NYT: Defined by Words, Not Disease

Here's what can happen, although rarely, when voices in the party are allowed to eloquently present a differing point of view.

Norman Mailer, the literary tough guy who was covering the convention for The New Republic, was awed by the “Republican princess” and the magnitude of her appeal. “When Mary Fisher spoke like an angel that night,” he wrote, “the floor was in tears, and conceivably the nation as well.”

The Speech, as it is called by Ms. Fisher’s friends and family, turned her into a global figure. Long before YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, the speech reverberated because it was heard simultaneously and in its entirety by 27 million people; the prime-time address was broadcast live by ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and PBS. (The week before her appearance in Houston, she appeared in The New York Times, on the cover of Sunday Styles.)

It was one for the history books as well. Called “A Whisper of AIDS,” the speech is included in “Words of a Century: The Top 100 American Speeches, 1900-1999,” along with other landmark addresses like “I Have a Dream” by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “The Four Freedoms” by Franklin D. Roosevelt and “A Tale of Two Cities” by Mario Cuomo.