I agree with Tapped*: Al Gore’s Move On speech (*) was first-rate; if he’d spoken that clearly in 2000, he’d be President today. (Yes, there would have been disadvantages to electing as President someone who still doesn’t get that the Kyoto Treaty was a bad joke, but you have to take the bitter with the sweet.)
If someone other than Bush is going to be inaugurated in 2005 it will be because other Democrats learn to make speeches like this. GWB should hear “honor and integrity” as relentlessly as his father heard “read my lips.”
P.s. Too bad the speechwriter doesn’t know “rein” from “reign.”
Update Thanks to CalPundit *, this Daily Howler account * of the Right-wing Spin Machine in action: Fred Barnes is denying that the Bush crew ever tried to link Saddam Hussein to 9-11. No, really. Pandagon * is also on the case.
… how can you compete,
Being honour bred, with one
Who, were it proved he lies,
Were neither shamed in his own
Nor in his neighbours’ eyes?
— Yeats *