Obama Ipsum

But we also know our conscience cannot rest so long as the war goes on in Iraq. There need not be contradiction between development and tradition. There is also one rule that lies at the heart of every religion - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. That is why I ordered the removal of our combat brigades by next August.

King delivered his prayer for our country. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. And then another one. Change happens because the American people demand it - because they rise up and insist on new ideas and new leadership, a new politics for a new time. We will help Iraq train its Security Forces and develop its economy. Israel must also live up to its obligations to ensure that Palestinians can live, and work, and develop their society.

That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. But I've got news for them, too. Our conscience can't rest so long as 37 million Americans are poor and forgotten by their leaders in Washington and by the media elites. Our universities and our culture are the envy of the world, but that's not what keeps the world coming to our shores. Indeed, faith should bring us together. I am emphasizing such investments within my country.

But I'm hopeful because I think there's an awakening taking place in America. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe. That is why there is a mosque in every state of our union, and over 1,200 mosques within our borders.

Thank you, and God bless America.