"Patti Davis is the author, most recently, of the novel “The Earth Breaks in Colors” and the daughter of Ronald and Nancy Reagan.
When I was writing my book “The Long Goodbye,” a memoir about losing my father to Alzheimer’s, I spoke with veteran reporter Harry Smith about my father’s legacy. Harry was my neighbor when I lived in New York, and I had become friends with him and his family.
“Your father had a shoulder big enough for us to cry on,” he said. “Think about how he comforted this country in the Challenger disaster.”
“We know of your anguish,” my father said in that speech. “We share it.”
Ronald Reagan has not been the only president to offer comfort and solace to a grieving nation. Bill Clinton did after Columbine. George W. Bush did after 9/11. Barack Obama did after Sandy Hook. Each spoke eloquently, with somber compassion and with reverence for the pain of the victims and the shock of a saddened country. Our grief was reflected in their eyes. We didn’t doubt that their hearts were breaking along with ours.
That was then. Now, after a week of fear, with pipe bombs being sent to a list of people whom President Trump has said horrible things about, and to CNN, which he consistently targets, 11 Jewish citizens were slaughtered in their place of worship on the Sabbath. Trump’s response? He joked that he almost canceled an event because, after having to speak to reporters about the shooting in the rain, he was having “a bad hair day.” Yes, I know, he first read what was scripted for him and called the act “evil.” But he has also called Democrats, others who oppose him and the news media evil. The word doesn’t hold much meaning coming from him." WP
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...=.2c97a584c2c5
I'm also reminded of the contrast of President Obama speaking at site of another mass murder of churchgoers in Charleston, S.C. by a white nationalist when he spontaneously started singing Amazing Grace.