RNC reception coincides with memorial

Heal This
Speaker John Boehner will host a cocktail party for the Republican National Committee at the same time that President Barack Obama will be addressing the nation at the memorial service for Victims of the Tucson shooting. - Roll Call I honestly don’t know what to say, when in a moment of national mourning the Speaker of the House chooses a Washington, D.C. Fundraiser instead of attending the memorial in Tuscon, Arizona. After a pitch perfect address to the House, the quieting of the c...

Democrats slam Boehner for missing Arizona memorial service
Jon Ward covers the White House and national politics for The Daily Caller. He covered the last two years of George W. Bush's presidency and the first year of Barack Obama's presidency for The Washington Times. Prior to moving to national politics, Jon worked for the Times' city desk and bureaus in Virginia and Maryland, covering local news and politics, including the D.C. sniper shootings and subsequent trial, before moving to state politics in Maryland. He and his wife have two Children and li...

Boehner Not Attending AZ Memorial
Attending an RNC Cocktail party is more important to the Speaker of the House than flying with the President (who invited him) to go to AZ to attend the Tucson memorial service for the six slain people and the individual Victims wounded by gunfire, including a member of the legislative body over which he presides: The Ohio Republican is holding a 7 p.m. cocktail reception Wednesday night for 168 RNC members, who are in the Washington area for an annual meeting. The event is sponsored by Boehner...

Democrats slam Boehner for missing Arizona memorial service (Daily Caller)
Read more stories from The Daily Caller Democrats slam Boehner for missing Arizona memorial service FNC's Hume praises 'pep rally' atmosphere of Obama Arizona Speech, but adds parts 'most peculiar' Obama urges Arizona and nation to be 'worthy of those we have lost' Historian Douglas Brinkley says Tucson will be a place in 'history like a Selma or Birmingham in the 1960s' Text of President Obama's speech at Arizona memorial service Democrats on Thursday criticized House Speaker John Boehner for...

For Once, Washington Gets it Right
Anyone walking around Capitol Hill this week would have been struck by the stillness and quiet -- and especially by how vividly this contrasted with the acrimony swirling online, on Cable News, and on Talk Radio over who should bear the blame for last weekend's massacre in Tucson that gravely wounded Representative Gabrielle Giffords and killed six others. Critics like to claim that Washington is the catalyst for this sort of rage. But right now, they'd be hard-pressed to turn up much evidence....

A Memorial in Arizona
One of the best things about the memorial service, at the University of Arizona, for the Victims of the Tucson shooting, was an aspect that also threw some people: the cheering. There was a lot of it. But it was hard, most of the time, to tell just who it was for: Daniel Hernandez, the intern who helped keep Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords alive, got the greatest applause when he deflected the praise to other people. During Obama’s Speech, it may have been when he said that today, for the...

Obama visits Rep. Giffords as House pays tribute to victims
President Obama visited Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) Wednesday as her colleagues in the House passed a resolution in her honor. The president and and First Lady Michelle Obama landed in Tucson, Ariz., on Wednesday evening and stopped by the University Medical Center to visit Giffords and other Victims of Saturday’s Mass Shootings before attending a memorial service. “The president wanted to begin this solemn trip by stopping first at the Hospital where Congresswoman Giffords and other...

Boehner: Attack won't silence 'sacred dialogue of democracy'
Addressing a Bipartisan prayer service in tribute to the Victims of Saturday's shooting rampage in Tucson, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) vowed that the attack on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and others at a constituent event would not deter lawmakers from carrying out their civic duties. "No assailant's bullet -- no twisted act of violence or cruelty -- can silence the sacred dialogue of Democracy," Boehner said, according to his prepared remarks. At the prayer service, ...

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords's Friends Narrate the Moment She Opened Her Eye
WASHINGTON—Just a few hours after attending a memorial service in Tucson, a giddy Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Representative Debbie Wasserman-Schultz of Florida came back to the press cabin aboard Air Force One to tell reporters about the moment when their friend, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, opened one eye for the first time since she was shot in the head last Saturday. Also in the Hospital room at the time, they said, was Mark Kelly, Ms. Giffords’s husband, and House Minority L...

POLITICAL HOT TOPICS: Thursday, January 13, 2011
In between consoling those touched by Saturday's Arizona shooting and warning the nation against politicizing the tragedy, President Barack Obama delivered some good news in his address at a Tucson memorial event on Wednesday. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona has opened her eyes for the first time since being shot four days ago. "There is nothing I can say that will fill the sudden hole torn in your hearts," Obama said. "But know this: The hopes of a nation are here tonight." Congress has resp...

The Fix: Handicapping the RNC chair race
Less than two days before the vote to select a new chairman of the Republican National Committee takes place, uncertainty still reigns in a race more defined by who won't win than who will. What's become clear as the race has matured in the new year is that current RNC Chairman Michael Steele has no path to victory. And yet, Steele remains the central mover in the race, not only because the campaigns of the other four Candidates -- Wisconsin Republican party chairman Reince Priebus, former a...

Capitol Hill tries to find new normal
Four days after a gunman killed six people, injured 14 others and rocked the Capitol Hill community, leaving one of its own in critical condition, normal is nowhere in sight for Congress. On Wednesday, Congress set aside planned business to take up an itinerary that pulled a shocked community between matters of the heart and those of basic physical security, with a string of events that sought to soothe mournful souls and rattled nerves. Continue Reading Text Size - + reset Politico 44 The Ho...

Obama takes opportunity Palin missed
In the span of a single news cycle, Republicans got a jarring reminder of two forces that could prevent them from retaking the presidency next year. At sunrise in the east on Wednesday, Sarah Palin demonstrated that she has little interest—or capacity—in moving beyond her brand of grievance-based politics. And at sundown in the west, Barack Obama reminded even his critics of his ability to rally disparate Americans around a message of Reconciliation. Continue Reading Text Size - +...

Obama: We CannotUse this Tragedy As One More Occasion to Turn on Each Other
Thursday, January 13, 2011 By Susan Jones President Barack Obama speaks at a memorial service for the Victims of the Tucson shootings at McKale Center on the University of Arizona campus Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2011, in Tucson, Ariz. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) (CNSNews.com) - In his Speech to Tucson and the nation Wednesday night, President Barack Obama  reminded Americans that “bad things happen,” but he warned against “simple explanations in the aftermath.” The pres

Obama and Palin: A Tale Of Two Speakers
The contrasts, both in style and in tone, were undeniable. Perhaps more telling though are the apparent motivations behind the two public statements made by Barack Obama and Sarah Palin yesterday, in response to the Assassination attempt on the life of Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Obama, speaking at the Arizona memorial service for the other Victims of Saturday's shooting, did what presidents do. Looking and sounding more presidential then he has at any other point during his tenu...

House Republicans heading to Baltimore for retreat
Decamping 35 miles to the north, the resurgent House Republicans this week will host a parade of leading GOP officials - including several would-be challengers to President Obama next year - at a three-day retreat in Baltimore designed to forge unity on the party's agenda. Led by House Speaker John A. Boehner (Ohio), Republicans plan to hear from a host of experts on federal spending and long-term Deficits, as well as discuss strategy for trying to Repeal the Obama Administration's health-car...

Boehner Hosting RNC Cocktail Party During Tucson Shooting Memorial Service
Tonight, President Obama will deliver a “healing message,” in Tucson, AZ at a memorial service for those who died in the tragic shooting there this weekend. The somber service, which is expected to attract up to 14,000 people, will feature prayers, the playing of the National Anthem, as well as reverent remarks from various officials from both sides of the aisle. At around the same time, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OK) will be slinging back cocktails with members of the Republic...

Because nothing pays tribute to the dead like bending a couple in the Doo-Dah room
Tonight, President Obama will deliver a “healing message,” in Tucson, AZ at a memorial service for those who died in the tragic shooting there this weekend. The somber service, which is expected to attract up to 14,000 people, will feature prayers, the playing of the National Anthem, as well as reverent remarks from various officials from both sides of the aisle. The Ohio Republican is holding a 7 p.m. cocktail reception Wednesday night for 168 RNC members, who are in the Washington...

Democrat colleagues see Giffords open eyes
A trio of female politicians was visiting shot US congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in an Arizona Hospital when she opened her eyes for the first time on Wednesday. House of Representatives Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz of Florida and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York had come to show support for Ms Giffords, who was gravely wounded in a Mass Shooting in Arizona on Saturday that claimed six lives and wounded 14. They were in the Arizona Democrat's hos...

President Obama in Tucson
President Obama spoke last night in Tucson at a ceremony on the campus of the University of Arizona.It was one of the more powerful addresses that Mr. Obama has delivered as president, harnessing the emotion generated by the shock and loss from Saturday’s shootings to urge Americans “to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully” and to “remind ourselves of all the ways that our hopes and dreams are bound together.” “At a time when ...

Palin: Blaming me for Tucson shootings is 'blood libel'
on a day set aside for healing and prayer in the wake of last weekend's Mass Shooting in Tucson, all vestiges of a political armistice were shattered when Sarah Palin, the former Alaska Governor, issued a video message accusing her critics of committing "blood Libel" against her. In a nearly eight-minute video posted on Facebook that veered between defiant and defensive, the Tea Party figurehead broke her days-long silence to answer allegations that her own Rhetoric and the passions stirred by...

Obama leads memorial for Tucson shooting (AFP)
Tucson, Arizona (AFP) – President Barack Obama led a national outpouring of grief while calling for unity at an emotional memorial after a shooting that unleashed fierce debate about inflammatory political Rhetoric. In a Speech repeatedly interrupted by applause for those who tackled the gunman -- and the announcement that a US lawmaker who was shot in the head had opened her eyes -- Obama said the attack must not lead to new divisions. "At a time when our discourse has become so sh...

The Presidents Speech and Killing Sarah Palin
What was billed as a “memorial service” in Arizona last night was more of a pep-rally and celebration of life. It was complete with sloganeering, Bumper Stickers, and t-shirts. It is what was needed. What’s more, Mr. Obama gave a stunning rebuke to his own base who’ve engaged in a horrific blame game all week. But at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized - at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of...

Obama makes unity plea as Giffords opens eyes
Barack Obama appealed for unity at a memorial service for those attacked in the Arizona shooting rampage and implored a divided America to honour them by becoming a better country. The US president electrified the crowd by revealing that following his Wednesday Hospital visit with Representative Gabrielle Giffords, she had opened her eyes for the first time since being shot point-blank in the head in the Assassination attempt last week. ...

Abdication of duty
Abdication of Duty by digby So much for Bipartisan healing: Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) turned down an offer by President Barack Obama to travel on Air Force One to Arizona for a memorial service on behalf of the Victims of Saturday’s shooting, a decision that has upset some Democrats. Boehner is instead scheduled to attend a reception on Wednesday night on behalf of Maria Cino, a former top House GOP aide who is seeking the Republican National Committee chairmanship. Boehner is backing C...