Today, President Obama spoke at a memorial at Ft. Hood. Of those killed, wounded, and those who ran to help in the emergency, he said:

“We need not look to the past for greatness, because it is before our very eyes.”

Here is John Dickerson’s summary of Obama’s speech in Slate online:

It was a song of America’s values, sung by a man who has been questioned, since the Democratic primaries, for being, as Hillary Clinton’s strategist Mark Penn put it, “not fundamentally American.” During the campaign, he had to make television ads insisting he shared American values. As president, he has contended with opponents who compare him with Hitler because of his … health care plan. Today’s speech is unlikely to mollify his most ardent foes, and it won’t make health care reform any easier. But it should make it harder for anyone to question his patriotism.

Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic Online thought it was “Best Speech Obama’s Given Since … Maybe Ever”:

Today, at Ft. Hood. I guarantee: they’ll be teaching this one in rhetoric classes. It was that good. My gloss won’t do it justice. Yes, I’m having a Chris Matthews-chill-running-up-my-leg moment, but sometimes, the man, the moment and the words come together and meet the challenge. Obama had to lead a nation’s grieving; he had to try and address the thorny issues of Islam and terrorism; to be firm; to express the spirit of America, using familiar, comforting tropes in a way that didn’t sound trite

If you have not heard or read his 15 minute address, I believe it will be a speech quoted and read for decades to come. It brought tears to my eyes.