Vintage Al Gore

Kevin Drum reprints a classic Al Gore speech that is eerily prescient in its evalution of the threats we face, and its cautions of where we might go astray. A taste:

As important as identifying Iraq, Iran and North Korea for what they are, we must be equally bold in identifying other evils that confront us. For there is another Axis of Evil in the world: poverty and ignorance; disease and environmental disorder; corruption and political oppression. We may well put down terror in its present manifestations. But if we do not attend to the larger fundamentals as well, then the ground is fertile and has been seeded for the next generation of those born to hate us, who will hold these things up before the world's poor and dispossessed, and say that all these things are in our image, and rekindle the war we are now hoping to snuff out.

As Mr. Drum comments:

Liberals may be uncomfortable fitting his words into their current-day view of Gore as anti-war prophet; conservatives will be uncomfortable seeing Gore as someone plainly more dedicated to waging a real fight against terrorism than the guy they've been supporting for the past five years. And all of us would do well to remember what it's like to listen to someone who has at least a modest command of the ways and means of statecraft.

Amen.