Quote

2008 was to the American economy what 9/11 was to national security. Yet while 9/11 prompted the U.S. government to tear up half the Constitution in the name of public safety, after 2008, authorities went in the other direction.

This self-congratulatory notion Americans have that their country is Number One is borne of ignorance and bad manners.

Our gratitude to the American people is immense and we should never be embarrassed to express it.

America is a mistake, a giant mistake.

By the time the 2008 election arrived, we had finally won the Iraq War, or we were on the road to winning it. We won starting in the summer of 2007 going into late 2011.

Now, America is a land of second chances, and I gather you have room for the estimated 6 million of us who know we got it wrong in 2008 and who want to fix it.

The fact that our country, the greatest country in the world, remains mired in race relations issues in the year 2014 is an embarrassment.

So to that extent that was a very sharp reminder a few months out from the election that we weren't performing in the eyes of the public to the level that they wanted if they were going to re-elect us. So we went out and were much more upfront on issues.

I am surprised and embarrassed to be a part of the first American generation to leave the country in far worse shape than it was when we first came into it.