Gabrielle Giffords' Decision to Resign the Right One

COMMENTARY | According to the Arizona Daily Star, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords plans to step down from Congress next week to focus on her recovery. While some might argue that the decision was taken months too late, it is nevertheless the right one.

One of the last acts Giffords will make as a member of Congress will be to complete the Congress on Your Corner event that was so rudely and violently interrupted over a year ago. She will also be present to hear President Barack Obama's State of the Union address.

Giffords will not run for her seat this year, but instead will devote her entire time and energy toward her recovery. She has vowed that some day she will return to public service.

The story of Giffords' struggle to recover from the gunshot wound to the head she took in the parking lot of the Safeway over a year ago has been one that has been inspirational, albeit injected with a little controversy due to the efforts of political operatives to use it to advantage. The odds were that she would either have died in that parking lot or would have spent the rest of her days as an invalid. And yet she is walking, after a fashion, and talking, albeit haltingly, with simple sentences. The will not to surrender but to overcome adversity is an excellent one in just about every circumstance. The act of recovering from having one's head blown open by a crazed gunman is nothing less than epic.

Giffords is a Democrat and it is possible that her seat will turn over to a Republican, either in the special election or the regular one this fall. She was on the wrong side of some issues, particularly Obamacare. But she was a member of Congress who was respected on both sides of the aisle even before the shooting. Now she is an inspiration to everyone, regardless of politics.

So, there are nothing but best wishes and prayers for her recovery to be complete. And there is the hope that her career of public service is not yet done. Those of faith may well say that she survived that terrible day for a reason and that God is not yet through with Gabrielle Giffords.

Source: Giffords to step down from Congress, Arizona Daily Star, Jan 22, 2011