The most presidential lorem ipsum in history.
Back home, my grandmother raised their baby and went to work on a bomber assembly line. My mother, whose parents were non-practicing Baptists and Methodists, was one of the most spiritual souls I ever knew. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.
But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.
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. That's not the judgment we need. Instead, it is that American spirit - that American promise - that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend. Instead, it must be a cause for action to help the Palestinian people develop the institutions that will sustain their state; to recognize Israel's legitimacy; and to choose progress over a self-defeating focus on the past. Rather than remain trapped in the past, I have made it clear to Iran's leaders and people that my country is prepared to move forward.
My parents shared not only an improbable love, they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. And slowly, I came to realize that something was missing as well - that without an anchor for my beliefs, without a commitment to a particular community of faith, at some level I would always remain apart, and alone. And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. That is what it means to share this world in the 21st century. And despite the costs involved, America's commitment will not weaken.
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. It is that fundamental belief, it is that fundamental belief, I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper that makes this country work. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us.
Thank you very much everybody.