She was just nine years old. A third grader, at Mesa Verde Elementary School. She loved ballet, had planned on learning how to play the guitar and was the only girl on her Little League baseball team. And she was fascinated by politics. That's why she was there at Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' Congress on Your Corner event at the Safeway in Tuscon. She was there because she wanted to learn more about how our country works. Because one day, she hoped, she might hold office herself.

Actually she already did--she'd just been elected to serve on the Student Council. But she aspired to higher offices. You see, Christina-Taylor Green was born on September 11, 2001. And throughout her short life she had seen that as something of a sign. Her mother told ABC News that she thought of it as "a day of hope and change, a chance for the country to come together and be united." And maybe, just maybe, Christina-Taylor had told her mother, she would someday be able to bring all the political parties together "so we could live in a better country." How appropriate that Christina-Taylor was included in a book about children born on 9-11 called Faces of Hope.

But Christina-Taylor's dream of holding higher office will never be realized, for she was one of those gunned down this past weekend.

There has been much speculation about why Jared Lee Loughner went on his shooting spree. Some have suggested that the vitriolic nature of our political discourse pushed him over the edge. And who knows, that may have been the case. But even if that is not the case, the current focus on our collective lack of civility on the political front has the potential of being a new day of hope and change. For if we choose, we can use this moment, much as Christina-Taylor used 9-11, to inspire us to become more respectful, and ultimately more productive, in our political conversation.

We may never know what Jared Lee Loughner was thinking in Tuscon this past Saturday. We may never know if it was connected to the acrimonious nature of so much political discussion these days. The two may be totally unrelated. But for the sake of Christina-Taylor Green, I hope we don't mourn for a few days and then go back to business as usual. I hope we really turn things around and become a nation where all little girls, and little boys too, have good reason to be interested in how our country works.