Obama Sends a Message to Dee Perez-Scott

...calling on the country on Wednesday night to start "talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds." Obama decried "politics and point scoring and pettiness that drifts away with the next news cycle," saying "only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to our challenges as a nation.If this tragedy prompts reflection and debate — as it should — let's make sure it's worthy of those we have lost. Let's make sure it's not on the usual plane of politics and point-scoring and pettiness that drifts away in the next news cycle.
The loss of these wonderful people should make every one of us strive to be better. To be better in our private lives, to be better friends and neighbors and coworkers and parents. And if, as has been discussed in recent days, their death helps usher in more civility in our public discourse [on our blogs], let us remember it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy — it did not — but rather because only a more civil [a discourse that abhors the misuse of epithets like racist, hate-monger, bigot, nativist, xenophobe,etc.] and honest public discourse can help us face up to the challenges of our nation in a way that would make them proud [and in a way that insults and name-calling will not].We should be civil because we want to live up to the example of public servants like John Roll and Gabby Giffords, who knew first and foremost that we are all Americans, and that we can question each other's ideas without questioning each other's love of country and that our task, working together, is to constantly widen the circle of our concern so that we bequeath the American Dream to future generations.
They believed — they believed, and I believe that we can be better. Those who died here, those who saved life here — they help me believe. We may not be able to stop all evil in the world, but I know that how we treat one another, that's entirely up to us.
And 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 [although some seem to have a shortage of decency and goodness when it comes to giving priority to the needs and wishes of their fellow citizens]."