America’s founders deserve better than AI slop

Oratory is out of fashion. The word itself sounds archaic to our ears, denoting something people used to practice in antiquity and at long length in 19th-century America. Even the more down-to-earth sounding “rhetoric” is heard to mean “mere” rhetoric — words false or deceptive by definition. Politicians talk about “messaging,” and the more significant politicians have layers of staff for “communications.”

This does not bode well for the forthcoming 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Every politician in America will feel obliged to say something for the occasion. Whoever can — with perhaps some rare exceptions — will deploy a staff member or staff members to draft his remarks.

The American people declared to the world and under God principles constituting not just the