Transcript of Senator Zell Millers speech prior to the GA GOP Convention

U.S. Senator Zell Miller
Bush-Cheney '04 Leadership Meeting
Columbus, Georgia
May 15, 2004

I'm still amazed when I get such a warm welcome from Republican audiences. And very pleased.

I'm afraid that my old Democratic ties that bind have become unraveled. But that's all right. For in my heart and in my head, I know I'm doing the right thing.

I know we have a strong Commander-in-Chief, guided by the right principles and I know that my family and the people of this nation are more secure with George W. Bush in the White House.

So, I am honored to stand squarely with President Bush and with you at this defining moment in our history.

When the President came to office, the economy was already taking a turn for the worse.

Job growth was slowing down. The stock markets were moving in the wrong direction. Strong medicine was needed.

The first dose was a tax relief plan designed to jump start our economy by getting money out of Washington and into the pockets of the workers and the small business owners who earned it.

I was proud to be a co-sponsor of those tax relief plans which lowered the tax bills for 111 million taxpayers, including 25 million small business owners.

People have been using it to pay the bills or get the kids some new clothes or start a little savings plan for themselves.

Small businesses are investing in new equipment and expanding their operations. As a result, our economy is on the upswing.

We've had ten consecutive quarters of economic growth. And in the last three quarters the economy has been stronger than any three consecutive quarters in nearly 20 years.

Jobs are coming back, too. More than 1.1 million jobs have been created since August, and more are on the way.

Manufacturing activity is picking up and the business community is more confident because they feel this turn-around taking root.

George W. Bush has done an outstanding job shepherding our economy through tough times.

For years, terrorists had been killing Americans and striking at American interests around the world. Each and every attack was met with a totally inadequate response.

Is it any wonder that the terrorists thought America would never fight back? For years we had been sending them an engraved invitation to attack us. RSVP not required. Finally, and unfortunately, they accepted.

America was blessed that George W. Bush was leading America exactly when we most needed a steel spine in the White House.

He immediately took the fight to the terrorists, cleared out their base of operations in Afghanistan and toppled one of their biggest fans in Iraq.

The President recognized that at a time when terrorists are growing bolder, we had to change the way the government fights the terrorist threat.

He supported and signed the USA Patriot Act, which broke down the walls the previous administration had put up between federal agencies to share critical information.

He created the Homeland Security Department, the modern day equivalent of the national security reorganization that President Truman undertook at the beginning of the Cold War.

It was not easy. Even after terrorists had attacked our nation and killed our citizens, my democratic colleagues seemed more concerned about protecting old union rules than giving the President the flexibility to respond to a national emergency.

I signed on immediately, but every other Senator on my side of the aisle had the opposite view on it. For eleven votes, 112 days, I was the lone Democrat to stand with the President.

The other Democrats, including Senator John Kerry, stalled it for four long months - at a critical moment for America's security.

But President Bush hung tough and finally, after the 2002 election, he won approval of the Homeland Security Department.

That's what this race will come down to on November 2: Which candidate has the consistency, the steady resolve, and the firm conviction to lead America in a time of war.

I have served in Washington with both President Bush and Senator John Kerry for several years and I know them both pretty well.

With John Kerry on national security, it's vacillate, retreat and turn over to the U.N. With John Kerry on domestic policy, it's tax, spend and redistribute income.

In his first 100 days in office, John Kerry's massive health care plan would force him to raise taxes by as much as $900 billion dollars.

This economic recovery has been spurred on by lower taxes. Kerry's higher taxes would stifle economic growth and take money out of people's pockets.

There once was a candidate who said he wanted 'to feel your pain.' Now, we've got a candidate who wants to 'steal your gain.'

We don't need tax laws that keep changing and have a perishable date on them like a quart of milk. The tax cuts should be permanent.

I'm old enough to remember when both Democrats and Republicans did what was necessary to keep America safe and the world free.

It was a strong bipartisan commitment. Back then, it was said about national security that partisanship stopped at the water's edge. No more.

Today's National Democratic Party led by Howard Dean, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and the other Protestors-of-the-60's-grown-long-in-the-tooth don't believe America is a liberating force.

Instead, they see America as an occupier, some kind of Darth Vader military empire trying to colonize people.

They believe any nation that would ally themselves with America is, as John Kerry has put it, part of a coalition of the coerced and the bribed. That's disgraceful.

As this man speaks down to us mere mortals from his lofty perch, his voice roars with the force of the late George C. Scott ... using the words of Michael C. Moore.

Yes, what Lieutenant John Kerry did in Vietnam is to be praised and we should thank him for it. But not his shameful record on National Defense as a U.S. senator.

When he came to the Senate almost 20 years ago, his first great foreign policy cause was the nuclear freeze, challenging Sam Nunn over the funding of research into missile defense, which, of course, Kerry wanted to cut.

It only got worse. Much worse. Senator Kerry went on to vote against every single major weapons system that won the Cold War.

He voted to cut or de-fund the B-1 bomber, the B-2, the F-15, and F-14A, the F-14D...the Apache helicopter, the Harrier jet, the Patriot missile...the Aegis air-defense cruiser, the Strategic Defense Initiative, and the Trident Missile.

This man now wants to be the Commander in Chief of U.S. Armed Forces? U.S. forces armed with what, spitballs?

Senator Kerry has made it clear that he believes U.S. military force should only be used as approved by the United Nations.

This man who says he's against outsourcing wants to outsource our foreign policy the most dangerous outsourcing of all.

This man is so out of touch with the average American it would be comical if it were not so dangerous.

His high-priced handlers know it and are frantically trying to get him down on ground level instead of levitating above Planet Earth, as he has for so many years.

Remember when they told Al Gore to wear earth tones? Same media bunch. Now they've got Kerry wearing a canvas hunting coat with a pink power tie. Have you ever seen that kind of garb anywhere on Main Street, U.S.A.?

Last week they pushed this most liberal of all the U.S. senators in front of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. Speaking in tongues, he claimed he's really been a moderate all these years.

What's next? Talladega? The Grand Ole Opry? Sopping syrup with a cathead biscuit? In a pink tie?

Look, John Kerry couldn't find Main Street with both hands. You can't make a chicken swim and you can't make John Kerry anything but an out-of-touch, ultra-liberal from Taxachusetts.

In this election, I'm on George Bush's side because he's on the side of freedom and the side of the American people.

Very nice speech.

I've got a sick curiosity regarding the AP article you mentioned... kinda like the urge to rubberneck while passing a 5 car pileup...

Qwinn

Do a search on Zell Miller here, and you'll see a few threads of the AP account. Not too terrible, but not as good as the actual transcript.

4 posted on 05/18/2004 7:26:59 PM PDT by Vigilanteman (crime would drop like a sprung trapdoor if we brought back good old-fashioned hangings)

That was a great, fiery speech. I always wondered when Jeffords jumped to being a Democrat-voting Independent, why Zell Miller didn't change to be a Republican-voting Independent to counter-act him and keep the Senate in Republican control at that time.

Zell's speeches now put some RINO's to shame. Love to see him speak at the Republican convention. Hope he will be invited.

Now they've got Kerry wearing a canvas hunting coat with a pink power tie. Have you ever seen that kind of garb anywhere on Main Street, U.S.A.?

This one really made me laugh! I didn't see Kerry in that garb, but I can believe that he actually did wear it. And has no idea why it wasn't "cool".

Enjoyed it, thanks. I just wish though that folks would stop calling "Three Bandaids" Kerry's service "honorable." If you want to know what "honorable" service in Vietnam was, one should read General Moore's "We were soldiers.."

Kerry used a technicality to get his worthless backside home early, and then turned traitor. His real peers, the Swift Boat veterans, say he isn't fit to be the CinC.

Hope he will be invited.

Me, too. I appreciate him pointing out the truth about Kerry, whether he backs Bush or not.

OUTSTANDING! I hope GWB is in a position to offer him a cabinet position next year. Treasury Secretary wouldn't be a bad place, because he certainly has a sense of the right direction. We have to make sure W wins, and its nice to see that people who talk common sense are on our side (our's being the side that doesn't deal in ulta-nuanced concepts).

10 posted on 05/18/2004 8:22:12 PM PDT by ride the whirlwind ((Kerry) wants to be the leader of the free world. Free for how long? - Zell Miller)

I just wish though that folks would stop calling "Three Bandaids" Kerry's service "honorable." If you want to know what "honorable" service in Vietnam was, one should read General Moore's "We were soldiers.." Kerry used a technicality to get his worthless backside home early, and then turned traitor. His real peers, the Swift Boat veterans, say he isn't fit to be the CinC. Hear! Hear! And hear out the veterans who have come forward to speak the truth about it. Kerry ought to be pressed to release his military records.

Senator Kerry has made it clear that he believes U.S. military force should only be used as approved by the United Nations. This man who says he's against outsourcing wants to outsource our foreign policy, the most dangerous outsourcing of all. This man wants to be the leader of the free world. Free for how long? This man is so out of touch with the average American it would be comical if it were not so dangerous.

This should be in a Bush commercial all over the south.

Here's to Zell Miller's speech at the Boston convention, home of the Boston Brahman and the Boston marriage (just what you think, but this term actually dates from the 19th century).

I wonder what he'll have to say. If this is 1864--as I think it must be--but with the implications of 1896, Zell Miller should stay a devoted Democrat and take the nomination.

For Vice President under George W. Bush. Bush-Miller would make a great ticket. Find a new job for Cheney, say Secretary of Energy.

If the Democrats were serious about winning elections, Zell Miller would be their nominee. Then again, Democrats would lose that election in everything except name.

Except Florida and unlikely Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Virginia, the South is all in Bush's column. No sense running advertising in Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, Mississippi, Texas, or Oklahoma. If Bush is losing any of the other Southern states (except Florida and perhaps Arkansas or Louisiana*), he's in real trouble.

*Lacking a significant lead--or even any lead whatsoever--in Louisiana and New Mexico is a very bad sign for the Catholic candidate. These two heavily Catholic states put the original JFK in the White House.

or the young Marine with his foot blown off by a mine, who, wants to go back to Iraq with his unit---or the Marine gunny sarge we buried in PA today that threw himself in front of a grenade to save his troopers---where is his 'silver star'??

My favorite line:

You can't make a chicken swim and you can't make John Kerry anything but an out-of-touch, ultra-liberal from Taxachusetts.

Thanks for the ping

17 posted on 05/19/2004 6:29:24 AM PDT by P8riot (A gun is merely a substitute for a penis, so when attacked by a mugger one should pull out a ...)

I am with you 100%!!

Using a technicality, based on questionable "wounds" of an almost laughably low severity, to bail out on your crew after a measly four months in combat, make him a Vietnam War ZERO, not hero.

I wonder if any of his crew used their scratches, bumps and bruises to follow their "gallant leader?"

18 posted on 05/19/2004 9:01:14 AM PDT by SpinyNorman (Kerry: the only man that can look like the front end of a horse while acting like the back end.)

The President ought to make Sen. Miller the head of the new department of domestic terrorist relations, um, I mean DNC relations. ;-)

I would hope that the good Senator will be speaking at the Republican Convention.

19 posted on 05/19/2004 9:22:46 AM PDT by SpinyNorman (Kerry: the only man that can look like the front end of a horse while acting like the back end.)

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