Historically - when you look at how America has evolved, typically we make progress on race relations in fits and starts. We make some progress, and then there's maybe some slippage.

Inequality also distorts our democracy. It gives an outsized voice to the few who can afford high-priced lobbyists and unlimited campaign contributions, and runs the risk of selling out our democracy to the highest bidder. And it leaves everyone else rightly suspicious that the system in Washington is rigged against them - that our elected representatives aren't looking out for the interests of most Americans.

That's why the American Recovery & Reinvestment Plan won't just throw money at our problems, we'll invest in what works

I don't know the facts of when Joe Soptic's wife got sick or when she died.

We have not confronted forcefully enough the intolerance, sectarianism, and hopelessness that feeds violent extremism in too many parts of the globe.

Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country

Hope is the bedrock of this nation. The belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.