Let me finish tonight with this.
I end tonight where I began: with the Obama doctrine at home and abroad. Imagine another president speaking with pride and connection with Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall. Imagine another president wrapping himself into the very history of struggle—for women, for blacks, for gay people—all with a kind of historic celebration: Yes, we’ve come far; now let’s go the distance!
The word used here is we. Not “them,” not “those” people. We didn’t hear any of that yesterday from up there on the Capitol steps; didn’t hear fighters for women’s rights being portrayed as humorless suffragettes; didn’t hear fighters for civil rights being called “outside agitators.” We didn’t here gay people standing up for their right to be here on God’s earth as the odd people out.
No, they belong here. They are among us, part of us—a good and worthy part of us. Again, it was an astounding speech, an “Ich bin ein Berliner” for the home front.
Chris Matthews