MONDAY: Twenty-five years and two days later...

MONDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2025

...look where it has us now: President Trump has blamed Rob Reiner for Rob Reiner's brutal death.

In our view, Colby Hall's reaction to this is well worth considering. But for today, we return to an event which was, as of Saturday, exactly 25 years old.

We were skillfully napping, with C-Span strategically on, when we heard a voice orating in the manner shown below. But why was C-Span running that?

Groggily, we posed that question. Within the oration C-Span ran, we include a final ironic remark:

As heard on C-Span this Saturday: 
I've seen America in this campaign, and I like what I see. It's worth fighting for, and that's a fight I'll never stop. As for the battle that ends tonight, I do believe, as my father once said, that "No matter how hard the loss, defeat might serve as well as victory to shape the soul and let the glory out."

[...]

Now the political struggle is over and we turn again to the unending struggle for the common good of all Americans and for those multitudes around the world who look to us for leadership in the cause of freedom.

In the words of our great hymn, "America, America": "Let us crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea."

And now, my friends, in a phrase I once addressed to others, it's time for me to go.

Thank you, and good night, and God bless America.

Say what? "Defeat might serve as well as victory to let the glory out?" But also, the initial bit of irony:

"It's time for me to go?"

Plainly, the words were those of Candidate Gore, in his December 2000 concession speech, bringing Campaign 2000 to its fateful end. And sure enough:

It had been 25 years, to the day, since that concession came. It came on December 13, 2000, a day we remember fairly well.

As happenstance happened to have it, we ended up spending some time with the former candidate—along with several other college friends—on that very night. We did an early show at the D.C. Improv, then hurried over, in response to a mid-afternoon telephone call, to a prescheduled, large-scale Christmas reception at the vice president's residence.

We shared a joke with the former candidate when that group of college friends huddled for a stretch of time in a private salon. Through the miracle of trans-Atlantic telephone communication, he then shared the joke with President Clinton, who was flying home from Europe and had given him a call. 

One week later, in a receiving line at another massive Christmas reception, President Clinton stopped the proceedings and repeated the joke for all to hear as we paraded by with the friend who had insisted that we go through the receiving line.

"There's a great deal of truth to that joke," President Clinton convincingly said—and sure enough! The president included the joke in his lengthy memoir, My Life, with its language slightly altered. 

And that's not all! Roger Simon's history of that campaign, Divided We Stand: How Al Gore Beat George Bush and Lost the Presidency, ends with an anecdote from Air Force 1 on that very night:

In Simon's book, President Clinton emerges from his private quarters on Air Force 1 and repeats the joke to the travelling press. It was the shot heard round the world!

That joke rang a bell for Clinton and for Gore. To enjoy the joke as President Clinton memorialized it, you can turn to page 934 of My Life (chapter 55) and see how it works for you!

(In that book, President Clinton had words for the Supreme Court decision which, delivered that very day, may have signaled the start of the modern era. "It was an appalling decision," he writes, correctly or otherwise, right there on page 933. "Bush v. Gore will go down in history as one of the worst decisions the Supreme Court ever made...")

We'll let you judge that for yourselves. President Clinton went to law school. We ourselves never did.

At any rate, it had been exactly 25 years since that small group of college friends gathered with Brother Gore on that fateful night. For the record:

At the start of his concession speech, he had offered another self-deprecating bit of irony. As you can see by consulting this link, this is what he said:

Al Gore 2000 Presidential Concession Speech
delivered 13 December 2000

Good evening.

Just moments ago, I spoke with George W. Bush and congratulated him on becoming the 43rd president of the United States. And I promised him that I wouldn't call him back this time.

I offered to meet with him as soon as possible so that we can start to heal the divisions of the campaign and the contest through which we've just passed.

Maybe you remember the reference there. Also, maybe you don't.

Chris Matthews had a hard time reacting to the graciousness of that concession speech. To this day, some 25 years and two days later, no one has ever asked Chris (a very bright person) to explain his bizarre behavior during that campaign, when he turned on a dime and joined his colleagues in twenty solid months of what never came to be known as "The War Against Gore."

No one has ever asked Chris to explain why he said and did the things he said and did. Also, no one ever will! Admittedly brilliant as we all are, those of us in Blue America have never quite come to understand the way our high-end Blue journalists work, including the way they're trying to whistle past the graveyard with respect to the current president, the one in the White House right now.

In some quarters, Candidate Gore was criticized for conceding that day. Was he supposed to form an army and march on the Supreme Court building? Admittedly brilliant though we Blues are, no one ever quite explained.

At any rate, you see an older culture at work in that concession speech. The candidate who got more votes was willing to say that he had lost, given the rules of the game Today, the candidate who got fewer votes five years ago is still insisting he won!

We especially recall two surprising things the feller said that night. Since we never discuss our conversations with former presidential candidates, those remarks have never gone into anyone's book.

At any rate, the two main fellers swapped a joke over the trans-Atlantic phone that night. Full disclosure:

Brother Gore always had a developed sense of the ironic and the absurd.

He went on to star in an Oscar-winning documentary and to win a Nobel peace prize. Today, a little mutt who calls climate change "a major hoax" is driving the engine at the Fox News Channel, and none of the mutts who gather the dollars from Blue America's corporate orgs are willing to say a single word about that assault on "our democracy."

You can read the full concession speech here. You can watch the videotape simply by clicking this.

As for letting the glory out, here is the candidate's funeral oration when his father, Senator Albert Gore Sr., died in 1998. We read through it again this weekend. We were especially struck by the two highlighted points:

REMARKS BY THE VICE PRESIDENT AT THE FUNERAL OF HIS FATHER, FORMER SENATOR ALBERT GORE, SR.

President and Mrs. Clinton; so many honored guests from our nation and our state. The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

My father was the greatest man I ever knew in my life. Most of you know him for his public service and it could be said of him, in the words of Paul, that this man walked worthy of the vocation wherewith he was called.

[...]

Of all the lessons he taught me as a father, perhaps the most powerful was the way he loved my mother. He respected her as an equal, if not more. He was proud of her. But it went way beyond that...

"Perhaps the most powerful was the way he loved my mother?" Young men taught such lessons are extremely fortunate. 

(That same "cable news" star overtly insults women, night after night, on the Fox News Channel. At this point, we Blues aren't even willing to pretend that we object or care about such poison as that.)

The War Against Gore was the next campaign derived from the pointless anger directed at President Clinton. Our major journalists acted in concert for years. Our major historians know what happened, but they damn straight aren't going to tell.

With respect to the younger Gore, we were together on Cape Cod, with a pair of lady friends, when we discovered a wonderful new TV show in June 1969—the new syndicated TV program, Hee Haw! Minnie Pearl was right there on TV! Feller knew all about her.

In response, they said he grew up in a fancy hotel, even at the Ritz! They kept it up for two straight years. On Saturday, we turned to the analysts and barked the command:

Just look where it has us now!

For extra credit only: In his concession speech, feller borrowed from Lincoln's second inaugural!  

We wouldn't have noticed that at the time. We did notice it now!