Barack Obama on Father's Day

Barack Obama gave a courageous speech on Father's Day at Apostolic Church of God, a 20,000 member African-American church on Chicago's South Side. It showed why Obama appeals to so many, conservatives and liberals alike as it combined a conservative message of responsibility with a liberal message of community and help for those who need it wrapped up in the country's love of religion and the eternal American hope for a better tomorrow.

Some of the best lines were left out of the official text released on web. Money quote from own transcription:

How many in this generation are we willing to lose to poverty, or violence, or addiction? How many? We can't simply write these off to past injustices. Those injustices are real. There's a reason why our families are in disrepair. And some of it has to do with a tragic history. But we can't keep on using that as an excuse.

Some it has to do with the failures of our government, and those failures are real. But we can't keep on using that as an excuse. Yes we need fewer guns in the hands of people who shouldn't have them. Yes we need more money for our schools, and more outstanding teachers in the classroom, and more after school programs for our children. Yes we need more jobs and more job training and more opportunity in our community. We know all that. That's why I'm running for president of the United States of America.

We know we need to bring about change in America. We know that. But he change we need is not just going to come from government. It's not just going to come from a president. It's going to come from us. It's going to come from each and everyone of us. We need families to raise our children.

We need fathers to recognize that responsibility doesn't just end at conception. That doesn't just make you a father. What makes you a man is not the ability to have a child. Any fool can have a child. That doesn't make you a father. It's the courage to raise a child that makes you a father.

And, in case you were wondering, this message of tough love--for which some African-American leaders have been vilified in the past--was received with thunderous applause and cries of "amen". Of course, according to the New York Times, it sounds like Michele had the last word:

Mr. Obama sprinkled his roughly 30-minute address with some moments of levity. When he asked Mrs. Obama why Mother’s Day produces so much more “hoopla” than Father’s Day, he said, she reminded him of his special status.

“She said, ‘Let me tell you, every day is Father’s Day,’ ” he said. “ ‘Every day you’re getting away with something. You’re running for president.’ ”

Watch it for yourself on the YouTube.