The entire Obama crew attended services at "a church formed by freed slaves, whose founding pastor had worn the union blue...."

Overall, Obama's speech successfully blended historical context, powerful imagery, and a hard-headed defense of force in a chaotic world. But don't let the Nobel Committee fool you: For a speech about peace, it was as much about war as the president's December 1 announcement on Afghanistan.

I was struck when, in commenting on the unrest in Iran, Barack Obama invoked Martin Luther King, repeating the borrowed line that King made famous: “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”  Because already, as I watched the demonstrations in Iran, my mind took me back to the days of King and the students of about the same age as many of those in the streets in Tehran.