Washington:
Wednesday was bookended by two remarkable -- and remarkably different -- political performances that demonstrated the vast expanse of America's political landscape.
The day opened at 5 am with Sarah Palin, whose seven-and-a-half minute video statement captured with precision the bubbling anger and resentment that is an undercurrent of the national conversation about our public discourse.
It ended with President Obama, whose plea for civility, love and compassion - for us to all be not just better citizens but better people - exposed for the first time the emotions of a leader who has spent two years staying cool and controlled for a nation beset by difficult times.
The tone of the two speeches could not have been more different. The venues were a world apart - the smallness of a rectangular video on a computer screen and the vastness of an echo-filled basketball arena.
And they both served as a reminder of the political clash to come when the 2012 presidential campaign gets underway in earnest next year.
Whether Ms Palin chooses to challenge Mr Obama or not, her video reflected the urgent feelings of her supporters. And Mr Obama's speech, delivered amid sorrow, offered a fresh glimpse of the candidate who used hope as the tool to inspire his.
Ms Palin's decision to post the video on the internet Wednesday morning all but invited comparisons to the president's previously announced appearance at the memorial service for those slain in Arizona.
And her choice of words - most notably the accusation that her critics were guilty of "blood libel" for the things they have said about her - made it impossible to ignore the video as merely another statement from a politician.
"We will not be stopped from celebrating the greatness of our country and our foundational freedoms by those who mock its greatness by being intolerant of differing opinion and seeking to muzzle dissent with shrill cries of imagined insults," she said.
Like Mr Obama, Ms Palin offered heartfelt sympathies for those who were injured or killed by the gunman in Tucson. Her "heart broke," she said, just as Mr Obama later noted that "our hearts are broken."
"No words can fill the hole left by the death of an innocent, but we do mourn for the victims' families as we express our sympathy," Ms Palin said, looking directly into the camera.
But the purpose of Ms Palin's video was clearly to send a different, more sharp-edged message. Just 1 minute and 32 seconds into her talk, Ms Palin shifted gears, saying she had become puzzled and saddened by the accusations leveled against her and others by "journalists and pundits."
Disciplined and sophisticatedly produced, the video ended with Ms. Palin's resolve. "We need strength to not let the random acts of a criminal turn us against ourselves, or weaken our solid foundation, or provide a pretext to stifle debate," she said. "We are better than the mindless finger-pointing we endured in the wake of the tragedy."
That message, in truth, was not so different from the one that Mr. Obama delivered 15 hours later in front of more than 14,000 people at the McKale Memorial Center.
"They believed, and I believe, we can be better," the president said, referring to the victims of Saturday's shooting. And, like Ms. Palin, he rejected as far too simplistic the idea that political speech, however harsh, was directly responsible for the tragedy.
"If, as has been discussed in recent days, their deaths help usher in more civility in our public discourse, let's remember that it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy - it did not - but rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to the challenges of our nation, in a way that would make them proud," he said.
But what could not have been more different was the tone. Where Ms. Palin was direct and forceful, Mr Obama was soft and restrained. Where Ms Palin was accusatory, Mr Obama appeared to go out of his way to avoid pointing fingers or assigning blame. Where she stressed the importance of fighting for our different beliefs, he emphasized our need for unity, referring to the "American family - 300 million strong."
For the president, it was at least the fourth time he has presided as the country's mourner-in-chief. He delivered the eulogies at Senator Edward Kennedy's funeral and at the memorial for miners who died in West Virginia. And he spoke to the nation after the shootings at an Army base Texas.
But this time, he appeared more affected by the trauma of the deaths. And none more so than when he was talking about the death of Christina Green, a 9-year-old girl not much older than Mr Obama's youngest daughter.
"I want us to live up to her expectations," he said, his voice rising. "I want our democracy to be as good as Christina imagined it. I want America to be as good as she imagined it. All of us -- we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations."
Eyes glistening, the president was forced to take a long pause to compose himself.
He talked about the "process of aligning our actions with our values" and that what really matters in life "is how well we have loved and what small part we have played in making the lives of others better."
Mr Obama's advisers had suggested earlier in the day that the president might avoid all mention of the swirling controversy - made even more intense by Ms Palin's video - over the nation's heated rhetoric.
But he did not, in the end, duck the issue.
Instead, Mr Obama echoed the calls for greater civility and fresh reflection about the nature of public discourse. But he did so while urging all sides to abandon what he called "the usual plane of politics and point scoring and pettiness that drifts away in the next news cycle."
He is likely to be disappointed. Even as he spoke, Twitter messages and emails flew across the internet, with one side assailing the other. And Ms Palin will likely find little hope in the barrage of criticism that greeted her video.
Unless - or until - Ms Palin runs for president and wins the Republican nomination, there are not likely to be many single days in which the two very different politicians are on display in such dramatic ways.
Wednesday was one.