Zell's Zeal and Kerry's 'Defenselessness'

CNSNEWS.com ^ | 9/10/04 | Paul M. Weyrich

[kattracks]

Senator Zell Miller (D-GA), an ex Marine, is angry that the party he spent a lifetime helping to build has gone so far to the left that it is barely recognizable. Miller attacked the Democratic nominee, Senator John Kerry (D-MA), in terms that no Republican would dare to do.

He gave a litany of the weapons systems that Kerry voted against in his two decades in the United States Senate.

The Kerry apologists, who were all over the media the morning after the Miller speech, tried to suggest that when a Senator votes against a bill containing a weapons system it may be because he has some other problem with the bill that has nothing to do with the weapons system.

Therefore, you see, Senator Kerry really isn't against all of those weapons after all. You have to understand these votes in context, so they told us.

Nice try. However, my Internet angel Alex Mulkern unearthed a campaign flyer from Lt. Governor John Kerry's campaign for the United States Senate in 1984. It is priceless. In this flyer, Kerry says of the Reagan defense buildup "the biggest defense buildup since World War II has not given us a better defense. Americans feel threatened by the prospect of war."

Kerry goes on to say, \ldblquote...our national priorities become more and more distorted as the share of our country's resources devoted to human needs diminishes."

Then Kerry suggests there is a better alternative. He lists weapons system after weapons system that he would cancel and the amount of money that would be "saved" by canceling them. Among those which would have been put on the chopping block back in 1984 are as follows:

The MX Missile. Cancel. Savings: $5 Billion.
The B-1 Bomber. Cancel. Savings: $8 Billion
Anti-satellite system. Cancel. Savings: $99 Million
Star Wars. Cancel. Savings: $1.3 Billion
Tomahawk Missile. Reduce by 50%. Savings: $294 Million
AH-64 Helicopter. Cancel. Savings: $1.4 Billion
Division Air Defense. Cancel. Savings: $638 Million
The Patriot Air Defense Missile. Cancel. Savings: $1.1 Billion
Aegis Air Defense. Cancel. Savings: $400 Million
Battleship reactivation. Cancel. Savings: $453 Million
AV 88 vertical take off and landing plane. Cancel. Savings: $1.0 Billion
F-15 fighter aircraft. Cancel. Savings: $2.3 Billion
F-14A fighter aircraft. Cancel. Savings: $1.0 Billion
F-14B fighter aircraft. Cancel. Savings: $286 Million
Phoenix air-to-air missile. Cancel: Savings: $431 Million
Sparrow air-to-air missile. Cancel. Savings: $264 Million

So there you have it. Did Zell Miller exaggerate? Before John Kerry was even elected Senator he was calling for the elimination of some of the most effective weapons systems we have.

Kerry said in this flyer: "If we don't need the MX and the B-1 or these other weapons systems, there is no excuse for casting even one vote for unnecessary weapons of destruction and as your Senator I never will"

He got that right. This was back in 1984. Mikhail Gorbachev had just come to power. It was Gorbachev and his generals who concluded that they could not keep up with weapons development in the USA, especially the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars), and that is one of the reasons that the Soviets threw in the towel.

Imagine, 20 years later, if the Kerry view had prevailed, we would still be facing a menacing super power known as the Soviet Union. If the Soviets didn't have to compete with all of those sophisticated weapons systems, they would be fighting on to this day. The Baltics would still be Soviet Republics, as would Ukraine, Armenia and Georgia. The Berlin Wall would likely still be up. Poland and the satellite nations would not be free. Get the picture?

Zell Miller, in his litany of weapons systems which Senator Kerry voted against, said he did by no means exhaust the list. He said the list went on and on. True enough because in the past couple of decades we have developed many more systems which Senator Kerry could be against -- weapons systems which have made this nation the only remaining super power.

I am not one who believes in giving the Pentagon everything it wishes. The Pentagon is a bureaucratic structure just as much as Health and Human Services is. There is as much waste and abuse in the Pentagon as there is in other areas of government.

Had Senator Kerry gone after waste and duplication and other areas of misfeasance in the Pentagon he might well have served his nation well. But in opposing every weapons system we have produced since the middle 1980s, Senator Kerry displays a glaring weakness -- one which is fair game as we get into the serious part of the campaign.

No wonder the Democrats are now trying to say that Senator Miller is mentally unbalanced. They can't have voters examine what Kerry said. If they do they will find the weakness Zell Miller spoke about and they may well come to the same conclusion the Senator has come to, namely the protection of his family comes before his political party.

(Paul M. Weyrich is chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.)

Copyright 2004, Free Congress Foundation

[GailA]

hanoi john is STILL trying to GUT the military... he wants to cut $50B in 5 years for Missile defense.

[alloysteel]

Considering that this "death-wish" list was composed twenty years ago, young Jenjhis Con was proceeding well on his agenda. But also considering his spotty record in attending Senate debate, committee meetings and floor votes, he does not show that much vigor in prosecuting this same agenda.

That might be his one redeeming grace. But if he attends Senate committee meetings so irregularly, would he almost surely be as bad about attending his own Cabinet meetings as President? And how about press conferences, where he actually takes questions and responds with a coherent answer?

The Presidency is not a part-time job.

[Mr. Toobeley]

God bless Paul Weyrich (I miss his old TV network).

[Mr. Toobeley]

God bless Paul Weyrich (I miss his old TV network).

[sweetliberty]

Good find.

[Dilbert56]

I thought there were no "ex"-Marines, until Dan Blather came along.

[Mia T]

Alex Mulkern is an angel BUMP

YOO-HOO! UNDECIDEDS + "PERSUADABLES"
HEAR THE SPEECH JOHN KERRY DOESN'T WANT YOU TO HEAR

(WHY INFORMED, RATIONAL DEMOCRATS WILL VOTE FOR BUSH)

DECONSTRUCTING ZELL MILLER
WHY JOHN KERRY IS DANGEROUS FOR AMERICA

by Mia T, 9.02.04

 

DECONSTRUCTING ZELL MILLER-PART 1: KERRY, THE Ds + SEDITION (IF IT WALKS LIKE A DUCK...) (viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE)	DECONSTRUCTING ZELL MILLER-PART 2 KERRY, THE Ds + THE AMERICAN SOLDIER (viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE)
DECONSTRUCTING ZELL MILLER-PART 3 KERRY + Ds: NATIONAL-SECURITY CLUELESSNESS (viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE)	DECONSTRUCTING ZELL MILLER-PART 4 KERRY, THE Ds + WEAPONS (viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE)
DECONSTRUCTING ZELL MILLER-PART 5 KERRY, THE Ds + SPITBALLS (viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE)	DECONSTRUCTING ZELL MILLER-PART 6 KERRY, THE Ds: MORE WEAK, MORE WRONG + MORE WOBBLY (viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE)

DECONSTRUCTING ZELL MILLER-PART 7
KERRY, THE Ds + OUR SURVIVAL

(viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE)

johnkerryisdangerousforamerica.blogspot.com

Now, while young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrat's manic obsession to bring down our Commander in Chief.

What has happened to the party I've spent my life working in?

I can remember when Democrats believed that it was the duty of America to fight for freedom over tyranny....

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....

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.

They don't believe there is any real danger in the world except that which America brings upon itself through our clumsy and misguided foreign policy.

It is not their patriotism - it is their judgment that has been so sorely lacking.

They claimed Carter's pacifism would lead to peace.

They were wrong.

They claimed Reagan's defense buildup would lead to war.

They were wrong.

And, no pair has been more wrong, more loudly, more often than the two Senators from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry.

Zell Miller
Keynote Address, 2004 Republican National Convention
September 1, 2004

"Zell Miller's speech was a speech of hate, it was a speech of venom. This is a man who started his political career with Lester Maddox and last night he imitated Lester Maddox. Lester Maddox, as we all know, was a segregationist but he was a man of hate. Zell Miller is not a segregationist, not that at all....

There are lines in politics and that speech went over the line. It's one thing as Dick Cheney did, I thought, well within the bounds of political discourse to go after John Kerry on his Senate record. It is quite another thing, in my judgment, to in effect come, he came very close to saying the Democrats were a treasonous party..."

David Gergen
KERRY-DNC TALKING POINTS
(served with a dollop of plausible deniability/faux objectivity)
Hardball with Chris Matthews
September 2, 2004

 

here is a difference between hate speech and the awful truth, between irrational anger and righteous indignation, between a Ted Kennedy or a Howard Dean or an Al Gore or a Nancy Pelosi or a John Kerry or a clinton (either, one for the price of two, I say)... and a Zell Miller. But listening to the Kerry-DNC talking points today, one would never know it.

In his keynote address to the Republican National Convention last night, a righteously indignant Zell Miller told the awful truth.

He told the awful truth about his party, the Democratic Party.

He told the awful truth about his party's presidential candidate, John Kerry.

He told the awful truth that goes to the core of John Kerry's and the Democratic Party's utter unfitness to lead America, especially now, in these perilous and determinative times.

And he backed up the awful truth with reams of facts and rational argument.

ZELL'S ZUGZWANG

John Kerry and the Left responded not with facts and rational argument, but with the only move they know, the only move left to them. Character assassination. They had to discredit Zell Miller... and fast.

Media lackeys from Pinch to Chris big-mouthed the following Kerry-DNC talking points before the Kerry corpse was even coifed. (Strike that metaphor. The problem, as we now, (post-Cristophe, post-botox, post-eyework) see, was never "haggard." "Haggard" is electable. (See LBJ.) "Cadaveric" is not, at least not outside of Hawaii. And Kerry's dissonant new "do," like the mortician's careful coif, only enhanced the funereal gloom. One has to wonder if Shrum was brought in (dispatched?) to praise Kerry... or to bury him....)

Anyway, back to the matter at hand, the Kerry-DNC talking points. They are listed below in ascending order of rectitude of intention. (Et tu, Brute?)

(1) Zell Miller is a racist by association.

The Kerry-DNC talking-points argument:

Lester Maddox mentored Zell Miller
Lester Maddox was a segregationist
Therefore, Zell Miller is a segregationist.

NOTE TO THE LEFT: Try replaying your little syllogism (silly-gism!), substituting Lester Maddox with, say, William Fulbright or Al Gore, senior, and substituting Zell Miller with bill clinton or algore, respectively.

 

(2) Zell Miller is a racist by virtue of his stem-winder Southern oratory style.

NOTE TO THE LEFT: If Southern cadence a racist makes, I guess that's it for Byrd. Southern cadence will accomplish what KKK Kleaglery never managed to pull off.

 

(3) Zell Miller is accusing the Left of treason.

NOTE TO THE LEFT: Zell Miller explicitly stated that he was questioning your judgment and ability to protect America against the post-9/11 realities, not your patriotism. But it's undestandable that you would prefer to demagogue phantom charges of sedition rather than defend real charges of cluelessness.

NOTE TO EVERYONE ELSE:

By conflating the two charges--judgment and patriotism-- John Kerry and the Left expose their guilty knowledge of same. And it doesn't matter whether it was done with Machiavellian calculation or out of simple naiveté.

Seditious rhetoric and expressions of legitimate differences of opinion are not mutually exclusive constructs, David Gergen notwithstanding. But because the Left's wartime rhetoric about Bush is abusive, undermining, irrational, and ultimately empty, it can only be sedition.

COPYRIGHT MIA T 2004

 

 

 

HEAR THE FIRST VEEP DEBATE NOW! (the whole ball of wax)

CHENEY WARNS AMERICA: THIS ELECTION IS ABOUT OUR SURVIVAL
KERRY-EDWARDS TRIES TO SHUT DOWN DEBATE

Kerry's new W offensive

YOO-HOO! UNDECIDEDS + "PERSUADABLES"
HEAR THE SPEECH JOHN KERRY DOESN'T WANT YOU TO HEAR

(WHY INFORMED, RATIONAL DEMOCRATS WILL VOTE FOR BUSH)

DECONSTRUCTING ZELL MILLER

Kerry is UNFIT #21: THUMBSUCKER SERIES
BOARDHEAD TO THE RESCUE

EXPLOITING MAX CLELAND

Kerry is UNFIT #20: THUMBSUCKER SERIES
PREEMPTION-(the whole ball of wax)

CONTEMPLATING KERRY'S "GUT"

A PRESIDENT KERRY MAY BE ABHORRENT
...BUT IS IT EVEN CONSTITUTIONAL?

getting kerry's goat
john kerry lacks presidential temperament

Two Psychologists on Kerry: Dangerous on National Security

YOO-HOO! followthemoney.org. . .
OVER HERE!

"bombastic ass" is not the antidote to "boorish ass"
(or why Keith Olbermann Cannot Do Cleanup for Chris Matthews)

UNFIT #19:
JOHN KERRY'S "MORE SENSITIVE WAR ON TERROR"

THE COMPLEAT JOHN KERRY
WHY JOHN KERRY IS DANGEROUS FOR AMERICA

Kerry, NOT Bush, paralyzed by 9/11 attacks
Hear Kerry admit he could not think

THE DEMOCRATS ARE GONNA GET US KILLED (kerry, clinton + sandy berger's pants) SERlES ³
UNFIT #10: 9/10 mindset

THE DEMOCRATS ARE GONNA GET US KILLED (kerry, clinton + sandy berger's pants) SERlES ₂
KERRY-DEMOCRAT CONTEMPT FOR NATIONAL SECURITY[annotated]

THE DEMOCRATS-ARE-GONNA-GET-US-KILLED (kerry, clinton + sandy berger's pants) SERlES₁

dox in sox on lummox in box on fox

THE REAL "REAL DEAL"
(what Kerry's commanders and crewmates REALLY think of him--with transcripts)

Did John Kerry pick a running mate or hire a lawyer when he selected John Edwards?

THE MAN FROM HOPE: been there, done that

"Hope is on the way!" (the scoop)

THE TERRORISTS' USEFUL IDIOTS
all the usual suspects

A Vote for Kerry is a Vote for the Terrorists

ELECTION BOTTOM LINE:
TERRORIST SYMPATHIZER or TERRORIST ANNIHILATOR

JOHN KERRY IS UNFIT SERIES: 8/10/04 UPDATE!
taking the measure of a would-be commander-in-chief

JOHN KERRY IS UNFIT SERIES:
taking the measure of a would-be commander-in-chief

UNFIT #9-JOHN KERRY: DEADLY OPPORTUNIST
SELF-CONFESSED WAR CRIMlNAL MORPHS INTO SELF-PROMOTER WAR HERO

UNFIT #6: The Deadly Kerry-Hollywood Axis
HOW CAN YOU PUT YOUR CHILDREN'S LIVES IN ITS HANDS?

UNFIT: taking the measure of a would-be commander-in-chief
#1-making the tough choices in a post-9/11 world
UNFIT: taking the measure of a would-be commander-in-chief
#2-understanding the job description

UNFIT: taking the measure of a would-be commander-in-chief
#3-sang-froid and the "nuclear" button

UNFIT: taking the measure of a would-be commander-in-chief
#4 - Kerry champions tolerance for terrorists

sanitizing evil
Kerry Cabal Censors Nick Berg Decapitation

"Loose Cannon" Kerry's AWOL/PURPLE-HEART FRAUD

pro-islamofascist-terrorist radical chic

USEFUL IDIOTS

MOORE IS LESS--THE MOVIE

The Cycle of Violence:
NOW WITH HYPERLINKED INSTRUCTION MANUAL

JOHN KERRY'S RECKLESS TET-OFFENSIVE-GAMBIT REPLAY:
the left's jihad against America is killing our troops, aiding + abetting the terrorists and imperiling all Americans

bill clinton, boy "genius," unwittingly bares all on BBC

deconstructing clinton… "just because I could"

vetting missus clinton...

The Parallel Universe of Jamie Gorelick

nepotism + tokenism = a nancy pelosi
(or a hillary clinton)

Kerry's Belated Condemnation Focuses on Process
Kerry Lacks Moral Authority to Condemn Content

"CRY BUSH" + Iraqi-Prisoner "Abuse"
What are the Dems up to?

DON'T BELIEVE YOUR LYING EARS (The Perjurer Returns)
(Clinton: Claims I Turned Down Bin Laden are 'Bull')

The Mary Jo White Memo:
Documentation of clintons' and Gorelick's willful, seditious malfeasance

What is the REAL Reason for Gorelick's Wall?

giant sucking sound
KERRY MAKES DUKAKIS LOOK CONSERVATIVE, SMART + JUDICIOUS

Q ERTY6 ^{utter failure}_BUMP

Lib Author Regrets Voting (TWICE!) for clinton
"Sickened" by clinton's Failure to Protect America from Terrorism

MUST-READ BOOK FOR DEMOCRATS:
How clintons' Failures Unleashed Global Terror
(Who in his right mind would ever want the clintons back in the Oval Office?)

The Man Who Warned America
(Why a Rapist is Not a Fit President)

UDAY: "The end is near… this time I think the… Americans are serious, Bush is not like Clinton."

 

 

MORE

[Mia T]

kerry's 'defenselessness'

HEAR THE FIRST VEEP DEBATE NOW! (the whole ball of wax)

CHENEY WARNS AMERICA: THIS ELECTION IS ABOUT OUR SURVIVAL
KERRY-EDWARDS TRIES TO SHUT DOWN DEBATE