After Sunday’s murders at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin, President Obama wasted less time than he has before in making it a target of political opportunism concerning gun control. He called for a national “soul-searching” about ways to end gun violence. (This prompted Instapundit to point out the lack of Presidential self-soul-searching regarding the hundreds left dead by Fast and Furious.)
The phrase rang a bell, and indeed, this wasn’t first time that Obama has found himself concerned about the state of the nation’s soul. In his statements after Trayvon Martin was killed, Obama said that “all of us have to do some soul-searching,” (1:13 in the embedded video). During the college basketball game on the USS Carl Vinson, the President took time out to admonish “all institutions” to do some soul-searching over the Jerry Sandusky situation at Penn State (0:48):
In 2011, he questioned Israel’s sincerity in its commitment to peace, saying that Jewish and Israeli leaders needed to “search your souls” about their seriousness.
Previously, in closing his much-ballyhooed Health Care Summit, intended to simultaneously browbeat and co-opt Republican opposition to Obamacare, the President told Republicans:
Of course, we might have seen this coming. During the campaign, Michelle Obama comforted us with the news that Barack Obama, in order to prepare us to tackle the tough challenges ahead, would be able to fix our souls (3:18).
The Health Care Summit was relatively early in his administration, so the concern might have been warranted. But surely, by now, our souls ought to have been fixed?
