President Obama visiting Giffords, victims at Arizona hospital. The Giffords family very optimistic about Congresswoman Giffords recovery.

story by MSNBC.com
video by NBC

TUCSON, Ariz. — President Barack Obama flew to Arizona Wednesday and headed straight to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' bedside to pay his respects to the wounded lawmaker as he sought to unify a mourning nation.

Obama and his wife, Michelle, were visiting privately at University Medical Center with Giffords and other victims of the weekend shootings that killed six people and wounded 13. He was then meeting with family members of those killed before speaking at a nighttime memorial service in Tucson.

"The president wanted to begin this solemn trip by stopping first at the hospital where Congresswoman Giffords and others continue to recuperate," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters traveling with the president. Giffords was the target of the first assassination attempt on a member of Congress in decades.

Searching for the right tone in the evening service, Obama aimed to console the country, not dissect its politics.

A bipartisan delegation of lawmakers, including Rep. Ben Quayle, R-Ariz., accompanied him on Air Force One in a sign of solidarity. Quayle had called Obama the "worst president in history."

Back on Capitol Hill, Giffords' House colleagues praised her and the other shooting victims and insisted that violence would not silence democracy.

"We will have the last word," declared new House Speaker John Boehner. He fought back tears as he described Giffords' battle to recover from Saturday's gunshot wound to her head.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41043078/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/