July 4 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama marked Independence Day by calling for a revival of the American “spirit” to confront and resolve problems, dismissing critics who say he’s taking on too much too soon.

“We are not a people who fear the future. We are a people who make it,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address. “We need to summon the same spirit that inhabited Independence Hall 233 years ago today.”

The president mentioned “an array of challenges on a scale unseen in our time” that include the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the global recession, and a package of problems “we have kicked down the road for far too long.” Those include rising health-care costs, inadequate schools and dependence on foreign oil.

The American spirit, he said, “is what has always led us, as a people, not to wilt or cower at a difficult moment, but to face down any trial and rise to any challenge.”

“That is the spirit we are called to show once more,” he said.

The chorus of those saying Obama is trying to tackle too many problems at once has been joined by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who in an interview for broadcast tomorrow said he worries the president is spreading himself too thin.

“I think one of the challenges that President Obama has now is that he’s got so many things on the table,” Powell said on CNN’s “State of the Union with John King,” according to a transcript released by the network.

Facing Challenges

Powell, a Republican who served in his Cabinet post under former President George W. Bush and endorsed Obama in last year’s White House campaign, said, “I think one of the cautions that has to be given to the president -- and I’ve talked to some of his people about this -- is that you can’t have so many things on the table that you can’t absorb it all.”

Obama, in his radio address, said the challenges can’t be deferred.

Critics “say we are trying to do too much, that we are moving too quickly, and that we all ought to just take a deep breath and scale back our goals,” he said. “These naysayers have short memories. We did not get here by doing what was easy. That is not how a cluster of 13 colonies became the United States of America.”

Republican Address

In the Republican radio and Internet address, Senator John McCain of Arizona celebrated the Fourth of July by linking colonial rebellion against the British with the protesters in Iran disputing the June 12 presidential election in that country.

“Today, we stand with the millions of Iranians who brave batons, imprisonment and gunfire to have their voices heard and their votes counted,” said McCain, Obama’s opponent in the 2008 presidential race.

Iranian leaders have ordered opposition groups to end protests and accept the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president. McCain said protests in Iran may fade, but the attitudes that sparked them will continue.

“Iranians know the truth. They know who is oppressing them and why,” he said. “It’s a government that governs without their consent, which beats them, imprisons them and threatens their lives to preserve its own hold on power.”

“Liberty and justice will someday be theirs,” he said. “Let us hope they will have reason to remember then who their friends were in their struggle for freedom.”

McCain had criticized Obama for not initially taking a tougher rhetorical stance against the government crackdown on protests in Iran. Later, he commended Obama when the president said Iranian leaders must “stop all violent and unjust actions.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Roger Runningen in Washington at rrunningen@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: July 4, 2009 06:00 EDT