President Obama Echoes President George H.W. Bush

In his inaugural address today, the president said:

We recall that what binds this nation together is not the colors of our skin or the tenets of our faith or the origins of our names. What makes us exceptional -- what makes us American -- is our allegiance to an idea articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago:
 "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

That passage bears a passing resemblance to what President George H.W. Bush said on April 13, 1991, at Maxwell Air Force Base:

But what defines this nation? What makes us America is not our ties to a piece of territory or bonds of blood; what makes us American is our allegiance to an idea that all people everywhere must be free. This idea is as old and enduring as this nation itself -- as deeply rooted, and what we are as a promise implicit to all the world in the words of our own Declaration of Independence.