Ms. Dowd and Al Gore do quite a linguistic number on a president who most likely will not know of it--he doesn't read, which is only one reason he has such difficulty talking above the junior high school level. Not wanting to slight so many bright young Americans, I should clarify the analogy by mentioning that I meant only Texas junior high schools, where the required reading includes the wacky creation myth of the Bible.
Unfortunately, it wasn't the president in the White House. It was the shadow president, the one who won the popular vote.
Thundering at New York University about the man the Supreme Court chose over him, Al Gore said, "He has created more anger and righteous indignation against us as Americans than any leader of our country in the 228 years of our existence as a nation." Holy Nixon!
The former vice president accused the commander in chief of being responsible for "an American gulag" in Abu Ghraib, as depraved as anything devised by the Marquis de Sade. It was hard to tell whether President Bush would be more offended by the sadomasochism or by the fact that the marquis was French.
Mr. Gore blasted the administration's "twisted values" and dominatrix attitude toward the world: "Dominance is as dominance does."
"George W. Bush promised us a foreign policy with humility," he said, in one of the most virulent attacks on a sitting president ever made by such a high-ranking former official. "Instead, he has brought us humiliation in the eyes of the world."
