A Time for Healing

TUCSON, Ariz. - Before a rousing, sometimes raucous crowd of 13,000 Arizonans aching from Saturday's deadly shooting, President Obama on Wednesday evening urged Americans to tone down their rhetoric and debate "in a way that heals, not a way that wounds."

"Bad things happen, and we must guard against simple explanations in the aftermath," he said. "We may not be able to stop all evil in the world, but I know that how we treat one another is entirely up to us."

Obama also announced that Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, gravely wounded by a bullet that passed through the left side of her brain, opened her eyes for the first time Wednesday, apparently minutes after the president visited her at the hospital.

"She knows we are here," Obama told a crowd at the University of Arizona that included thousands of enthusiastic college students. "She knows we love her, and she knows we are rooting for."

"There is nothing I can say that will fill the sudden hole torn in your hearts," he said. "But know this: The hopes of a nation are here tonight. We mourn with you for the fallen. We join you in your grief."

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, told the crowd that the shooting "pierced our sense of self-being" but vowed that the state "will not be shredded by one madman's act of darkness."

The event, held five days after a gunman killed six people and wounded 14 during the congresswoman's constituent event outside a suburban Safeway grocery store, took the tone of a pep rally for unity rather than a memorial service for the dead.

National leaders and local heroes were met with repeated standing ovations and cheers. Thousands who attended wore navy-blue T-shirts with the name of the event's theme, "Together We Thrive, Tucson and America."

"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 cautioned against jumping to conclusions about the alleged killer's motives. "For the truth is that none of us can know exactly what triggered this vicious attack. 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."

Obama concluded by urging the country to live up to the expectations of the youngest victim, Christina Taylor Green, the 9-year-old granddaughter of former Phillies manager Dallas Green.

"Imagine: Here was a young girl who was just becoming aware of our democracy, just beginning to understand the obligations of citizenship, just starting to glimpse the fact that someday she too might play a part in shaping her nation's future," Obama said. "She saw public service as something exciting, something hopeful. She was off to meet her congresswoman, someone she was sure was good and important and might be a role model. She saw all this through the eyes of a child, undimmed by the cynicism or vitriol that we adults all too often just take for granted."

Christina was one of 50 babies born on 9/11 to be featured in a book called Faces of Hope. Next to her picture was written, "I hope you jump in rain puddles."

Said Obama: "If there are rain puddles in heaven, Christina is jumping in them today. And here on Earth, we place our hands over our hearts and commit ourselves as Americans to forging a country that is forever worthy of her gentle, happy spirit."

In addition to meeting with Giffords at the hospital before the memorial, Obama visited the four others recovering at the hospital. Joined by Attorney General Eric Holder and Arizona Republican Sens. John McCain and Jon Kyl, the president also met with 13 family members of the six people killed.

Earlier Wednesday, Peter Rhee, chief trauma surgeon at the University Medical Center in Tucson, said Giffords was doing as well as could be expected. Although permanent damage is likely, she is moving more and tugged at her gown, the doctor said.

"She was able to actually even feel her wounds herself," Rhee told reporters. "Will she be functional, viable, normal? I can't say for sure, but I'm very hopeful she will be."

Rhee and other central players did not speak at the Wednesday evening event, but they were saluted like rock stars and given rowdy standing ovations as they entered the arena.

The most sustained cheers were for Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, who after the shooting famously called Arizona "the mecca for bigotry and violence," and for Daniel Hernandez, the congressional intern credited with saving Giffords' life by cradling her head and applying pressure to the wound.

Hernandez was seated in a place of honor beside Obama. In brief remarks, Hernandez rejected the label of hero, and said the shooting should unite, not divide, Americans.

"E pluribus unum - out of many, one," he said.

During the hour-long ceremony, no one uttered the alleged shooter's name, and Jared Lee Loughner remained locked in a federal prison in Phoenix, charged with Giffords' attempted assassination, and the murders of a federal judge, John Roll, and a federal employee, Giffords aide Gabe Zimmerman. If convicted, Loughner faces a possible death sentence.

Arizonans began lining up before dawn. By nightfall, roughly 13,000 filled the McKale Center, the university's basketball arena, and 13,000 more who were turned away watched the event on a large screen at the football stadium next door.

Most appeared to leave the event in high spirits. But more than a few were startled by the evening's rather upbeat nature. Long after the crowd thinned, college junior Vera Rapcsak, a Democrat, was still shaking with emotion and crying. "I needed someone to tell me everything was OK, and that happened," she said. "But all politics aside, six innocent people are dead and that just breaks my heart."

Junior Dan Fitzgibbon, a Republican who helped organize the event, said: "I don't think the president could have done better offering a eulogy and a call to action. But I think it was unfortunate that it wasn't a more somber, sober experience, instead of a rally."

In Washington, the House honored Giffords and the other Tucson victims with a resolution that condemned "in the strongest possible terms the horrific attack" and praised the "bravery and quick thinking exhibited by those individuals who prevented the gunman from potentially taking more lives."

"Our hearts are broken, but our spirit is not," House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) said. "This is a time for the House to lock arms in prayer for the fallen and wounded and resolve to carry on a dialogue for democracy."

The resolution noted that when members read the U.S. Constitution last week, Giffords recited the First Amendment, which guarantees the right of the public to peaceably assemble.

The largest flag recovered from ground zero after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center was on its way to Arizona on Wednesday to be displayed at the funeral of the 9-year-old girl killed in Saturday's shooting attack.

The 20-by-30-foot flag was the largest to have survived the collapse of the World Trade Center, the Arizona Republic reported. Christina Taylor Green was born the day the towers fell and will be laid to rest Thursday in Tucson.

A spokesman for the foundation that displays the flag around the country said it was being accompanied by a New York firefighter.

Also Wednesday, a Kansas church known for picketing the funerals of slain service members and blaming their deaths on the country's tolerance of homosexuality said it would not protest at any of the victims' funerals.

Shirley Phelps-Roper of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka said her church had agreed to avoid the funeral of Christina Taylor Green in exchange for live interviews on radio shows in Canada and Arizona.

The church also promised not to protest the Friday funeral of U.S. District Judge John Roll or other shooting victims.

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Read President Obama's remarks

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