Tucson 'Coming Together' Helped Community, Jarred Some TV Viewers

Jan. 13, 2011 — -- President Obama's speech to the memorial service in Arizona Wednesday moved people on both sides of the political aisle and was praised as an attempt to bring Americans together after the tragic shooting by a lone gunman last Saturday.

The event took place before more than 12,000 people at the McKale Memorial Center, where the University of Arizona's basketball team plays. While it was billed in the press as a memorial service, what occurred was part memorial, part pep rally, with moments of quiet reflection and also standing ovations.

President Obama brought repeated standing ovations and applause as he exhorted Americans, "We can be better," and asked them to live their lives in a way to fulfill the expectations of the nine-year-old girl, Christina Taylor, who went to the grocery store last Saturday to meet her congresswoman and never went home.

"I want our democracy to be as good as Christina imagined it," he said to thunderous applause.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Republican, said the speech was excellent.

Former President George W. Bush's speechwriter Michael Gerson, who rarely, in his columns for the Washington Post, gives praise to President Obama's speech writing, had some criticism about this one too.

Gerson said the speech was none of the things great memorial speeches usually are: "…tightly written, poetically phrased and solemn in setting and delivery…"

But, wrote Gerson, "it had a good heart."

While firsthand accounts of the speech from Tucson accepted the rowdy atmosphere and had onlookers praising it as an example of Tucson coming together, some TV viewers who expected a memorial service were jarred by the yelling and applause.

"The community's desire to heal, to rise from the ashes of tragedy manifested iteslf in an enthusiasm that may have struck some as odd for a memorial," said ABC's Jake Tapper, who traveled to Tucson with President Obama for the memorial.

Watch Tapper's extended report from Nightline here.