gabe is survived by his parents, ross and emily, his brother ben, his fiancee kelly who he planned to marry next year. [ applause ] and then there is 9-year-old christina-taylor green. christina was an a student. she was a dancer. she was a gymnast. she was a swimmer. she decided that she wanted to be the first woman to play in the major leagues. and as the only girl on her little league team, no one put it past her. [ applause ] she showed an appreciation for life uncommon for a girl her age.
and judge roll, we recognize not only a man who prized his family in doing his job well but also a man who embodied america s fidelity to the law. and in gabby in gabby we see a reflection of our public spiritedness. that desire to participate in that sometimes frustrating, sometimes contentious but always necessary and never ending process to form a more perfect union. [ applause ] and in christina, in christina we see all of our children.
speech was 4 1/2 minutes. this was over 30. but he was trying to do a lot of things. he was trying, most importantly, though, to speak for the fallen. and i thought that s where the real power of this speech was, when he told the stories of the fallen and at the end, he came back, reminded us that we have to try to lift ourselves to be worthy, particularly of little christina green. the applause, too, oftentimes lengthy, added to the time more than made the speech longer than it actually was. cornell belcher, you worked for then candidate obama. what did you make of the speech? i got to tell you, we saw barack obama at his finest tonight. i think you saw the inspiration and the passion that he spoke with tonight. a lot of people say they hadn t seen that in barack obama in the last two years. hadn t seen that really since the campaign trail. a couple big things to me tonight struck me. one, he was a head of state, a unifying figure. sort of bring us together. he talked about how al
a way i think was very helpful and very commander in chief tonight. michael gerson, speechwriter, you ve written a lot of speeches for president bush. what do you make of this one? i thought there were good and bad tonight. i think the good very much, as the others talked about, telling the stories of heroism, the stories of sacrifice. the president s good at that. that s humanizing. dignifies. the details dignify think the president s good at that. i think in some ways this was a speech dedicated to christina green. to be worthy of her innocence. and she had some of the most eloquent words of the speech when she was quoted near the end. there was a strong spiritual undertone in this speech that i thought was very appropriate but it was long and it did in parts lecture. the president talks about
[ applause ] as has already been mentioned, christina was given to us on september 11th, 2001. 1 of 50 babies born that day to be pictured in a book called faces of hope. on either side of her photo in that book were simple wishes for a child s life. i hope you help those in need, read one. i hope you know all the words to the national anthem and sing it with your hand over your heart.