Matthews: We are more than the fights, the 'political back-and-forth'

Let me finish tonight with this.  

I think all great events have great impacts. This country has never gotten over the Kennedy assassination. I haven't. For younger Americans, especially them, 9/11 still haunts.

This horror in Aurora, Colorado, continues to penetrate our country's feelings. I think it's had a stronger impact on this country than all the words thrown back and forth in the presidential campaign this summer.  

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I think people feel for each other in ways that don't come across in the political back-and-forth. They care about each other in ways that don't get displayed when we talk about red states and blue states. I think we need to hold onto these moments of national unity — to keep them in our minds and hearts when the debate heats and heightens.  

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We need to remember that we don't despise each other, but the arguments that are thrown up by the other side. I know that sounds odd coming from me. I freely admit there are people who really get to me, but I also know that if I found them lying in a ditch somewhere, say after a traffic accident, I'd do everything I could to care for them. I know this. You know this about yourself.  

We are all God's children and that is a fact — one that we need to remind ourselves, one that comes back to remind us in times we take a hit, suffering a horror together like we've done since the day that "Aurora, Colorado" flashed across the headlines and ventured into our hearts.