In September 2002, Kelly sharply criticized former vice president Al Gore for a speech that condemned the Bush administration's efforts to generate support for the coming invasion of Iraq. In a column in "The Washington Post", Kelly wrote Gore's speech was "wretched. It was vile. It was contemptible." He said Gore's speech "was one no decent politician could have delivered" and was "bereft of anything other than taunts and jibes and embarrassingly obvious lies." In 2013, journalist James Fallows, who had worked with Kelly and was close to him, said that Kelly's attack on Gore "was not merely wrong. It was 'dishonest, cheap, low.'"