Zell Miller just tore into the modern Democratic party like the Georgia hawk he is.
A sample:
Time after time in our history, in the face of great danger, Democrats and Republicans worked together to ensure that freedom would not falter. But not today.
Motivated more by partisan politics than by national security, today’s Democratic leaders see America as an occupier, not a liberator.
And nothing makes this Marine madder than someone calling American troops occupiers rather than liberators.
Tell that to the one-half of Europe that was freed because Franklin Roosevelt led an army of liberators, not occupiers.
Tell that to the lower half of the Korean Peninsula that is free because Dwight Eisenhower commanded an army of liberators, not occupiers.
Tell that to the half a billion men, women and children who are free today from the Baltics to the Crimea, from Poland to Siberia, because Ronald Reagan rebuilt a military of liberators, not occupiers.
Never in the history of the world has any soldier sacrificed more for the freedom and liberty of total strangers than the American soldier. And, our soldiers don’t just give freedom abroad, they preserve it for us here at home.
For it has been said so truthfully that it is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest.
It is the soldier who salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who gives that protester the freedom to abuse and burn that flag.
No one should dare to even think about being the Commander in Chief of this country if he doesn’t believe with all his heart that our soldiers are liberators abroad and defenders of freedom at home.
But don’t waste your breath telling that to the leaders of my party today. In their warped way of thinking America is the problem, not the solution.
If he were ever to run for President (which is sadly unlikely), he just got my vote. I also think this speech will be noted as one of the most powerful in recent political history. It was an attack speech, but an attack speech that was not based on mere partisanship, but a real sense of righteous indignation.
This is a speech that needed to be made, and Miller was the right man to give it.
Miller was certainly effective in making his case. His speech alone is likely to give Bush a bounce, unless Cheney continues regurgitating stale leftover lines from his campaign appearances all night and pretending he’s citing original material.
Wow, that was most definitely the speech that had to be made. Way to go, Zell!
Miller’s speech was effective in that audience, but probably a little too hot-blooded to the millions of Americans with concerns that go beyond the September 11 attacks. The fact that Zell labels himself a Democrat probably gives him some slack in leveling such ferocious, red-faced attacks against a man he’s praised for years, but I don’t necessarily believe 9-11 rage is as prevalent in the hearts of Jack and Diane in Cleveland as it is with Zell and many Republicans. Anyone who feels as strongly as Zell does about the infallible foreign policy decisions made by Dubya was already voting for Dubya before they heard the speech. Tonight’s performances may have temporarily won over a few easily-swayable swing voters, but nothing was said that was so memorable that it won’t be completely forgotten a week from now or after the next wave of bad news from Iraq, whichever comes first.
It wasn’t Miller’s speech that bothered me so much as his interview with Chris Matthews afterward in which he became bitter and seemed to go out of his way to be offended. Reminded me of a DUP politican in that sense. But it’s his speech that will be remembered, not an interview.
Did he go over the top somewhat, probably, but it was still effective and has called out Kerry to defend himself on the issue of national defense.
While I take issue with certain points he mentioned, like the bogus claim of us chasing the red army out of Iran when we really chased out an elected leader and put in a fascist tyrant or his seeming whitewash of Reagan’s support of the fascist terrorists in Nicaragua, he sees the bigger picture.
It is true that Kerry’s stance on defense is not in the same vain of Roosevelt’s or Truman’s and in that sense he makes an interesting point that the Dems betrayed their party legacy. It was impassioned and while his bread (a southern conservative hawk) is certainly dying out, they have gone out with more spark than the passenger pigeon or the dodo bird.