You can say that David Jacques is just one guy if you want. And you can choose not to believe him when he tells you that "dozens upon dozens" of local residents feel the same. But even if you do all that, you've got a couple of problems. First of all, this is not just some random guy off the street. He's the publisher of the Roseburg Beacon, so he's got some status in the community.
Second, if you're honest, you have to admit his claim is eminently believable, don't you? Even if you're the biggest liberal, pro-gun control person in Roseburg, do you seriously mean to tell me you don't cringe when Obama rushes to the podium just hours after the massacre and lets loose with an angry, partisan, political tirade?
And even if you think Obama's proposed solutions are right on, if you're a member of that community, you really don't want him showing up and using this particular moment as his platform to raise the ante on that debate, do you? That's why I'd imagine that most of the liberals who will claim not to believe Jacques here really know logically that what he's saying is true: (scroll down for video)
My guess is, if Obama goes (which I suspect he will) they will treat him with cordial respect - as they should, both out of respect for the office of the president and because if Roseburg residents mean what they say about not needing the political acrimony, then they'll have no interest in advancing it either.
But that's not the same thing as really being glad to see him show up in light of how he's already exploited the massacre. This is so often Obama's problem, and neither he nor his supporters seem to grasp the extent to which he brings it upon himself. They incredibly say things like, I've never seen such disrespect for a president! All you need is a memory a decade long to know how ridiculous that is. But even leaving that aside, Obama has a hard time getting the respect you'd think would come automatically by virtue of his position precisely because he doesn't understand how or when to be a non-political president.
George W. Bush understood this. So did Bill Clinton. So did George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan and even Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon. There are times when the job of the president is simply to be a statesman, a voice of compassion representing the goodwill of the nation. The aftermath of a mass tragedy is just such a time, and most presidents good or bad have demonstrated at least some minimal knack for switching into this mode.
Obama does not. Everything is political for him. Every situation is a reason that we must have his preferred policies implemented immediately, and every second it does not happen justifies him having little public snits. And in Obama's mind, the more horrific the tragedy, the more it justifies him politicizing it.
This is exactly why people in places and situations like Roseburg aren't too jazzed about him showing up. They have no expectation that they'll get the calm, healing, comforting president. They expect only to get the angry, finger-pointing partisan president, because that's all Obama ever offers. And that does nothing to make the situation in Roseburg better. It only makes Roseburg feel like its loss is being used as a pretext for Obama to do the very thing he brazenly said on national television that he intends to do - politicize the shooting.
If Obama and his supporters want to lament that he doesn't get the respect they think is owed him, they should give some serious thought to the reality that he acts like this as consistently as he does.
You can say that David Jacques is just one guy if you want. And you can choose not to believe him when he tells you that "dozens upon dozens" of local residents feel the same. But even if you do all that, you've got a couple of problems. First of all, this is not just some random guy off the street. He's the publisher of the Roseburg Beacon, so he's got some status in the community. 
