Three years ago, on December 14, 2012, twenty-six families in Newtown, Connecticut were forever changed. Adam Lanza, walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School and killed twenty small children and six adults. It was the worst mass shooting our country had seen since the Virginia Tech massacre — but it was perhaps the most heartbreaking. Two days after the shooting, President Obama arrived in the small town and what he did next proves what an amazing human being and exceptional leader he is.
In the book, The President’s Devotional, Joshua Dubois the former head of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships spoke about Obama’s trip to Newtown in the aftermath of the shooting. According to him, before the president arrived in the town staffers gathered the families of victims together in classrooms at a local high school:
The families came in and gathered together, room by room. Many struggled to offer a weak smile when we whispered, ‘The president will be here soon.’ A few were visibly angry—so understandable that it barely needs to be said—and were looking for someone, anyone, to blame. Mostly they sat in silence.
Dubois said that after the families were all gathered in the rooms, he went to greet Obama who had arrived at the school and gave him an overview of the families in the first classroom. He recounted what happened next:
The president took a deep breath and steeled himself, and went into the first classroom. And what happened next I’ll never forget.
Person after person received an engulfing hug from our commander-in-chief. He’d say, ‘Tell me about your son. . . . Tell me about your daughter,’ and then hold pictures of the lost beloved as their parents described favorite foods, television shows, and the sound of their laughter. For the younger siblings of those who had passed away—many of them two, three, or four years old, too young to understand it all—the president would grab them and toss them, laughing, up into the air, and then hand them a box of White House M&M’s, which were always kept close at hand. In each room, I saw his eyes water, but he did not break.
The former White House staffer said that the president repeated this over and over again, “like a soldier returning to a tour of duty in a worthy but wearing war.” Can you imagine the strength it took to do that? Dubois continued:
The staff did the preparation work, but the comfort and healing were all on President Obama. I remember worrying about the toll it was taking on him. And of course, even a president’s comfort was woefully inadequate for these families in the face of this particularly unspeakable loss. But it became some small measure of love, on a weekend when evil reigned.
It has been three years since Adam Lanza destroyed these families. Three years since we turned on the news and saw chaos in Newtown. Three years since we learned the names of the children and teachers who lost their lives on that fateful December day. Three years since we sobbed with the grieving families. And in those three years, our president has had to do this again and again while Republicans block any attempt to prevent it from happening in the future.
President Obama is an amazing leader and we are a great country, but we could do better. We might not be able to stop every single mass shooting, but we can damn sure give it a try. Call your representatives on Monday and tell them to honor the memories of those lost by passing common sense gun reform.
Featured image via YouTube
In other words, Obama has never missed the opportunity to “look” good. Quelle Surprise. His confirmed followers and believers never miss an opportunity to be lapdogs. Quelle Surprise.
It’s too bad the Republicans could have a look good
Oh boy. Did you see the video of Bush just sitting down and doing nothing at all after the plane hit the tower? And watched him do nothing at all after the second plane hit the tower? Not even a glimmer of compassion or confusion or thought crossed that man’s face. He just sat there until he was told it was time to leave. Obama can at least show some compassion. Sorry it upsets you for people to try and be human during a crisis. Just keep sitting there and do nothing. The world can be a better place without your help if petty jealousy and a lack of compassion is the best you can do
The cut and paste queen.
So, basically you have no reply to her.
I replied to the stupid bítch after she sent me the same crap…so mind your own effing business.
Like you minded yours after she spoke…dolt!
Like you’re minding yours now…mental midget.
The GOP never offers realistic solutions. All they can come up with is that every American should be armed (and dangerous). Like that’s not going to get even more people killed.
I’m not a doctor, but I’m thinking that lithium might be medicinally a drug of choice for you.
Oh wow! You know a French word! Quelle remarkable.
“Surprise” is also a French word, little darling. I have an air-compressor if you need some help with your head.
Bathhouse Barry never lets a tragedy go to waste…propaganda is the norm with this arrogant príck.
Oh boy. Did you see the video of Bush just sitting down and doing nothing at all after the plane hit the tower? And watched him do nothing at all after the second plane hit the tower? Not even a glimmer of compassion or confusion or thought crossed that man’s face. He just sat there until he was told it was time to leave. Obama can at least show some compassion. Sorry it upsets you for people to try and be human during a crisis. Just keep sitting there and do nothing. The world can be a better place without your help if petty jealousy and a lack of compassion is the best you can do. Sorry for you, buddy.
Bush was reading to a bunch of children…do you want him to jump up and down and have a hissy fit and frighten the kids, moron.
Barry never does anything if it won’t benefit him.
Totally incompetent corrupt and uppity piece of crap.
That’s it, he had only two options, stay there and do nothing or jump up and down…..well that is a Republican mind for you.
6 yrs of ACA complaints but no viable options, complaints about middle east, no viable options, just back stage grandstanding like yourself….stfu.
Why give an option, when Obumble would just veto or not listen.
When you use the word “uppity,” you’ve said all I need to know about you. Our President is worthy of respect. I didn’t care for George W. Bush, but name-calling reveals a person’s immaturity.
When he claimed we have a “state run media”, that was also very telling LOL Mindless hater, all bluster and no substance, perhaps just intelligent enough to be angry that his party has become a national embarrassment.
Your president hasn’t earned any respect, Bucko.
Pompous arrogant and narcissistic mean the same as uppity….but that one just riles you Obamatards up.
HE BE ONE UPPITY KNEE-GROW!!.
Despite unprecedented obstruction, he’s used veto powers 5 times. Five. Less than half the number of his predecessor. Just a pesky little piece of information known in thinking circles as a fact.
The international embarrassment that used to be known as the Republican party has no ideas to help the American people. None. It’s not a priority to them. They no longer even bother to try. Thinking people have caught onto that. Sorry you were left behind.
You’re correct, but why bring anything up…when you’re told he’d veto everything.
I don’t blame Congress one iota.
Bush could have excused himself and left the room and started doing something. Anything would have been better than just sitting down and waiting to be told to leave. I think your real issue is that a half black man has the office, He could cure cancer and end world hunger and you would find issues. You are free to think what you like, so am I.
No one told Bush when to leave, you’re delusional…Bathhouse Barry is a cancer that can’t be cured and as for hunger, America has more people hungry than every before…he has accomplished that.
I remember Bush going on TV shortly after this and telling the country that fighting terrorism would be the main focus of the rest of his tenure as president. Your little “analysis” of his facial expressions is quite comical actually.
They won’t even help with the firefighters in the police republicans won’t even pay the health insurance that’s how bad they are so don’t think they’re going to help the children in Connecticut
Republicans are politicizing San Bernardino to the hilt, yet they criticize our President for doing his duty to visit the site of a tragedy and listen to the families of slaughtered grade school children.
It doesn’t worry me. For 2 reasons. #1, your hateful, ignorant comments are a sign of your own guilt in knowing your political view is a part of the problem of preventing these tragedies. #2, Americans are already confident that you will never take back the WH again.
That’s a promise.
Republicans have to publicize it, or the Obama administration and the State sponsored media would bury the incident.
Republicans have become a laughingstock and so have their paranoid flock.
No more so than you libs after other mass shootings, calling for gun laws that are completely unrelated to the crime at hand. It’s your ilk that are actually the laughingstock here, especially when 80% of NRA-endorsed candidates win (re)election and when a solid majority of the country holds a positive view of the NRA, more than support either Obama or Hillary.
Wendy, you are not a nice person.
Wendy is spot on that does not make her a not nice person, look a the republican party, they are not very nice people either!
No, she’s just a hateful doofus. Republicans currently hold record majorities in the house and senate, hardly a “laughingstock” to any fair-minded individual.
Judy, I don’t care what you think of me.
Yet this joke of a president politicizes EVERY mass shooting, always getting up and whining for more gun control. He doesn’t get up to lead the country, or to console, but to chastise and criticize. The man is a menace. The next two years can’t go by quick enough.
You, too, mister, are not a nice person. So full of lies and hatred. What did GW do for you and your country? We are seeing it now ISIS is coming back to bite republicans in their backsides. What say you now?
that is nice, but he needs to make NRA disappear, and get those background checks.
We need to get every NRA puppet out of office. I’m like most and not against responsible gun ownership, but the operative word is responsible. The loopholes are ridiculous and the refusal to pass common sense laws by some elected officials proves they value campaign $$ over the lives of the people they were elected to serve.
Too bad this is never going to happen, not when a very solid majority of the country holds a positive view of the organization. Far more, in fact, that support Obama, Hillary, or any of the Republican candidates either.
I can happen if they change how officials and election are bought
But it won’t. What we would see is a DECREASE in the number of anti-gun politicians, not an increase. The majority of the country does not want more ineffective, pointless gun control BS, and they’ve spoken loud and clear on repeated occasions.
Sandy Hook was the greatest farce ever perpetrated on the good citizens of the USA the whole thing was a FEMA re-enactment no one was killed there
He’s never said a word to the families of Omar Thornton’s victims.
So… No comment on the muslim terrorists still…