Obama Ipsum

E pluribus unum. In that time, he's said no to higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars, no to investments in renewable energy, no to renewable fuels. The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. Of course, recognizing our common humanity is only the beginning of our task.

And he knows that it's not enough for just some of us to prosper. But we also know our conscience cannot rest so long as the war goes on in Iraq. I just think he doesn't know.

This year, in this election, we are called to reaffirm our values and our commitments, to hold them against a hard reality and see how we are measuring up, to the legacy of our forbearers, and the promise of future generations. That's what compromise is about. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam. And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. There need not be contradiction between development and tradition.

These enemies must be found. Let's come together - Protestant and Catholic, Muslim and Hindu and Jew, believer and non-believer alike. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. Well it's time for them to own their failure. I don't know what kind of lives John McCain thinks that celebrities lead, but this has been mine. So let there be no doubt: the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable.

Imagine Lincoln's Second Inaugural without its reference to "the judgments of the Lord." Or King's "I Have a Dream" speech without its reference to "all of God's children." Or President Kennedy's Inaugural without the words, "here on Earth, God's work must truly be our own." At each of these junctures, by summoning a higher truth and embracing a universal faith, our leaders inspired ordinary people to achieve extraordinary things. And when I hear a woman talk about the difficulties of starting her own business, I think about my grandmother, who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle-management, despite years of being passed over for promotions because she was a woman. Now is the time to finally meet our moral obligation to provide every child a world-class education, because it will take nothing less to compete in the global economy. We have the power to make the world we seek, but only if we have the courage to make a new beginning, keeping in mind what has been written.

Thank you, and God bless America.