Early this year, in a memorial for the victims of the Tucson shooting rampage that left six people dead and Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords grievously injured, President Obama called for a more gracious political discourse in this country. We must recapture, the president said, our ability to converse “in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.”

In mid-year, Jon Huntsman launched a presidential campaign with the same exclamation point. Huntsman said he wouldn’t denigrate Obama, or his Republican rivals, stressing that the issue ought to be “who will be the better president, not who’s the better American.”

Now, in late summer of 2011 -- on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 -- Americans are ruminating on the loss of the one thing we thought we’d gained amid the horrific attacks: a sense of national unity. Ten years ago, when this nation was attacked by remorseless murderers bent on our destruction, Republicans and Democrats literally joined hands and sang “God Bless America” together. That feeling did not last long. Instead, the “R’s” and the “D’s” on Capitol Hill returned to their custom of barely speaking to one another, let alone working together constructively.

Incivility in our national discourse proved a hard habit to break. This is true of both our political leaders and the public they represent. Even Obama hasn’t always practiced what he preached. At a recent Michigan event, Teamsters President James P. Hoffa warmed up a pro-union crowd with profane and belligerent language -- and metaphors of war -- and Obama took the stages minutes later to praise him.

Conservative commentators pointed out the president’s inconsistency, but Obama is hardly alone. Voters themselves continually tell pollsters they want more civil politics, but they don’t seem to reward politicians who follow that path. Huntsman, for instance, can’t seem to reach 2 percent in the polls.

“I do not think his thorough-going civility is a detriment to winning the nomination,” Juleanna Glover, a prominent Republican helping out on Huntsman’s campaign, says gamely. Perhaps she’s right, but it’s a matter of record that the Republican presidential field has already lost Tim Pawlenty, in part because he declined during a debate to attack a fellow Republican.

Long before 9/11, Ronald Reagan popularized the 11th Commandment -- “thou shall not speak ill of a fellow Republican.” Even in its day this dictum was often honored in the breach, but a politician who follows this rule today risks being seen as a chump. After the conclusion of the recent GOP debate at the Reagan Library, in fact, Huntsman was called a wimp for declining moderator John Harris’ request that the former Utah governor “name names” to back up his claim that some Republicans are “anti-science.”

The contrast is Texas Gov. Rick Perry (the man Huntsman actually made it clear he was talking about). In the first weeks of his presidential campaign, Perry talked about the “ugly” treatment Texas would accord Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke for his “almost treasonous” policies, denounced Social Security as a Ponzi scheme, and said that anyone who disagrees with him on that is “a liar.”

Answering questions from reporters last week about the political polarization that has led to this kind of discourse, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor pointed a finger back at the media. “Much of that is aided and abetted by your profession,” Cantor said.

Mike McCurry, who served as White House press secretary for Bill Clinton, agrees -- up to a point. McCurry likes journalists -- and appreciates digital media, but he laments what was lost when changes in technology splintered the American audience. He thinks of Walter Cronkite as the “village griot” the United States now lacks. And, he notes ruefully, the political establishment hasn’t filled the vacuum.