When I read the Financial Times’ report of Al Gore’s recent speech on global warming, I immediately picked up my well-thumbed copy of Winston Churchill’s speeches. Sure enough, Gore had stolen from Churchill, virtually word for word.

Speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City last Saturday, Gore warned that Hurricane Katrina was just a sample of the natural disasters that we could expect as the result of global warming. “Katrina,” he declared “is the first sip, the first taste, of a bitter cup that will be proffered to us over and over again.”

Speaking on the floor of the House of Commons after Britain’s shameful capitulation to Hitler at Munich in 1938, Churchill said: “This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year …”

How, I thought, could Gore have been so brazen – or so dumb? Surely he must have realized that the “bitter cup” phrase would be the sound bite of the speech.

Was it the speechwriter’s fault, perhaps? Did the speechwriter insert the theft from Churchill? It’s possible. But certainly Gore, who received a degree in government with honors from Harvard, should have instantly recognized the Churchill quote when he read the draft.

No, I’m inclined to think that Gore was the thief. As I considered the matter, my mind roamed back to the years that I lived in Nashville, when Gore was still a congressman. I used to lunch frequently at a charming restaurant not far from Tennessee’s imposing state capitol.

I remember how lawyers at the next table, apparently graduates of Vanderbilt Law School, would laugh out loud over some recent speech of Gore’s. “He’s been recycling his law school notes again,” said one.

Gore left Vanderbilt Law without completing his degree. Maybe he felt that he didn’t have the moral fiber to be a lawyer, and so he became a politician. Come on, Al – if we can’t believe that the words coming out of your mouth are your own, how can we believe what you say on global warming?