In separate addresses, 2008 rivals invoke nation’s founders

WASHINGTON - In dueling holiday addresses, President Barack Obama appealed for public support of his domestic programs, and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Americans should side with Iranian election protesters.

The 2008 rivals for the White House both cited the spirit of the nation's founders in their Fourth of July radio and Internet broadcasts yesterday.

Obama said an "unyielding spirit is what defines us as Americans" and led people to explore the West, persevere during the Depression and build a robust industrial economy.

"That is the spirit we are called to show once more," Obama said. "We are facing an array of challenges on a scale unseen in our time.

"We are waging two wars," Obama said. "We are battling a deep recession. And our economy - and our nation itself - are endangered by festering problems we have kicked down the road for far too long: spiraling health-care costs; inadequate schools, and a dependence on foreign oil."

He said the same spirit will be needed to deal with problems "we cannot defer any longer." He cited the need to revamp the education and health-care systems and to make clean energy profitable.

McCain said the U.S. has a moral obligation to publicly denounce the Iranian government and support Iranians who feel cheated by the election.

"Today, we stand with the millions of Iranians who brave batons, imprisonment and gunfire to have their voices heard and their votes counted," McCain said. "They do not ask us to arm them or come to their assistance with anything other than public declarations of solidarity, and public denunciations of the tyrants who oppress them. We have a moral obligation to do so."

Iran's leadership has tried to erase doubts about the legitimacy of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by portraying the unrest as sparked by foreign meddling. Protesters say the June 12 election was fraudulent.

Obama has tried to balance being supportive of the protesters without giving the Tehran government more cause to crack down.

Republican lawmakers have pushed the president to more forcefully denounce Iran's leadership, and McCain kept at it.

"There are those among us who warn that a strong and unequivocal declaration of moral support for Iranians would be used by the cruel regime in power there to convince their subject people that the United States is behind the civil unrest they have attempted to hide from the world," McCain said. "But the regime will make that claim no matter what we say or do."

The senator said the Iranian protesters "are on the right side of history, and the cynics among us, who think them fools, are on the wrong side. Liberty and justice will someday be theirs."