Obama Ipsum

But then I asked myself: Are we serving Shamus as well as he is serving us? And it's a lesson we need to remember today - as members of another Joshua generation. It's a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have the obligation to treat each other with dignity and respect. For decades, there has been a stalemate: two peoples with legitimate aspirations, each with a painful history that makes compromise elusive.

"If you're organizing churches," they said, "it might be helpful if you went to church once in a while." And I thought, "Well, I guess that makes sense." But I'm hopeful because I think there's an awakening taking place in America. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children. To the love of my life, our next First Lady, Michelle Obama, and to Sasha and Malia - I love you so much, and I'm so proud of all of you. On education, we will expand exchange programs, and increase scholarships, like the one that brought my father to America, while encouraging more Americans to study in Muslim communities.

That has been my experience at Trinity. We measure the strength of our economy not by the number of billionaires we have or the profits of the Fortune 500, but by whether someone with a good idea can take a risk and start a new business, or whether the waitress who lives on tips can take a day off to look after a sick kid without losing her job - an economy that honors the dignity of work. You understand that in this election, the greatest risk we can take is to try the same old politics with the same old players and expect a different result.

The audacity of hope! In the end, that is God's greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation. "If you're organizing churches," they said, "it might be helpful if you went to church once in a while." And I thought, "Well, I guess that makes sense." These are the Americans that I know. Because in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle-class.

John Kerry believes in the Constitutional freedoms that have made our country the envy of the world, and he will never sacrifice our basic liberties, nor use faith as a wedge to divide us. When we send our young men and women into harm's way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade the truth about why they're going, to care for their families while they're gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return, and to never ever go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America - there's the United States of America. I have a plan that would have already begun redeploying our troops with the goal of bringing all our combat brigades home by March 31st of next year. This last point is important because there are some who advocate for democracy only when they are out of power; once in power, they are ruthless in suppressing the rights of others. And while America in the past has focused on oil and gas in this part of the world, we now seek a broader engagement.

Thank you.