I worry about a culture that devalues life and believe as your president I have an important obligation to foster and encourage respect for life in America and throughout the world.
I've got a job to do, and I'm going to be judged upon whether or not the world is more peaceful and whether or not America is more prosperous and more compassionate.
The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I, therefore, intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt.
You could feel America starting to ease up a little bit on racism, against blacks in certain pockets, and then suddenly The Cosby Show bubbled up and it was the right time for it.
The biggest problems with Iran in the region are not due to the size of their resources, but due to the fact that they've been more effective in supporting proxies and stirring up dissension and conflict in the region than America or our allies have been in stopping those activities.
The ability of Republican leaders to rile up their base - helped along by folks like Rush Limbaugh, some commentators on Fox News - I think created an environment in which Republican voters would punish Republicans for cooperating with me. That hothouse of back-and-forth argument and - and really sharp partisanship I think has been harmful to America.
We don't believe in a small America. We believe in a big America - a tolerant America, a just America, an equal America - that values the service of every patriot.
Luckily for us, now that steam has narrowed the Atlantic to a strait, the nervous, rocky West is intruding a new and continental element into the national mind, as we shall yet have an American genius.
In America, there's a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world. Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.