Start of a Washington Post article:
PITTSBURGH — President Obama, facing growing criticism from conservatives and some veterans, ordered all American flags on federal grounds to be lowered to half-staff for the remainder of the week to honor the five service members killed at a naval reserve center in Chattanooga, Tenn.
The move was announced Tuesday, five days after the shooting rampage and just minutes after Obama delivered a speech here at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in which he defended his Iran nuclear deal, called for more military spending, and criticized Republicans for relying too heavily on military force and threats instead of diplomacy.
Standing before a crowded hall of aging veterans, Obama eulogized each of the four Marines and the one sailor killed by a gunman in Chattanooga. Tom Sullivan was “everything that a Marine should be,” Obama said. Skip Wells was so devoted to the Marine Corps that he wore his dress blues to his home town’s Fourth of July parade. David Wyatt led with courage in Afghanistan and mentored comrades with post-traumatic stress disorder. Carson Holmquist loved his wife, Jasmine, and their 2-year-old son. Randall Smith, the sailor, was a high school baseball star with two young daughters he called “little princesses.”
But even as he spoke, the president faced stinging criticism that he hadn’t acted swiftly enough to honor the dead by lowering the flag at the White House and federal buildings around the country.
“Oh one more thing, lower the FLAG!!!!!!!! Sir,” former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, author of the best-selling book “Lone Survivor,” wrote on his Facebook page.
That critique was then echoed on Capitol Hill, where House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) moved quickly to lower the flag to half-staff on the Capitol grounds.
The midsummer tempest highlighted how Obama — six years into his tenure as commander in chief — continues to be pressed to defend his patriotism, his support for the military and his toughness.
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