he comes to us via skype. pete dominick is in new york. mark thiesen is a washington post columnist, he s in washington. karen tummalty is with the washington post also in washington. i want to start with you, mark. you re a former speech writer for president bush. not often someone who compliments president obama. but last night in that event, unusual though it was because we thought it was going to be a memorial service and it had overtones, there was cheering and there was a lot of clapping. you felt that the president achieved two things in his speech. you describe it as being two speeches in one. brilliant and courageous. tell me from your normally critical perspective of president obama why you think so. well, first of all, there was two speeches. the first speech was a traditional memorial address like the one the examples you just showed where he told the stories of the victims and shined a light on them. that was very important because the light had been the
he got hostile over a grade he received in a pay lat at plat at this class. he was finally suspended earlier this year. shep? shepard: trace, we are learning more about what the president plans to deliver at tonight s memorial address, right? yeah. we have, shep. we should also note that the president has arrived here at mchale center. he is inside meeting with the families of the victims and and his speech, we re told will take between 16 and 19 minutes and his press secretary robert gibbs says he will devote a significant portion of the speech to focus on the victims and how best to honor them. i want to give a live look inside mchale center because people have been waiting here, shep, all night long to get in. it holds 14,000 people. it will be filled to capacity. the overflow crowdill be pushed to the football field. that holds 60,000. they will have giant screens to show what s going on inside. this is a significant deal to