"Strong enough to be self-critical": Obama's handwritten additions to Selma speech

As I noted at the time of Obama's Selma speech,, the idea he expressed there that riveted respondents -- that America's greatest strength is its capacity to self-correct, in a never-finished drive to fulfill the promise embedded in its founding documents --  -- was not only not new, but was the same story that Obama's been telling continually since he first appeared on the national stage, and probably before. He did take that message to a new level of clarity at Selma, while expanding the circle of those he credited with fighting that fight and advancing the "always perfecting, never perfected" narrative.

Today the Washington Post is out with a hand-edited draft of the speech. It turns out that Obama handwrote-in the most direct expression of its core idea. And he pointed it directly at his most recent critics -- e.g., Giuliani, who had recently charged that Obama doesn't love America -- contrasting his brand of patriotism with a cardboard boosterism "based stock photos or airbrushed history."

Here is that passage with the handwritten addition bolded, an omitted portion in strike-through, and a later addition in red type:

...Selma is not some outlier in the American experience. Even today, we continue have debate about what it means to love this country, to be a true patriot. But what greater expression of faith in the American idea, what greater form of patriotism is there, than to believe that America is not yet finished, that it is strong enough to be self-critical, that each generation can look upon its imperfection and say we can do better.  That’s why it’s not a museum or static monument to behold from a distance. It is instead the manifestation of a creed written into our founding documents: "We, the People....in order to form a more perfect union."