Al Gore was on his medication and even whimsical according to Jonathan Last in DNC Day 1: An Evening of Losers:
Gore is supposedly one of the two "untouchables" this week--speakers who are allowed to say as many mean things about George W. Bush as they want. As such, there's some excitement about his remarks tonight, with many Republicans hoping he'll give a repeat performance of some of his recent, crazed harangues.The crowd favorite was Her Heinous who revealed "MY HUBBY TAUGHT YOU HOW TO WIN" and Bubba himself provided a predictable content-free whine that didn't mention President Bush by name. Probably the best speaker, Bubba again showed why former Sentor Bob Kerrey considered him an "unusually good liar". But even Bubba seemed curiously out of it earlier in the day:
These Republicans stand disappointed. Gore's talk is casual and wistful.
...
When Gore finishes, Tipper comes onstage. They reenact The Kiss from the 2000 convention, and then exit, stage right. Once upon a time, Al Gore was a Democratic heavy. Defeated, he became a fiery heretic. Defanged, he's now nothing more than a walking parable.
Where Hillary was radiant, smiling, coyly batting away questions about her presidential hopes, Bill appeared thinner than I've ever seen him and introspective, bordering on morose.The only fecal matter in the punch bowl was Jimmy Carter who for some inexplicable reason was allowed to speak. I guess it's because most people under 40 never got to vote on whether the nation could survive another term for peanut brain. The Donks, who have adopted his crack brain policies wholesale, apparently hoped the rest of us had forgotten. Not a chance.
At one point, he announced, quite bizarrely, that before his arrival at the party, "I felt pickled and old and half-dead."
Bill arrived before 9 p.m. and began holding court at one end of the VIP room. Hillary spotted him and wafted over to his side. And as I watched, in amazement, the pair who have been wed more than 20 years engaged in one of those embarrassing physical misunderstandings that usually occur between strangers.
Hillary leaned in to Bill's face, and he responded by giving her a little kiss. But Hillary completely bypassed her hubby's willing orifice, and instead moved her own maw up to his ear, into which she whispered, curtly, "That's John's brother."
Bill looked momentarily confused.
"John Kerry's brother!" she said sharply, and she pointed Bill in the direction of Cameron Kerry.
And then she was gone.
Anyhow, he went off on a protracted rant:
But when Carter wasn't being unintentionally self-satirical, he was being his old squalid self. Never mentioning Bush by name but making obvious inferences is vintage Carter. Recall how he would call attention to Chappaquiddick in 1980 by saying "I never panicked in a crisis." His low point in last night's speech was accusing "the current administration" of fostering "public panic." Carter no doubt prefers Americans to approach terrorism with malaise instead. He began his speech recalling his 1976 theme of giving us "a government as good as the people," forgetting that one reason the people decisively rejected him four years later was because he had come around to saying the people were no good.Ah yes, it brings back fond memories. And from Jonathan Last again:
At times, Carter veers into intellectual incoherence. He charges that "the Middle East peace process has come to a screeching halt for the first time since Israel became a nation." This is true, of course. Except that the screeching halt occurred on Bill Clinton's watch, with the dissolution of the Oslo Accords.That the "peace process" has been going on for more than 50 years doesn't seem to trouble him.
Carter also performs a neat bit of revisionist history, explaining that America won the Cold War because of "sustained bipartisan support" for "the defense of our own freedom and the promotion of human rights." Never mind that this sustained support was often not bipartisan and that Carter himself was nearly always on the wrong side of it. No, the stunning thing is that the former president is holding up the duty to promote human rights as an argument against the war in Iraq.Sheesh, why go on. Hopefully, Crazy Uncle Dimmy will get sent back to his attic room now that the family reunion is over.
