Sen. Barack Obama insisted yesterday that blacks must show greater responsibility for their actions.

In remarks to the annual NAACP convention, he said Washington must provide greater education and economic assistance but that blacks must demand more of themselves.

"If we're serious about reclaiming that dream, we have to do more in our own lives, our own families and our own communities," the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said in Cincinnati.

"That starts with providing the guidance our children need, turning off the TV . . . attending those parent-teacher conferences, helping our children with their homework, and setting a good example."

"I believe that in the end, it doesn't matter how much money we invest in our communities, or how many 10-point plans we propose, or how many government programs we launch . . . if we don't seize more responsibility in our own lives."

Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, is scheduled to address the 99th meeting of the civil-rights organization tomorrow.

He plans to talk about education, including expanded merit-pay programs for teachers who improve their students' academic performance.

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Military steps: Obama said that as president, he would send at least two more combat brigades to Afghanistan and pull combat troops out of Iraq.

Obama wrote in an op-ed published in The New York Times: "We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more nonmilitary assistance to accomplish the mission [in Afghanistan]. I would not hold our military, our resources and our foreign policy hostage to a misguided desire to maintain permanent bases in Iraq."

McCain is planning to speak about his plan for Afghanistan on Thursday. He told reporters yesterday, "I think we need to do whatever is necessary, and that could entail more troops."

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McCain on trade: In one of his strongest endorsements of free trade, McCain called himself "an unapologetic supporter of NAFTA."

"I reject the false virtues of economic isolationism," McCain told the National Council of La Raza, a major Hispanic organization, in San Diego.

"Any confident, competent country and its government should embrace competition," he said. "It makes us stronger."

"Lowering barriers to trade creates more and better jobs and higher wages," McCain said. "It makes goods more affordable for lowand middle-income consumers."

Acknowledging that some Americans do lose jobs "to foreign competition," McCain said he has proposed "a comprehensive reform of our unemployment-insurance and worker-retraining programs."

"And for workers of a certain age who have lost a job that won't come back," he said, "if they move rapidly to a new job, we'll help make up the difference in wages between their old job and the new one."

Obama has been much cooler to free-trade agreements and wants to revisit some aspects of NAFTA.