Hope for a Better Nation

"America, we are better than these last eight years," Barack Obama said. "We are a better country than this."

Government, Mr. Obama argued, cannot solve all of the country's problems. But he said it has basic responsibilities to do what individual Americans cannot do themselves — "protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools and new roads and new science and technology."

He said that government had failed in those duties under President Bush. (I say that that failure began with President Reagan, and climaxed with President Bush.)

Mr. Obama promised to rewrite Mr. Bush's tax code to restore fairness to working people and take away economy-busting breaks for the wealthiest Americans. He promised universal health insurance. He offered a grand, perhaps grandiose, vision of ending America's dependence on Middle Eastern oil in a decade.

And he challenged Mr. McCain's absurd charge that because Mr. Obama opposed the war in Iraq, he will leave America defenseless. "We are the party of Roosevelt," he said. "We are the party of Kennedy. So don't tell me that Democrats won't defend this country."

To be sure, there is much work and much which will have to be endured, before victory in November.