President Obama spent a lot of time defending himself in his speech Thursday night at the Democratic National Convention.

In what was a pretty safe speech, the president weighed in on issues ranging from the economic progress being made, size of government, class, debt, Israel, and even his 2008 campaign’s “hope and change” message, all the while offering some pretty clear retorts to the charges being leveled against him by Republicans.

Here’s a taste:
On the big goals of his 2008 campaign, which Mitt Romney poked fun at in his own convention speech last week, Obama clarified that his vision of hope is “not blind optimism or wishful thinking, but hope in the face of difficulty, hope in the face of uncertainty; that dogged faith in the future…”

On wealthy people, whom the GOP has accused Obama of demonizing: “We celebrate individual initiative. We’re not entitled to success. … But we also believe in citizenship.”
And on GOP attacks on his view of government’s significant role in economic recovery: “We don’t think government can solve all our problems, but we don’t think that government is the source of all our problems.”

Obama added: “Those of us who carry on (Franklin D. Roosevelt’s) party’s legacy should remember that not every problem can be remedied with another government program or dictate from Washington.”

On those latter two counts, Obama was hardly the only one responding to GOP charges this week; in fact, several convention speakers offered very similar remarks assuring that Democrats don’t begrudge success and don’t think government is the answer to all of the country’s problems.