The most presidential lorem ipsum in history.
It's a journey that takes us back to our nation's founding, when none other than a UCC church inspired the Boston Tea Party and helped bring an Empire to its knees. They cheered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial when Dr. This is a problem that's brought together churches and synagogues and mosques and people of all faiths as part of a grassroots movement. I am grateful to finish this journey with one of the finest statesmen of our time, a man at ease with everyone from world leaders to the conductors on the Amtrak train he still takes home every night. Why else would he define middle-class as someone making under five million dollars a year? How else could he propose hundreds of billions in tax breaks for big corporations and oil companies but not one penny of tax relief to more than one hundred million Americans? How else could he offer a health care plan that would actually tax people's benefits, or an education plan that would do nothing to help families pay for college, or a plan that would privatize Social Security and gamble your retirement?
The Bush-McCain foreign policy has squandered the legacy that generations of Americans - Democrats and Republicans - have built, and we are here to restore that legacy. In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second President John Adams wrote, "The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims." And since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States. The question is whether we spend that time focused on what pushes us apart, or whether we commit ourselves to an effort - a sustained effort - to find common ground, to focus on the future we seek for our children, and to respect the dignity of all human beings. The Talmud tells us: "The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace."
Of course, recognizing our common humanity is only the beginning of our task. Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism - it is an important part of promoting peace.
After the war, they studied on the G.I. I'm hearing from evangelicals who may not agree with progressives on every issue but agree that poverty has no place in a world of plenty; that hate has no place in the hearts of believers; and that we all have to be good stewards of God's creations. This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights.
He was a good-looking kid, six two, six three, clear eyed, with an easy smile. I didn't fall out in church, as folks sometimes do. And I've seen it in this campaign.
Thank you, and God bless America.