"I Am Not Bound to Win, but I'm Bound to Be True"

"Two generations ago, folks who were sitting in your position, they made a decision--we are going to make sure that seniors and the poor have health care coverage that they can count on. And they did the right thing.
"And I'm sure at the time they were making that vote, they weren't sure how the politics were either, any more than the people who made the decision to make sure that Social Security was in place knew how the politics would play out, or folks who passed the civil rights acts knew how the politics were going to play out. They were not bound to win, but they were bound to be true.
"And now we've got middle class Americans, don't have Medicare, don't have Medicaid, watching the employer-based system fray along the edges or being caught in terrible situations. And the question is, are we going to be true to them?"

The New York Times prints President Obama's speech to congressional Democrats on the eve of Sunday's vote on the health-care bill.