Sign of the times, I guess. The gun control lobby makes absolutely no bones about their desire to latch on to the AZ tragedy for their own, selfish political purposes. The Hill:

Gun-control advocates, who are backing a series of reforms proposed this week, maintain that Obama will have to leave the sidelines and join the fight for any of those bills to have even a chance of gaining traction. Indeed, they're urging him to do just that.

Lawmakers such as Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) have also raised their voices, saying the success of any proposed reforms will hinge directly on whether Obama prioritizes them.

"Effective gun laws and enforcement must become a priority for this administration," Quigley said in an e-mail. "It is my profound hope that the administration will take action on this issue in the coming year, not just because of what happened in Tucson but because of what happens every day in Chicago and across the country."

Most liberals who advocate gun control have been even more obvious about their desire to make political hay off the dead bodies of Americans. E.J. Dionne:

More important: We have not focused at all on how the militarized rhetoric on the right is tightly connected to our national failure to enact the gun regulations that might have saved lives in Arizona.

The descriptions of President Obama as a "tyrant," the intimations that he is "alien" and the suggestions that his presidency is illegitimate are essential to the core rationale for resisting any restrictions on firearms. The conversation of American conservatism is being shaped by the assumptions of the gun lobby to a much greater degree than mainstream conservatives should wish.

For a long time, liberals hoped that by convincing opponents of gun control that we harbored no hostility toward the vast law-abiding majority of gun owners - or to hunting or to rural culture - we might forge a consensus around rational firearms laws to protect innocents.

The "core rationale" for resisting the kinds of gun control measures that Dionne would support is the Second Amendment, not questions about Obama. That statement is an absurdity and it makes it plain Dionne doesn't read very much on the right except the most extreme elements.

But Dionne and others just can't let this crisis go to waste and are disappointed that the president has refused to play that game - so far.