President to address memorial ceremony

US PRESIDENT Barack Obama will this evening address the nation ata memorial ceremony for victims of the shooting rampage that killedsix people and wounded 14 others last Saturday.

Mr Obama will be accompanied by the First Lady and will speak at6pm local time in the basketball arena of the University of Arizona.

The White House said he began writing his speech on Mondayevening and would devote much of it "to memorialising the victims".

The president will inevitably be compared to his predecessors atearlier times of national distress: Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg in1863; Ronald Reagan, hours after the space shuttle disaster in 1986;Bill Clinton at the time of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, andGeorge W Bush in the National Cathedral, in the wake of the attackson September 11th,2 001.

Mr Obama's dilemma most resembles Mr Clinton's, because TimothyMcVeigh, the perpetrator of the Oklahoma bombing, viewed the federalgovernment as a tyrannical power. Jared Loughner, who has beencharged in connection with the weekend's mass killing in Tucson,made similar statements on internet postings. In 1995, as now,Democrats accused the right of inciting violence.

Like Mr Obama, Mr Clinton had just suffered a defeat in midtermelections. Mr Clinton found the right tone in Oklahoma and hisratings in opinion polls shot up.

The title of Mr Obama's speech will be Together We Thrive: Tucsonand America. He will be careful to avoid casting blame.

The university said the ceremony would include a native Americanblessing, a moment of silence, a poetry reading and the presentationof a chain with messages from the public.

The Obamas are expected to visit Gabrielle Giffords, the Democratcongresswoman whom authorities say Loughner targeted forassassination.

Dr Michael Lemole, the head of neurosurgery at the University ofArizona Medical Center, told reporters yesterday Ms Giffords wasbreathing on her own.

A bullet traversed the left side of Ms Giffords's brain. "She hasno right to look this good, and she does," Dr Lemole said.

One of Ms Giffords's surgeons, Dr Philip Rhee, said earlier thatthe congresswoman is "100 per cent" certain to survive.

"Hopefully she'll live to be 95 years old," Dr Rhee said, addingthat he was "very optimistic . . . that she's not going to be in avegetative type of state".

Former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has reacted tocriticism linking her to the mass shooting in an e-mail to the right-wing radio host Glenn Beck.

"Our children will not have peace if politicos just capitalise onthis to succeed in portraying anyone as inciting terror andviolence," Ms Palin wrote in the e-mail read by Beck on air.

Ms Palin had published a map with the districts of Democrats whowere targeted for defeat marked with crosshairs. She exhortedsupporters: "Don't retreat, Reload!"

Former governor of Minnesota Tim Pawlenty, who like Ms Palin is apossible contender for the Republican presidential nomination, toldthe New York Times there was no evidence linking Ms Palin to theshooting.

Asked about the crosshairs graphic, Mr Pawlenty said: "I wouldn'thave done it."