Here is Barack Obama’s speech today: “A More Perfect Union.”

Two weeks ago I wrote about a young man who is about to age out of New York City’s foster care system. His name is Patrick Reichert. Here are some excerpts from an interview with him and his mentor at New York Foundling.

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Barack Obama is to give a speech on race tomorrow, according to Ben Smith at Politico.com.

Obama told reporters in Pennsylvania that he would talk not only about his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, but also about the larger issue of race in the campaign, according to Smith. He will address how some of the issues are seen from within the black church.

Smith said he also defended Wright briefly: “The caricature that’s being painted of him is not accurate.”

I’m sure it will be a widely watched speech. Obama’s pastor is under intense criticism for remarks he made about America, politics and Hillary Clinton and it’s a problem for Obama.

Here’s a sampling that’s shown up on Fox News and YouTube.

“Barack knows what it means to be a black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people.”

“Hillary ain’t never been called a nigger.”

“No, no, no. Not God bless America. God damn America.”

Obama has called the remarks appalling.

“I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies,” he wrote. “I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it’s on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue.”

So is Obama responsible for what his pastor says? Wright has been a spiritual adviser for nearly 20 years. Does that reflect more poorly on Obama? He says that those statements are not ones he heard from the pews of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago or in private conversation with Wright.

Most of the focus has been on Obama, but what about John McCain? He sought the endorsement of the Rev. John Hagee, he has called the Rev. Rod Parsley a spiritual guide yet both men have made offensive comments about Catholics, homosexuals and Islam.

Here’s Parsley writing on Islam, according to Mother Jones magazine:

“The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed, and I believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore.”

McCain hasn’t renounced either man, though he had this to say about Hagee:

“Well, obviously I repudiate any comments that are anti-Semitic or anti-Catholic, racist, any other,” he said. “And I condemn them and I condemn those words that Pastor Hagee apparently — that Pastor Hagee wrote. I will say that he said that his words were taken out of context, he defends his position. I hope that maybe you’d give him a chance to respond.”

PHOTO: Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama listens to a question from the audience during a town hall meeting at the Community College of Beaver County today in Monaca, Pa. (AP Photo/Andrew Rush)

Wearing their green:

PHOTO: Hillary Clinton meets with Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern in Washington today.

So the woman at the heart of the Spitzer scandal is a 22-year-old worried about paying the rent since the man she lived with walked out on her.

She writes that she left home when she was 17, has abused drugs, and has been broke and homeless.

This is whom Eliot Spitzer is alleged to have had sex with. How sad and sordid.

Both Westchester and Putnam counties have air too dirty to breathe under a new standard being adopted by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Even worse, many health officials say the EPA is not going far enough. In fact, the new standard falls short of recommendations by two of the EPA’s own scientific advisory panels – one on air quality and the other on protection of children.

It lowers the permitted concentration of ozone in the air to no more than 75 parts per billion. That compares with the old standard of 80 parts per billion and a standard of 60 to 70 parts per billion that the panels said was needed to protect children, the elderly and people suffering from asthma and other respiratory illnesses.

The agency’s administator Stephen Johnson defended the new standard as the most stringent ever, according to the Associated Press.

Johnson has already come under much criticism from Democrats in Congress, often accused of placing business interests above the environment.

The AP notes that electric utilities and oil companies had lobbied hard to leave the current rule on smog alone, arguing that the cost of the lower limit would hurt the economy. That cost? As much as $8.8 billion a year by 2020 when many of the counties are expected to be meeting the requirement. The estimate does not take into account any reductions in health care costs.

Under current law, the EPA is not supposed to take cost into account when it rules on ozone. Johnson would want to see that law changed.

So I’m curious. How do partisan disputes play out when the issue is the air we all breathe. Scientific experts are saying this air is too dirty for the health of children and the elderly. What price do we put on that? How much progress is worth even more asthma in children?

From Michael Garcia, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York:

“There is no agreement between this Office and Governor Eliot Spitzer, relating to his resignation or any other matter.”

Who are clients one through eight? Oh, and 10 too.

And here’s something from the “Wall Street Journal”:http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2008/03/11/how-the-new-rich-are-changing-the-oldest-profession/ on escorts and the very rich.

PHOTO: New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer exits his Fifth Avenue residence with his wife, Silda, today on the way to his press conference announcing his resignation. It is effective Monday. (AP Photo/ Louis Lanzano)

And from the Washington Post, the FBI had been trying to trip up catch Spitzer for some time.

NEW YORK, March 11—Weeks before a hotel meeting with a prostitute that threatens to derail his career, the FBI staked out New York Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer at the same hotel in an unsuccessful effort to catch him with a high-priced call girl, according to a person with knowledge of the investigation.

The FBI placed a surveillance team on Spitzer at the Mayflower Hotel for the first time on Jan. 26, after concluding from a wiretapped conversation that he might try to meet with a prostitute when he traveled to Washington to attend a black-tie dinner, the source said Tuesday.

Read the whole “story.”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/11/AR2008031100380_pf.html

PHOTO: David Folger watches from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange as Gov. Eliot Spitzer announces his resignation on television, completing a spectacular fall from power for a politician whose once-promising career imploded amid allegations that he paid thousands of dollars for high-end prostitutes. (AP Photo/Henny Ray Abrams)

Here’s a statement from Lt. Gov. David Paterson on Eliot Spitzer:

“Like all New Yorkers I am saddened by what we have learned over the past several days. On a personal level Governor Spitzer and Silda have been close and steadfast friends. As an elected official the Governor has worked hard for the people of New York.

My heart goes out to him and to his family at this difficult and painful time. I ask all New Yorkers to join Michelle and me in prayer for them.

It is now time for Albany to get back to work as the people of this state expect from us.”

On Monday, he become New York’s first black governor.

PHOTO: New York Lt. Gov. David Paterson attends the opening night of “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof,” in this March 6 photo in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Agostini, File)