Al Gore: Setting the standard in a Speech for the Ages..

Years from now, this speech will attain the status of a classic, and may well be known as the one which connected all the dots for the ultimate defeat or impeachment of Bush.

It was the greatest speech I have heard since JFK. Al convincingly laid out all the Bush crimes and spoke TRUTH to power. He quoted a 2001 Nobel Economist prize winner's devastating indictment of Bush and laid the framework for the debates.

Gore left out only one thing; the touch-screen Diebold voting bandits. But he will address this issue in time; we at DU will make sure of that.

Those who ignore what Gore said do so at their peril. Lieberman is finished, and so is any candidate who sides with Bush on the war, the Patriot Act, 9/11, whatever.

Bill Clinton, move over. Al Gore speaks for the Democratic Party now. The candidate who follows through and reinforces what Gore said in that speech will get the nomination.

I am convinced more than ever that Al is our best hope, he has learned from his mistakes, he is a national treasure and he should be the standard-bearer. Maybe he won't run, but the speech will have a profound effect on those who do. If he were to run again, he would clean Bush's clock - a landslide. But he won't run; its our loss, its the world's loss.

With all due respect to the Dem candidates (particularly, Dean, Kucinich, Kerry and Graham) none has come close to expressing the full breadth and touched all the bases like Gore has in this speech.

Although the speech reinforced feelings of despair for what might have been, it also stirred the hope that, even if he does not run, what he said will become the basis for the 2004 Democratic platform: Hold nothing back, appeal to the base with the TRUTH and the independent middle will surely follow.

but let's not overdo it.

A 'speech for the ages'????

since you only open them to be insulting? Do you have an aggenda here?

One for the ages.

it was an incredible speech. it was like he gave Bush the beating of a lifetime. It did my heart good to hear what we have been forbidden to say.

Someone (I forget who) said that they couldn't get the C-SPAN RealPlayer link to work, so I made an mp3 version for anyone who prefers that format. You can slap this version on an iPod (or whatever mp3 player you prefer) too and take it with you :-)

9 M mp3

However, I think as a non-candidate Gore has a bit more leeway in what he can accuse the president of than a candidate, for fear of backlash. I think he'll be extremely helpful during the campaign if he continues to speak out.

why does it have to be that way? To get the votes of people who may not agree with your policies? Let's be upfront, say what we believe in, and damn the torpedos!

the pragmatic approach IMHO is way too safe... it is the one reason that while I agree with the praise of this speech... the restraint bothers me. I understand the restraint... but let's also face it the democrats throughout the years have proved themselves too complicit when push came to shove, regardless that their hearts might be in a better place. The democrats were given the opportunity to take pretty much this same cabal down during Iran contra. For reasons we do not know, they chose not to... so that a decade later we could watch this same party impeach Clinton over a blow job in the oval office.

Sorry...the democrats have some proving to do. Before I am going to jump up and down by a speech from a politician who is not running. Time will tell.

Here, breath into this bag...slowly thats it..in ...out...till your color returns

when we are facing a Fascist takeover of the country? What have you done to prevent the mess we are in? What have you done to clean it up? Yes, this is one of the greatest speeches ever, no one else seems to give a shit. Even Dean sounds wishy washy in comparison.

didn't ya?

With the passive aggresive utterances of Mr Gore, whom by the way got us in this mess with his inept campaign. He turned what should have been an easy win into a close race.

Saying this was a "speech for the ages" reveals a total lack of perspective or knowledge of history.

For educational purposes I include a link to a real "speech for the ages"

http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/rfk.htm

...

arnie the blarney.

Al's Speech was so witty, funny, and poignant that at the end it had be in soft tears. :kick:

I want to drive this clip back onto the most watched clip and I also hear something new each time I listen.

Absolutely one of the best speeches ever. But what is fun, is hearing all the nice things the people introducing him had to say. They didn't show that on c-span when they play it on air.

after for it's content and that it was a "turning point" for the DLC.....and the Older DNC......and whatever which then took us back to the LABOR DNC.......and then became the NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY.......ENERGIZED! Rebuilding with it's base......who went on and took the 2004 Election from the "jaws of the Sharks" the BFEE.........

The Party that Won in 2000 became the "RESISTANCE" and 'retooled" and "morphed" and "emerged" to defeat the Mightiest Power Machine that ever existed in the US in in the country's "whole political history."

And, it's because GORE GAVE COVER to our DEMS to TRASH BUSH!

Gore was our "President Speaking in Exile." He has a huge group of "guerilla warriors" out here......and we are mad as hell.........and aren't going to take it anymore!

(yes, this is a rant).

That's what it felt like to me.

It will go down as the most comprehensive, statesman-like assessment of the whole picture of what is so wrong with this admininstration and our country.

(and I agree, the only thing he didn't cover was the election fraud issue -- which I think was a calculated omission because LORD KNOWS that's what the media whores would have globbed on to and he'd be called a sore loser.)

He asks the people to "quickly breathe new life" into the democratic process. It was a call for people to stand up and say no.

After I read the speech (still haven't seen it)...... I felt like perhaps Gore's greatest contribution to this country would be to NOT RUN for president and serve as the conscience of the country and help lead us in our fight to "breathe new life" into the process.

We need a movement leader and it can't be a 'candidate' for anything -- they can't have anything to gain other than the preservation of democracy for all.

Gore told the whole thing just like it is, and he told it well.

I was going to ask a question in GD Forum today.........and decided against it....But, I felt in my bones that so many DU'ers had moved on and reallydidn't want to watch the speech because it would be too painfull in memories, or they thought it might be boring....or they just had their own candidates and really didn't want to move back in time to Selection 2000.

Of all the speeches that Gore has given......this has to be the tops.

It's not Mario Cuomo's speech that everyone remembers from the 80's or Kennedy's Speech at the Dem convention in the 70's, but it ranks up there given the lack of "eloquence and dumbing down of discourse and discussion in the new millenium" .....it ranks up there with some of the best. It's a "policy speech" more than an"eloquent rhetorical" one. But, given where we are, it is a "Magnificent One!"


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that in San Francisco at Brookings last October!

It served as a broad indictment of the Bonehead Administration, laying groundwork for the very specific things that need to be brought up, like the threat assessments Bonehead received in 8/01, the constant, grinding propaganda and lies, the looted treasure and the oddly swollen coffers of BFEE companies like Haliburton and Carlyle Group.

I loved the style of the address and believe that this is the style that IS Al Gore. It may well be to cerebral for the hustings but I think that is the Al you meet when you sit around the kitchen table and drink coffee.

It saddens me that he seems so intent to stay in the wildnerness. The historical imperative, I think, can be found in the Andy Jackson/ John Q. Adams model. The parallels are so numerous but the important one is that John Q. Adams lost the popular vote to Andy Jackson but was inaugerated, as required by the Constitution, due to the electoral votes. Andy Jackson beat his ass like a rented mule in the next election.

Again, Thank you Al Gore.

I told her it was proof that someone in the country had some brains. She was very grateful to get it.....too busy to really know about it or watch it...

This speech is a primer on Bush Inc and the way they operate. I say, pass it out to as many people as you can....

doing this. Of course, the corporate whoremedia does not want to
acknowledge the Truth.

and see the words weave a high resolution screen of where we're at. Then watch the SNL send up and tell me this gentleman has no sense of humor. Oh, America... how little you appreciate your best and brightest.

Just as his speech against the war right BEFORE the vote started a debate in the Senate (too bad Gephardt undercut everyone and made a deal before the discussion started properly). The timing of his policy speeches is well calculated. Even Dumbya knows it - he said today: "expect more of it"
Yeap. bush lied. War was dumb. He screwed everything he touched - go forth and testify!

Gore (5th para from end of speech):

"If the 21st century is to be well started, we need a national agenda that is worked out in concert with the people, a healing agenda that is built on a true national consensus. Millions of Americans got the impression that George W. Bush wanted to be a "healer, not a divider", a president devoted first and foremost to "honor and integrity." Yet far from uniting the people, the president's ideologically narrow agenda has seriously divided America. His most partisan supporters have launched a kind of 'civil cold war' against those with whom they disagree."
--http://www.moveon.org/gore-speech.html

How's that for a statement of truth? When I watched it last night I nearly jumped out of my seat -- he nailed it!

A civil cold war is exactly what we're fighting and it sure is ugly. :grr: :grr: :grr:

edit: link

Imagine Ann Coulter saying anything humane.
Imagine Tweety saying anything coherent.
Imagine Dan Rather saying anything from the heart.
Imagine Donna Brazille saying anything to remove suspicion that she is a mole.
Imagine Gloria Borger criticizing Bush.
Imagine Paula Zahn complementing any Democrat.
Imagine Tim Russert saying anything without considering his contract.
Imagine Kudlow and Cramer saying anything analytically honest.
Imagine Limbaugh tying all the facts together.
Imagine Tom Brokaw saying invading Iraq is the wrong thing to do.

You can't. That's why Al Gore is not the President today.