The Return of Al Gore and why he turned Dean

This weekend, Al Gore addressed his fellow Tennessee Democrats at an J-J Dinner (Jefferson-Jackson) which brought the crowd to their feet several times, and as Slate's Chris Suellentrop remarks, had the spirit of '76-- 1976.

"We have seen an administration which in my view more closely resembles the Nixon-Agnew administration than any other previous administration," he said. "There's a reason I say that. I don't offer that as simply a casual slur." The crowd laughed. "I'm not above a casual slur," Gore added, in what Suellentrop calls a "mind you tone," to more chuckles. "But I'm biased, I didn't vote for the guy." A man calls out, "Neither did America!" To which Gore responds, "Well, there is that."

Gore continued: "But here's the reason I say that President George W. Bush reminds me more of former President Richard Nixon than any of his other predecessors. Nixon was no more committed to principle than the man in the moon. He, as a conservative Republican, imposed wage and price controls. Hard to believe in this day and time. But he did. And he cared as little about what it meant to be really conservative as George W. Bush has cared in imposing $550 billion budget deficits and trillions in additions to the national debt. That has nothing to do with conservatism and everything to do with his effort to get re-elected!"

Gore talked about how he had said that Bush was "Commander in Chief" in September 2001, and how he had hoped Dubya would lead us after 9-11. "And the reason I'm recalling those feelings now is because those are the feelings that were betrayed by this president! He betrayed this country! He played on our fears! He took America, he took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to our troops, an adventure that was preordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place!" Gore closed with his father's line from 1970, when Senior lost his senate seat: "And so I say to you in closing my friends, in the year of 2004, the truth shall rise again!"

Even Conservatives like Andrew Sullivan are mad as hell about Bush's lies and misdeeds, in particular on the budget and his weak Meet the Press appearance on Sunday: "it is undeniable that this president is not on top of the most damaging part of his legacy--the catastrophe he is inflicting on our future fiscal health."

His conclusion? "I'm not one of those who believes that a good president has to have the debating skills of a Tony Blair or the rhetorical facility of Bill Clinton. I cannot help liking the president as a person. I still believe he did a great and important thing in liberating Iraq (although we have much, much more to do). But, if this is the level of coherence, grasp of reality, and honesty that is really at work in his understanding of domestic fiscal policy, then we are in even worse trouble than we thought. We have a captain on the fiscal Titanic who thinks he's in the Caribbean."

Personally, I hope this captain goes down with his ship.