One thing you learn in this job [being US President] is that even if something's not your fault, you're still responsible. And that's how it should be.
The laws of our land are catching up to the fundamental truth that millions of Americans hold in our hearts: when all Americans are treated as equal, no matter who they are or whom they love, we are all more free.
Since I'm the president and Democrats have controlled the House and the Senate, it's understandable that people are saying, you know, 'What have you done?'
I think that we are in a position to continue to make progress, but it's gonna require us to both recognize what the problems are, also recognize the progress we've made. Last point I'd make on this, since we're on criminal justice: During the course of my presidency crime has been the lowest it's been probably since the '60s.
I think we need missile defense. But I want to make sure it works, that it's cost effective, that the technologies are operable, that it's our best possible strategy, and that hasn't been shown.
Our hearts are broken today for the parents and grandparents, sisters and brothers of these children and the families of the adults we lost....May god bless the memory of the victims and in the words of scripture heal the broken hearted and bind up their wounds.
If we got there and we looked up and we said, "You know what? Black folks are still doing a little bit worse off than whites, but it's not like it was 20 years ago," then we can have a discussion about how do we get that last little bit. But that's a high-class problem to have.
Get involved in an issue that you're passionate about. It almost doesn't matter what it is ... We give too much of our power away, to the professional politicians, to the lobbyists, to cynicism. And our democracy suffers as a result.
When you've got little kids, and you're tucking them in. When you open a door and they're in their pajamas and they're, you know, wrestling with you and asking you, you know, to read to them and stuff, [The white House] starts feeling like home pretty quick. Not to mention having a mother-in-law upstairs, and the dog, and now two.