Obama weaves his rhetoric in Tucson

US President Barack Obama made a moving speech on Wednesday evening before nearly 26,000 people at the University of Arizona in Tucson as part of a memorial service for the six people murdered when Jared Lee Loughner went on a killing spree that also left Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords seriously injured.

Sarah Palin, the Republican former governor of Alaska, and a leading light in the Tea Party movement, who has been blamed by some for indirectly inciting the violence, has also spoken publicly about the event. Her words served only to further deepen the division between her supporters and opponents.

The differences between the two speeches have much to do with the respective experience, education, and rhetorical skills of the two politicians, between whom there is little to compare; more saliently the differences lie in the way that each understands and practices politics.

The killings in Tucson were carried out by a young man whom the police have described as "unstable." The crime has moved the United States because for many people, the approach to politics carried out by the Tea Party ? which had targeted Giffords ? has imbued the event with political connotations. That the young man responsible is mentally unbalanced has come as a relief to many Americans, but it has also prompted discussion about what is acceptable and what is not acceptable in the course of political debate.

The Tea Party's approach to politics might be described as no-holds barred. This was the case before the killings, and to judge by the comments of Palin and other figures in the movement, who have portrayed themselves as victims, it would still appear to be the case.

For Obama, for the Democratic Party, and for most Republicans, political debate is not about who is the better American, but about which party has the better arguments and policies.

Obama's speech in Tucson might be the starting point in a process that will free the United States from the sectarian spiral of hate that the Tea Party has sought to engender. The president rose to the occasion, as did the Republicans, by supporting a motion condemning the killings. But we should not underestimate the capacity of a movement like the Tea Party, which prefers sloganeering to politics. This was evidenced by Palin's use of the expression "blood libel" in response to those who have accused her of being directly or indirectly responsible for the killing. By using this term, she sought to portray herself as a victim on the same historical terms as the Jews, and in so doing, portray her adversaries as Nazis against whom any measure might be deemed acceptable.

If discussion on the limits of political debate prompted by the killings in Tucson does not manage to isolate the Tea Party, then the United States may well be headed for one of its periodic dark chapters. Until now, the control exercised by Congress and the Senate has worked, and it is to be hoped that on this occasion it will do so again.

But it will not be by playing down the virulence of the Tea Party's sloganeering, nor by underestimating its power that a brake will be put on the movement's growing presence in public life in the United States.