The Democrats have never let a 'teaching event' go to waste for the sake of 'motivating the masses'! Proceeding the Rep.Giffords event was the Sen. Paul Wellstone (D/FL MN) Memorial Service in 2002. It had nothing in it that memorialized the Senator who had died in an airplane crash, but had everything in it as a LEFT political rally. As a sitting Senator, several GOP Senators attended as colleagues but were so harassed that they had to leave before much of the event got started. Couth and class are more of exceptions to the Democrat playbook!
Two years prior to the Wellstone memorial, Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan died in a plane crash three weeks before while campaigning for the United States Senate election coming up in three weeks.
Most people would assume that the Democrats had lost their candidate, since the Constitution says that a Senator must be "an inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen." The deceased Carnahan could no longer "inhabit" Missouri, so logically a vote for him would be a wasted vote. Regardless, the Lt. Governor who ascended to Governor upon Carnahan's death declared that if the voters still chose Carnahan on the ballot, he would appoint Carnahan's wife Jean to the seat to fill the vacancy.
One would expect the Republican candidate and incumbent Senator John Ashcroft to object, saying that a vote for a deceased candidate is not legal regardless of his name remaining on the ballot, and that there is no such thing as a vote for a candidate to be chosen later. However, a religiously devout Ashcroft chose to be civil and not challenge the widow Carnahan during her time of grief, and lost the election by 2%.
A few months later, incoming President George W. Bush nominated Ashcroft to be Attorney General. Jean Carnahan, now the Senator from Missouri was in a position to vote on Ashcroft's confirmation. Even though Ashcroft's confirmation was assured (the vote was 58-42) and Jean Carnahan's vote was symbolic, she refused to return Ashcroft's act of civility and voted NO on his confirmation.
Jean Carnahan could have shown Ashcroft some respect and thank him with her vote for not objecting to the proceedings during the Missouri election, but she chose to fall in line with the Democrat agenda of blocking anything that the incoming President Bush wanted.
For Democrats, it's NEVER about doing the right thing, even when there is no political cost for it. It's agenda first, always. If incivility is the agenda of the day, then incivility it will be.
-PJ