America united? It was a raucous, joyful, uplifting, powerful, spiritual, celebratory moment in Tucson

President Obama’s speech in Tucson tonight seems to have won nearly universal praise. I suspect it will be remembered as one of his best moments, almost regardless of what else takes place during the remainder of his presidency. ...Certain types of contingencies suit the temperaments of certain types of presidents especially well, and this seems to have been one such case for President Obama. ...Nate Silver, NYT

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It was one of the more powerful addresses that Mr. Obama has delivered as president, harnessing the emotion generated by the shock and loss from Saturday’s shootings to urge Americans “to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully” and to “remind ourselves of all the ways that our hopes and dreams are bound together.” ... Aides said Mr. Obama wrote much of the speech himself late Tuesday night at the White House. Laden with religion nuance, the speech seemed as though Mr. Obama was striking a preacher’s tone with a politician’s reverb. ...NYT

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I came away thinking much more about the speech's religious and (if it's not too grand a word to use) existential moments. "We may not be able to stop all the evil in the world," he said at one point, "but I know that how we treat one another is entirely up to us." Obama often touched on spiritual themes before he became president, and then largely backed away from them in his first two years of office. In struggling to find hope in tragedy, he was brought back to that ground Wednesday night. ...EJ Dionne, Washington Post

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As jarring as the applause was at times, Obama's words and demeanor were reasonable and beyond appropriate, the president smiling only as he described the heroism of those who wrestled the shooter to the ground. The speech is among the few things I've read or heard since Saturday about which I can say that, and all the more necessary after the grotesque "blood libel" rage that dominated the news most of Wednesday. ...Stephen Stromberg, WaPo

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My own impression is that he provided what had so far been missing from this tragedy: a response that dignified the memories of the victims and properly placed them at the forefront of public attention. The rousing, celebratory tenor of the remarks took me by surprise, though this did not seem the least bit inappropriate. ...Joshua Green, Atlantic

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The standard comparisons of the past four days have been to Ronald Reagan after the Challenger disaster and Bill Clinton after Oklahoma City. Tonight's speech matched those as a demonstration of "head of state" presence, and far exceeded them as oratory -- while being completely different in tone and nature. They, in retrospect, were mainly -- and effectively -- designed to note tragic loss. Obama turned this into a celebration -- of the people who were killed, of the values they lived by, and of the way their example could bring out the better in all of us and in our country.

I have turned off the TV after listening to various pundits moan about the "unseemly" cheers from the audience, the length of the speech, and so on. Here are two reader messages just now that correspond to the way I heard it:

The one thing that the MSM seemed completely baffled by was the tone of the speech and the rousing nature of the audience. This was a university audience. This is the one thing that Obama understood that most people could not even conceive. That the 18 to 25 year olds in that audience wanted to have hope, to be inspired, to wish for a more reasonable discourse. To look through the eyes of a nine year old and to see us (U.S.), as children, as we believe our nation stands for.

And:

I think Obama was elected mainly because of that hard-to-put-your-finger-on quality of leadership, the ability to rise above the everyday and give scope and vision.  But that got silenced by the demands of practical politics the last two year.  The original draw faded.  But in times of limited options, people will be drawn to the most consistent beacon.

James Fallows, Atlantic