Eight years ago, I wasn't ashamed as such. Just embarrassed at the shenanigans my country had got itself up to screwing over the rules to put the lesser man in office.

I had thought that the worst President of my lifetime was long behind me, the barbarous and criminal Richard Nixon. I had no idea what the worst President of my lifetime would actually entail.

Then the disaster of September 11th came. I was underwhelmed by the President we'd got's apparent uninterest in leadership.

Then the invasion of Iraq, by which point I was appalled by the incompetence and mendacity.

And the revelations of the abuses of power that the President we'd got did in our name--the secret renditions, the turning over to torturers, and the torturing ourselves, of people whose guilt or innocence we did not know and cared less about; and the grotesque grabs for dictatorial power's clearest bellwether, the warrantless, unreviewable taking of prisoners solely on executive say-so in defiance of the rule of law.

By the election of 2004, in which millions of people knew--or should have known--what I knew about the evil that the President we'd got had done in our name, and switched their vote to him, I was ashamed.

That man and his lickspittles and courtiers had taken my country, the land that I love as deeply as you can love, and made me ashamed of it.

I have been ashamed of my country. Of its rulers; of my countrymen for approving of them.

Tonight, I am not ashamed.

The hard work begins, and I am willing to believe that we have a President capable of leading us, actually leading us, out of the wilderness.

Si se puede.