making a pointed appeal for “a spirit of civility” at the annual
National Prayer Breakfast, called on Americans Thursday to debate the
most important issues without demonizing opponents.
Civility, the president suggested, is not a sign of weakness.
“Surely you can question my policies without
questioning my faith — or, for that matter, my citizenship,” he said to
laughter for his allusion to the persisting claims of some critics that
the Hawaiian-born president is not a natural-born American, as the
Constitution requires.
The president said “God’s grace” is expressed through the efforts of American military relief efforts in
That grace is carried out “by Americans of every
faith, and no faith, uniting around a common purpose — a higher
purpose,” Obama said. “It’s inspiring. This is what we do as Americans
in times of trouble. We unite, recognizing that such crises call on all
of us to act, recognizing that there but for the grace of God go I.”
Yet in everyday life, the president said, people become “numbed” by the slow pace of daily crises such as poverty.
“Too often that spirit is missing without the
spectacular catastrophe that can shake us out of complacency,” he said
in his appearance at the
The president’s call for a return to civility,
underscored with repeated emphasis on the importance of prayer, was
applauded at a breakfast that was also attended by Vice President
The past shouldn’t be “over-romanticized,” the
president told his audience, “but there is a sense that something is
different now, something is broken — that those of us in
—
(c) 2010, Tribune Co.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
