ON THE NIGHT OF AUGUST 15, 1996, two amazing events occurred. The first was the speech Bob Dole delivered at the Republican National Convention in San Diego accepting his party’s nomination for president of the United States.

What was amazing about that speech was that it turned out to be the most distinguished political oration anyone had delivered in America in a very long time. And what made it even more astonishing was that language of such beauty and such eloquence should have issued from the mouth of this taciturn and legendarily inarticulate man.