Via MM, comes this great resource for political geeks everywhere.

The American Rhetoric Speech Bank has thousands of historical speeches which you can listen to, download, or read. I browsed through some of the top 100 over the weekend and they certainly have all the classics. And, hey, if Kennedy and King aren’t for you, you can find everyone from John Kerry to Pat Buchanan on the general database (perfect for downloading to your Ipod for the gym!).

They also link to this site under Prime Minister of Canada speeches [recent]. Oh, and under Prime Ministers of Canada speeches [previous], they link to this site, which contains this announcement:

The content of Canada’s Digital Collections (CDC) is no longer available on this website.

I know in the eyes of some, Canadian history only began January 23rd, 2006, but it would still be nice to listen to some of the great Canadian speeches from years gone by. Think of Pierre Trudeau’s address at the 38 BH Liberal leadership convention or his “mon nom” speech during the 26 BH referendum. And who can forget the memorable Turner-Mulroney debate during the 22 BH election? Or some of the rousing speeches John Diefenbaker gave during the 49 BH election. It certainly would be nice if these great moments in our history were available on the Internet for future generations to listen to, n’est–ce-pas?