Obama Ipsum

Violent extremists have exploited these tensions in a small but potent minority of Muslims. Indeed, we can recall the words of Thomas Jefferson, who said: "I hope that our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be." Suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away.

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. But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country. America, this is one of those moments. Much has been made of the fact that an African-American with the name Barack Hussein Obama could be elected President.

Again and again, we've seen him make tough choices when easier ones were available. If there is a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. But I've got news for them, too. They're ready to turn the page on the old politics and the old policies - whether it's the war in Iraq or the health care crisis we're in, or a school system that's leaving too many kids behind despite the slogans. But by the time he was a young adult, he was an atheist. That is the responsibility we have to one another as human beings.

They're deciding that their work, their possessions, their diversions, their sheer busyness, is not enough. This is a problem that's brought together churches and synagogues and mosques and people of all faiths as part of a grassroots movement. No, the word is very near. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change. Well it's time for them to own their failure. Because one of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other's character and patriotism.

That's not what I'm talking about. They want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives. And when the Civil War was fought and our country dedicated itself to a new birth of freedom, they took on the problems of an industrializing nation - fighting the crimes against society and the sins against God that they felt were being committed in our factories and in our slums. Today there are 12 million undocumented immigrants in America, most of them working in our communities, attending our churches, and contributing to our country. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias. The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco.

Thank you very much everybody.