A GREAT AMERICAN TRADITION: The Wall Street Journal's
Eric Gibson writes today that Bob Torricelli's jaw-droppingly arrogant announcement last Monday is a fine example of an exclusively American tradition: "the excruciating exit speech."
An excerpt:
And always in such speeches there is the "Lear moment," the point where what the speaker is really feeling--usually a self-pitying sense of unearned injury--bursts forth and he begins flailing wildly against the forces larger than himself that have taken control of his destiny. ("When did we become such an unforgiving people?")
But it's not "King Lear," for all the efforts at high rhetoric. It's pure "Elmer Gantry," the charlatan posing as victim. That, at bottom, is what makes these speeches so irresistible. Are we really supposed to believe such nonsense? Who do these people think they are kidding?
