It took President Obama to make America lead like America again.

If the tea party folks would go out there and get angry because they think their taxes are too high, for God's sake, a lot of citizens ought to get angry about the fact that they're being killed and our planet's being injured by what's happening on a daily basis by the way we provide our power and our fuel and the old practices that we have. That's something worth getting angry about.

Think about this: terrorism, epidemics, poverty, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction-all challenges that know no borders-the reality is that climate change ranks right up there with every single one of them.

There is a much cheaper way, less complicated way to bring Iraq and Saddam Hussein to its knees: it is simply to send the Bush economic team over there and let them run the country.

Great challenges confront our great nation. We seek to meet them by rising to the task, not by defining our country down.

And now that the Greatest Generation is getting older, I think it is the responsibility of all Americans to make sure we do our part for America's seniors. You have earned the best of America -- and we need to make sure you get the protection and health care you deserve.

Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, others, knew how to lead. They knew how to ask the American people for the right things.