 | gmanod (3)
12/14/2003 | Definetly his best speech because it signalled the end to his tyrranny. This mans some capabilities were constantly on display in that goddamn jar of jely beans he always had. He raised the debt into the trillions, killed the economy; he created the terrorists we are now fighting; he funded awful right wing militants in South America that used death squads to kill and rape thousands; the best estimates show that as far as ending the cold war he really helped end it by as much as a week, two at best; he became the embodiment of secrecy in government; he allowed AIDS to turn into an epidemic before doing anything else; after the marine barracks bombing he promptly invaded a resort island; basically this man was perhaps the greatest detriment to this country and his last speech was the only one that could even be considered good.
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 | Ruby (15)
08/04/2003 |  This is great speech. I get teary-eyed reading through the final lines of his description of the city on a hill image. The past few days when I've been at that window upstairs, I've thought a bit of the 'shining city upon a hill.' The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we'd call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free. I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still.
And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was eight years ago. But more than that: After 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.
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