http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/04/an-embarrassment-for-our-nation.html
Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal puts it very well:
"The president was tremendously committed and emotionally engaged. I watched the president with these families. He was there for them and really felt it,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat who worked closely with the White House in the aftermath of the worst school shooting in the history of his state.
“Background checks will happen,” he added, minutes after the vote. “This outcome is a delay, not a defeat.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/gun-control-vote-obamas-biggest-loss-90244.html#ixzz2Qp2Qejmu
As Christopher Murphy says to those who think Obama could have done more, it's hard to see what:
“I’m not sure what more the president can do, having persuaded 90 percent of the American public to support the heart of this bill, which is background checks,” said Sen.Christopher S. Murphy, D-Conn., who has become a leading voice on the issue since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in his state. “The fact is, senators are simply not listening to their constituents. And I’m not sure what more the president can do.”
Gabby Giffords is determined that this will happen:
"I watch TV and read the papers like everyone else. We know what we’re going to hear: vague platitudes like “tough vote” and “complicated issue.” I was elected six times to represent southern Arizona, in the State Legislature and then in Congress. I know what a complicated issue is; I know what it feels like to take a tough vote. This was neither. These senators made their decision based on political fear and on cold calculations about the money of special interests like the National Rifle Association, which in the last election cycle spent around $25 million on contributions, lobbying and outside spending."
"Speaking is physically difficult for me. But my feelings are clear: I’m furious. I will not rest until we have righted the wrong these senators have done, and until we have changed our laws so we can look parents in the face and say: We are trying to keep your children safe. We cannot allow the status quo — desperately protected by the gun lobby so that they can make more money by spreading fear and misinformation — to go on."
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/opinion/a-senate-in-the-gun-lobbys-grip.html?_r=0
At the end of the day this was about political cowardice:
"They will try to hide their decision behind grand talk, behind willfully false accounts of what the bill might have done — trust me, I know how politicians talk when they want to distract you — but their decision was based on a misplaced sense of self-interest. I say misplaced, because to preserve their dignity and their legacy, they should have heeded the voices of their constituents. They should have honored the legacy of the thousands of victims of gun violence and their families, who have begged for action, not because it would bring their loved ones back, but so that others might be spared their agony."
President Obama also discussed talks about the politics of it:.
"I talked to several of these senators over the past few weeks. They're all good people. I know all of them were shocked by tragedies like Newtown. And I also understand that they come from states that are strongly pro-gun. I have consistently said there are regional differences when it comes to guns and that both sides have to listen to each other," Obama said. "But the fact is most of these senators could not offer any good reason why we wouldn't want to make it harder for criminals and those with severe mental illnesses to buy a gun. There were no coherent arguments as to why we wouldn't do this. It came down to politics."
Giffords has the right perspective-it's a delay not a defeat:
"This defeat is only the latest chapter of what I’ve always known would be a long, hard haul. Our democracy’s history is littered with names we neither remember nor celebrate — people who stood in the way of progress while protecting the powerful. On Wednesday, a number of senators voted to join that list."
She urges us to hold accountable all senators who voted against the victims of Newtown and the will of 90% of the American people:
"Mark my words: if we cannot make our communities safer with the Congress we have now, we will use every means available to make sure we have a different Congress, one that puts communities’ interests ahead of the gun lobby’s. To do nothing while others are in danger is not the American way
A delay not a defeat. It's up to all of us to make this true. To ensure that the victims of Newtown and so many other communities do not die in vain.
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