“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste,” said Barack Obama’s cold-blooded chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel. “And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”

Emanuel actually said that back in November 2008, while his boss was still president-elect, but it helped set the tone for the Obama presidency and its penchant for ramming unpopular legislation down the throat of the American people. And it’s been embraced by Democrats ever since.

Indeed, when it comes to politicizing even the most unspeakable of crimes, the Democrats simply can’t help themselves. Less than 24 hours after the Uvalde massacre, even before all the children had been identified, three prominent Democrats were trying to score political points: Obama himself, Joe Biden, and Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O'Rourke. It was a race to the bottom, and we think Obama won going away.

“As we grieve the children of Uvalde today,” began Obama’s tone-deaf tweet, “we should take time to recognize that two years have passed since the murder of George Floyd under the knee of a police officer. His killing stays with us all to this day, especially those who loved him.”

We’re sorry. But the killing of career criminal George Floyd — the guy who once held a gun to a pregnant woman’s belly while his friends ransacked her home — does not “stay with us all to this day,” especially while we as a nation are still coming to grips with the senseless slaughter of 19 precious children and two teachers.

Did George Floyd deserve to die? No. Does he deserve to be lionized by the Left and commemorated each May 25 as if he’s a latter-day MLK? Hell no. And he certainly doesn’t deserve equal billing with the children of Uvalde in a tweet from a former president.

The Babylon Bee’s Seth Dillon harshly but accurately paraphrased Obama thusly: “It sucks those kids died, but remember George Floyd? He’s who I’m still thinking about.”

Obama wasn’t finished tweeting, though. “In the aftermath of his murder,” he continued, “a new generation of activists rose up to channel their anguish into organized action, launching a movement to raise awareness of systemic racism and the need for criminal justice and police reform.”

Which brings us to Joe Biden, ever buffeted by events, relegated to the dutiful signing of executive orders on behalf of his cop-hating former boss. “I’ve called on Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act,” he tweeted, “but Senate Republicans have stood in the way of progress. That’s why this afternoon, I’m taking action and signing an Executive Order that delivers the most significant police reform in decades.”

Think about that: Crime is soaring all across the country, police are being gunned down in record numbers, and Biden’s solution is to handcuff our cops. No wonder he’s polling worse than every modern president.

As for what’s good within the order, we can thank Senator Tim Scott, whose reform bill was filibustered in 2020 by Democrats unwilling to acknowledge the commonsense reform measures proposed by a black Republican.

Finally, there was career candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O'Rourke, who’s running for governor in Texas and who thought it’d be a good idea to crash yesterday’s somber Uvalde press conference, which was held by Governor Greg Abbott and numerous state and local officials. You know, the same Beto O'Rourke who once wrote a “murder fantasy” about killing children. As The Wall Street Journal reports: “After Mr. Abbott had spoken for several minutes, Mr. O'Rourke interrupted to point a finger at the Governor and declare, ‘This is on you. … You said this was not predictable. This is totally predictable when you choose not to do anything.’”

One booming voice rose above the ensuing fray, and it belonged to Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin: “Sir, you are out of line,” he said. “Please leave this auditorium. … I can’t believe you’re a sick son of a b**ch who would come to a deal like this to make a political issue.”

Democrats, it seems, just can’t help themselves.