DCeiver • Finally, there’s Mr. Obama’s sweet eulogy to...

Finally, there’s Mr. Obama’s sweet eulogy to little Christina. Anyone not touched by his words must have a heart of stone. But Mr. Obama went a bit further:

“I want us to live up to her expectations. 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.”

Well, hold on. Children, God bless them, are not morally superior. In fact, they plot and hoard and steal and throw tantrums. It takes a lifetime to burnish away the layers of selfishness that plague us all. Psalm 53 reminds us that “there is none who does good, no, not one.” This idea that we can learn from innocent children is a liberal fallacy originating in Rousseau’s myth of the noble savage.

—Robert Knight, real live asshole, writing for the Washington Times.

On the other hand:

Nine-year-old Isaac Saldana of Tucson, Ariz., was so upset when he heard about the shootings in his hometown that he felt compelled to do something in response.

“Me and my brother were about to go walk the dog when we saw them saying on TV that a little girl and Gabrielle Giffords got shot,” he told HuffPost. “I just thought, whoa! I didn’t know that people carry around guns here in Tucson. It scared me a little.”

Saldana said he decided the best way to help would be to gather some of his toys from home, as well as a bracelet his father had brought him after one his deployments as a U.S. Marine, and sell them at school to raise money for Giffords.

“I felt really bad about Gabrielle being in the hospital and getting shot, so I just wanted to help her,” he said.

After raising a total of $2.85, Saldana put the money into an envelope with a get-well card and mailed it to Giffords’ hospital room. His mother, Aracely Saldana, said she had no idea what he was up to.