Call and response isn't going to work in front of a Joint Session. You're alliteration happy: 'guardians of gridlock,' 'protectors of privilege.' I needed an avalanche of Advil. And when you use pop-culture references, your speech has a shelf life of twelve minutes. You don't mind constructive criticism, do you?
No, sir.
Anyway, thanks for coming in. I told Sam I can do this by myself.
Well, maybe he thought that your speeches were obscurantist policy tracts lost in a cul-de-sac of their own internal self-righteousness and groaning from the weight of statistics. I'm just speculating. I can't say for sure.
[pause; laughs to himself] A 500-word stanza on American leadership in a globally interdependent age that moves beyond triumphalism by this time tomorrow. If it's 501, don't show it to me.
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