Obama: Make shooting debate ‘worthy of those we have lost’

President Obama sought Wednesday night to unite the country after last
week’s shootings in Arizona, saying the country cannot let the attack
be “one more occasion to turn on one another.”

The president called on the nation to transcend the heated rhetoric
and blame-laying of both parties in recent months and the days following the
shooting as he sought to move the debate to higher ground.

{mosads}”If
this tragedy prompts reflection and debate, as it should, let’s make
sure it’s worthy of those we have lost,” Obama said. “Let’s make sure
it’s not on the usual plane of politics and point scoring and pettiness
that drifts away with the next news cycle.”

Obama, referencing scripture, described details of the six dead and 14 wounded, including Rep.
Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), and called for a national debate worthy of those such as 9-year-old Christina Taylor
Green, who was killed.

Obama, who has been somber and reflective since the shooting,
powered through emotional remarks even as a student-heavy
crowd of more than 14,000 at the University of Arizona, with thousands more watching on screens outside, sounded at times more like a basketball pep rally than the crowd
at a memorial service.

But the president brought everyone in the building to their feet
when he announced that shortly after he visited Giffords in the hospital,
“Gabby opened her eyes for the first time.”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) were all there for the moment when the congresswoman also raised her arm and gave a thumbs-up — something Pelosi said was “like a miracle.”

Obama, who said
shortly after the shootings that he was grieving both as an American
and a father, time and again returned to the example of Green,
who was born Sept. 11, 2001, and was described by most as a remarkable child with a passion for politics.

Obama described Green as “so curious, so trusting, so energetic and
full of magic. So deserving of our love, and so deserving of our good
example.”

“I believe that for all our imperfections, we are full of decency
and goodness, and that the forces that divide us are not as strong as
those that unite us,” Obama said. “That’s what I believe, in part
because that’s what a child like Christina Taylor Green believed.”

After days of quiet reflection and limited partisan
sniping from pundits, the shooting took on a sharply political tone
Wednesday morning when former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin released a video
refusing blame for the violence and calling on the media to cease with
its “blood libel.”

Obama addressed any finger-pointing, saying it is natural to look for answers in the wake of tragedy.

The
president referenced the “national conversation” that has commenced
“not only about the motivations behind these killings, but about
everything from the merits of gun-safety laws to the adequacy of our
mental health systems.”

“Much of this process, of debating what might be done to prevent
such tragedies in the future, is an essential ingredient in our
exercise of self-government,” the president said.

But, quoting
the book of Job, Obama said, “Bad things happen, and we must guard
against simple explanations in the aftermath.

“For the truth is that none of us can know exactly what triggered
this vicious attack,” Obama said. “None of us can know with any
certainty what might have stopped those shots from being fired, or what
thoughts lurked in the inner recesses of a violent man’s mind.”

To that end, Obama pleaded with Americans not to “use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on one another.”

“As
we discuss these issues, let each of us do so with a good dose of
humility,” Obama said. “Rather than pointing fingers or assigning
blame, let us use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to
listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for
empathy and remind ourselves of all the ways our hopes and dreams are
bound together.”

The president visited with Giffords, who is recovering
from a gunshot wound to the head, and other shooting victims at the
University of Arizona Medical Center before traveling to campus for the
service.

Giffords’s husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, sat next to first lady Michelle Obama. Next to the president was 20-year-old Giffords intern David Hernandez, credited by doctors with helping save the congresswoman’s life.

“She knows we’re here, and she knows we love her, and she knows that
we will be rooting for her throughout what will be a difficult
journey,” Obama said.

Other speakers at the service included Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Brewer’s Democratic predecessor, who read from the book of Isaiah.

Giffords’s office released a statement as
the memorial service began, thanking Americans for their “outpouring of
support” and praising the congressional leadership for its “words and
deeds” of help in recent days.

“Even during the darkest times, our nation’s capacity for kindness
and fellowship reminds us of the best in people,” the release said.