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Only CBS assigned a correspondent to the tribute to Gabrielle Giffords by her fellow members of the House of Representatives. Nancy Cordes observed "an outpouring of an emotion that lasted all day" in which more than a hundred of them honored the wounded Giffords and her murdered staffer Gabe Zimmerman. The presence of anchor Katie Couric helped put the focus on the House ceremonies. She convened a roundtable of six--three from each party--for her Congressional Voices feature series. The clinching soundbite came from Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, not just Giffords' colleague but a friend too. The Florida Democrat teared up as she quoted her daughter: "Mommy, are you going to get shot?"
But the personal safety of politicians was not Couric's preoccupation. For the second straight day, she implicitly drew a connection between the shooting spree in Tucson and a lack of civility in the national political dialogue. Tuesday she tackled Tim Pawlenty, the former Governor of Minnesota, and EJ Dionne, Washington Post columnist. Dionne defined civil debate by what it excludes: "You do not hate the person you disagree with. You do not think the person you disagree with is stupid. You certainly do not threaten violence against the person you disagree with." With her Congressional roundtable, Couric wondered: "Is now the right time to really analyze and discuss the political discourse in our country?...Was it appropriate in the immediate aftermath of this event, by some people, to blame right-wing rhetoric?"
"We cannot politicize this event," Rep Michael McCaul (R-TX) insisted, referring to the attempted assassination of a political leader.
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