The Hill News

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) called for a ratcheting down of political rhetoric following the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) in Tucson Saturday.

"We live in a world of violent images and violent words, but those of us in public life...should be thoughtful in response to this," the Senate Majority whip said on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday. "We owe it to our own in both political parties to at least have the good sense and common decency...to say, 'Wait a minute that just goes too far,' whether it's from the right or the left."

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) responded by saying there shouldn't be a rush to assign political motives to a "deranged individual."

"He read Karl Marx, he read Hitler," the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference said. "That's not the profile of a typical tea party member, that's the inference that's being made."

However, he agreed that there was a need for civility in political discourse.

"We ought to cool it, tone it down, treat each other with great respect....Do our best not to inflame passions," he said.