Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
I get to work every morning around 4:00. I often turn down the radio so I can focus on reading the wires and web pages that prepare me for the day, but this morning I turned it up so I could hear President Obama speak live from Cairo.
I was interested in the whole of the speech, in his references to our founding fathers, to our mission in Afghanistan, to the impossibility of having the moral high ground when you're bombing old women on buses. But the words that most stopped me were his final ones. "The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God's vision. Now, that must be our work here on Earth."
There is nothing apologetic about those words. They are an appeal to our higher nature, a grounding to that which is eternal, a beautiful call to action. I wondered as I heard them whether we would be revisiting them for decades to come, even as we witness peace come to parts of the world where many of us have doubted it would ever be possible. President Obama has not given up on that goal. I would not want a president who could.
I know there are facts and arguments he could have included but didn't. I am not focusing today on the phrases that were left out, but on the unifying words that were included. While no speech could ever please all people, especially on a topic so explosive, I am struggling to find fault with President Obama's words today. Instead, I am finding hope, possibly one step toward fulfilling that campaign promise.
