As diverse as they were in eloquence and empathy, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama each had his own way of piercing the noise of catastrophe and reaching people.
In the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook school and other national nightmares that brought flags to half staff, presidents found more soothing words for the frightened and grieving than Trump’s boilerplate line that one death is too many.
But Clinton’s remarks as president at the memorial service for the victims of the Oklahoma City domestic terrorist attack in 1995 exemplified compassionate leadership and helped dig him out of a political hole.
Henry Cisneros, his housing secretary, told the University of Virginia’s Miller Center that Clinton that day and Bush at smoldering Ground Zero six years later did what presidents are called to do.
The murder of 20 “beautiful little children” and six adults at Sandy Hook brought a different Obama to the podium the day of the attack, as he swiped at his tears a half dozen times in a brief statement and spoke of hugging America’s children and his own “a little tighter” than before.
