretty unusual except for Bobby Kennedy.

For President H.W. Bush, the thing that made it common last night, if you look back through the Gettysburg Address, Oklahoma City, 9/11, Virginia Tech, all of those speeches by the presidents did not tell the stories. Only the Challenger one even named the astronauts, but didn't tell their stories. And I think part of it was there were just too many victims. You couldn't start.

And H.W. Bush, he did tell a story, which was very powerful, just like last night, of Reginald Denny, the guy who got dragged out and beaten up. Good Samaritans came in and said we'll be your eyes and they drove him to the hospital. And that did the same thing. We all united behind the good Samaritans in a very contentious situation and it worked beautifully.

MARTIN: And final thought, Paul, I gave you the first words, I'm giving Mary Kate the last word. Paul, talk about the need to move the conversation in a certain direction. Do you think that we're going to get there? There's already, there's still a lot of partisan back and forth about who's responsible and whether it's fair to criticize. Do you think that President Obama has taken a step to moving the conversation in a perhaps more productive direction?

KATE CARY: I absolutely do. And we talked earlier this week with Cynthia. Cynthia was a little more skeptical that anything was going to change. I think after last night things have changed. It was a very subtle message to both sides saying tone it down.

MARTIN: Mary Kate Cary wrote speeches for President George H.W. Bush. She's now a columnist and blogger for U.S. News and World Report. Paul Orzulak wrote for President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, among other top public figures. He's a founding partner of West Wing Writers. That's a speechwriting and consulting and strategy firm. Thank you both so much for speaking with us.

KATE CARY: Great to be here.

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