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The text of a letter former President Carter sent to Zell Miller over the weekend
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/ ^ | Josh Marshall

Posted on 09/07/2004 2:05:44 PM PDT by VMI70

The text of a letter former President Carter sent to Zell Miller over the weekend ...

You seem to have forgotten that loyal Democrats elected you as mayor and as state senator. Loyal Democrats, including members of my family and me, elected you as lieutenant governor and as governor. It was a loyal Democrat, Lester Maddox, who assigned you to high positions in the state government when you were out of office. It was a loyal Democrat, Roy Barnes, who appointed you as U.S. Senator when you were out of office. By your historically unprecedented disloyalty, you have betrayed our trust. Great Georgia Democrats who served in the past, including Walter George, Richard Russell, Herman Talmadge, and Sam Nunn disagreed strongly with the policies of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and me, but they remained loyal to the party in which they gained their public office. Other Democrats, because of philosophical differences or the race issue, like Bo Callaway and Strom Thurmond, at least had the decency to become Republicans.

Everyone knows that you were chosen to speak at the Republican Convention because of your being a “Democrat,” and it’s quite possible that your rabid and mean-spirited speech damaged our party and paid the Republicans some transient dividends.

Perhaps more troublesome of all is seeing you adopt an established and very effective Republican campaign technique of destroying the character of opponents by wild and false allegations. The Bush campaign’s personal attacks on the character of John McCain in South Carolina in 2000 was a vivid example. The claim that war hero Max Cleland was a disloyal American and an ally of Osama bin Laden should have given you pause, but you have joined in this ploy by your bizarre claims that another war hero, John Kerry, would not defend the security of our nation except with spitballs. (This is the same man whom you described previously as “one of this nation's authentic heroes, one of this party's best-known and greatest leaders -- and a good friend.")

I, myself, never claimed to have been a war hero, but I served in the navy from 1942 to 1953, and, as president, greatly strengthened our military forces and protected our nation and its interests in every way. I don’t believe this warrants your referring to me as a pacificist.

Zell, I have known you for forty-two years and have, in the past, respected you as a trustworthy political leader and a personal friend. But now, there are many of us loyal Democrats who feel uncomfortable in seeing that you have chosen the rich over the poor, unilateral preemptive war over a strong nation united with others for peace, lies and obfuscation over the truth, and the political technique of personal character assassination as a way to win elections or to garner a few moments of applause. These are not the characteristics of great Democrats whose legacy you and I have inherited.

I contacted President Carter's office for comment and his press spokesperson Deanna Congileo told me that the letter was a private communication and that President Carter would not be issuing further comment.

-- Josh Marshall http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/


TOPICS: Front Page News; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Georgia
KEYWORDS: carter; jimmycarter; miller; zell; zellmiller
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To: VMI70

I, myself, never claimed to have been a war hero, but I served in the navy from 1942 to 1953, and, as president, greatly strengthened our military forces and protected our nation and its interests in every way.

Thermo'nucular' Barf Alert!


221 posted on 09/07/2004 3:38:15 PM PDT by Travis McGee (----- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com -----)
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To: VMI70

Click the logo to donate to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth!


222 posted on 09/07/2004 3:38:52 PM PDT by petercooper (Kerry passes up terror briefing: "They have offered to brief me. I just haven't had time.")
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To: Sacajaweau

that piece if S-i- just enrages me.

Go Zell Go is right, he cannot let up!


223 posted on 09/07/2004 3:40:19 PM PDT by The Mayor ("Jesus, I don't have anything to give you today, but just me. I give you me!")
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To: OldSmaj
If Jimmah had had his way, we'd have been throwing rocks at the enemy.

Better than spitballs I guess. Which makes this point: Compared to Kerry, Carter was a hawk. A misguided and ineffective hawk, but still....

224 posted on 09/07/2004 3:40:41 PM PDT by TN4Liberty (Bill Clinton is proof you don't have to be poor to be white trash.)
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To: VMI70

"who feel uncomfortable in seeing that you have chosen the rich over the poor, unilateral preemptive war over a strong nation united with others for peace, lies and obfuscation over the truth, and the political technique of personal character assassination as a way to win elections or to garner a few moments of applause. These are not the characteristics of great Democrats whose legacy you and I have inherited"


WHAT!!!! Exactly which Democratic party is he talking about. It must be another one than Kerry is with.


225 posted on 09/07/2004 3:45:17 PM PDT by spotbust1
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To: Snake65

Your right, it's not about loyalty. We are at war with an enemy that Jimmy Carter should understand after Iran, but doesn't. Thank the Lord, Ronald Reagan was elected.

Carter is clueless.


226 posted on 09/07/2004 3:45:23 PM PDT by valleygal
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To: The Mayor
...as president, greatly strengthened our military forces and protected our nation and its interests in every way. I don’t believe this warrants your referring to me as a pacificist.

Jimmuh couldn't even win a battle with a rabid rabbit!

227 posted on 09/07/2004 3:45:29 PM PDT by EternalVigilance (The Butchers of Beslan will burn in hell for eternity.)
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To: loboinok

I got it from Lady Jag's website, and I think she's the one who made it.


228 posted on 09/07/2004 3:54:23 PM PDT by Rastus (Forget it, Moby! I'm voting for Bush!)
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To: VMI70

Great Post!


229 posted on 09/07/2004 3:59:40 PM PDT by neverdem (Xin loi min oi)
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To: VMI70

Jimmy: to my knowledge it has only been disloyal Democrats, including you, who actively worked against the foreign policy of our government. You did it before the 1991 Gulf War and again before the Iraq War. Your party's candidate, John Kerry, did it both at home and in Paris after his return from Vietnam, and again when he supported Daniel Ortega and his Marxist government in Nicaragua. Loyalty is not something you are familiar with, so don't bother referring to it anymore.


230 posted on 09/07/2004 4:09:30 PM PDT by Pharlap
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To: VMI70

Sorry Jimmah but ol'Zell had it right.

Country First.

Family Second.

Party Third,or Fourth.

I'd be proud to stand with Zell Miller American.


231 posted on 09/07/2004 4:11:21 PM PDT by Pompah (The price of greatness is responsibility)
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To: VMI70

Jimmy should have stuck to farming Peanuts. BTW
does anyone have any BillyBeer left.???


CD


232 posted on 09/07/2004 4:12:59 PM PDT by Coffee_drinker (Bush will not outsource our national security!)
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To: KB4W

ping


233 posted on 09/07/2004 4:18:20 PM PDT by KB4W (I voted for the...before I voted...against, No...wait...You mean I'm supposed to vote? JF'nK)
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To: everyone

Why is it that our Republican ex-presidents have always conducted themselves in a classy manner, and the Democrats have generally remained vehement partisans -- even to the point of publicly bashing the incumbent president in sticky foreign policy controversies?

Reading this letter to Zell Miller, one gets a vivid sense of Carter's meanness and pettiness. It's as if all that Christian stuff was for naught ...


234 posted on 09/07/2004 4:21:37 PM PDT by California Patriot (California Patriot)
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To: You Dirty Rats

(What exactly is a "pacificist"?)

A "pacifist" a realist who kills and destroys all enemies, so he and his children and children's children don't have to fight continually just to survive.

A "Pacifist" is a pussilanimous coward who refuses to fight or kill, so he and his children (if he is even allowed to breed) and children's children can end up slaves to those a pacifist would have eliminated.

Clear?

Okay then.

GWB is a pacifist; Jimmah Cartah is a Pacifist.

Take your pick as to which is a great President, and which is a disgrace to the office.


235 posted on 09/07/2004 4:35:08 PM PDT by ApplegateRanch (The world needs more horses, and fewer Jackasses!)
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To: Quix

[Boggles my mind that he'd be such a micromanaging egoist plus a globalist with his Baptist and end times aware back ground.]
..................

Jimmy's as true to the Baptist faith as he is to his country.

A year or so after his unceremonious departure from the White House I read a little filler item in the Dallas Morning News re: a recent incident in the Sunday School class he teaches.

He made some statement, a class member politely pointed out that it did not square with what the apostle Paul says, & Carter replied (can't you just see that cold-eyed grin that Emmett Tyrrell once called "the smile that sends small children scurrying for cover"?), "Paul was wrong".


236 posted on 09/07/2004 4:45:16 PM PDT by GaretGarrett
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To: VMI70

"Chosen the rich over the poor"

Pffft, I am sorry Peanut head, but which is the richer of the two presidential contenders??


237 posted on 09/07/2004 4:54:57 PM PDT by Stag (Kerry, Lenin, Chirac - which one doesn't belong? Kerry. The others love their country.)
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To: StarCMC

If there was any doubt before, this letter confirms it: The old coot has senile dementia. (He was never all there while he was president. Those "bug-eyed looks" that he'd get when he was lying during speeches and debates used to freak me out!) ;)


238 posted on 09/07/2004 4:59:22 PM PDT by Fawnn (Canteen wOOhOO Consultant and CookingWithPam.com person - Faith makes things possible, not easy.)
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To: VMI70
You seem to have forgotten that loyal Democrats elected you as mayor and as state senator. Loyal Democrats, including members of my family and me, elected you as lieutenant governor and as governor.... blah blah blah

I can't find the letter from Jimmy Carter about all the loyal Republicans who elected Jim Jeffords to the Senate. Can someone send me the link?

-PJ

239 posted on 09/07/2004 5:02:02 PM PDT by Political Junkie Too (It's still not safe to vote Democrat.)
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To: StarCMC

*Dies gargling*


240 posted on 09/07/2004 5:02:55 PM PDT by Darksheare (Conquerors of the nice T-shirt!)
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