Democratic Sen. Zell Miller (news, bio, voting record) of Georgia, waves after giving the keynote address at the Republican National Convention Wednesday, Sept.1, 2004, in New York. (AP Photo/Joe Cavaretta)
Posted on 09/01/2004 7:34:41 PM PDT by kattracks
(AP) Below is the text of Sen. Zell Miller's keynote speech as prepared for delivery at the Republican National Convention:Since I last stood in this spot, a whole new generation of the Miller Family has been born: Four great grandchildren.
Along with all the other members of our close-knit family, they are my and Shirley's most precious possessions.
And I know that's how you feel about your family also. Like you, I think of their future, the promises and the perils they will face.
Like you, I believe that the next four years will determine what kind of world they will grow up in.
And like you, I ask which leader is it today that has the vision, the willpower and, yes, the backbone to best protect my family?
The clear answer to that question has placed me in this hall with you tonight. For my family is more important than my party.
There is but one man to whom I am willing to entrust their future and that man's name is George Bush.
In the summer of 1940, I was an 8-year-old boy living in a remote little Appalachian valley. Our country was not yet at war, but even we children knew that there were some crazy men across the ocean who would kill us if they could.
President Roosevelt, in his speech that summer, told America "all private plans, all private lives, have been in a sense repealed by an overriding public danger."
In 1940, Wendell Wilkie was the Republican nominee.
And there is no better example of someone repealing their "private plans" than this good man. He gave Roosevelt the critical support he needed for a peacetime draft, an unpopular idea at the time.
And he made it clear that he would rather lose the election than make national security a partisan campaign issue.
Shortly before Wilkie died, he told a friend, that if he could write his own epitaph and had to choose between "here lies a president" or "here lies one who contributed to saving freedom," he would prefer the latter.
Where are such statesmen today?
Where is the bipartisanship in this country when we need it most?
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.
It was Democratic President Harry Truman who pushed the Red Army out of Iran, who came to the aid of Greece when Communists threatened to overthrow it, who stared down the Soviet blockade of West Berlin by flying in supplies and saving the city.
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.
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.
Together, Kennedy/Kerry have opposed the very weapons system that won the Cold War and that is now winning the War on Terror.
Listing all the weapon systems that Senator Kerry tried his best to shut down sounds like an auctioneer selling off our national security but Americans need to know the facts.
The B-1 bomber, that Senator Kerry opposed, dropped 40 percent of the bombs in the first six months of Operation Enduring Freedom.
The B-2 bomber, that Senator Kerry opposed, delivered air strikes against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Hussein's command post in Iraq.
The F-14A Tomcats, that Senator Kerry opposed, shot down Khadifi's Libyan MIGs over the Gulf of Sidra. The modernized F-14D, that Senator Kerry opposed, delivered missile strikes against Tora Bora.
The Apache helicopter, that Senator Kerry opposed, took out those Republican Guard tanks in Kuwait in the Gulf War. The F-15 Eagles, that Senator Kerry opposed, flew cover over our Nation's Capital and this very city after 9/11.
I could go on and on and on: against the Patriot Missile that shot down Saddam Hussein's scud missiles over Israel; against the Aegis air-defense cruiser; against the Strategic Defense Initiative; against the Trident missile; against, against, against.
This is the man who wants to be the Commander in Chief of our U.S. Armed Forces?
U.S. forces armed with what? Spitballs?
Twenty years of votes can tell you much more about a man than twenty weeks of campaign rhetoric.
Campaign talk tells people who you want them to think you are. How you vote tells people who you really are deep inside.
Senator Kerry has made it clear that he would use military force only if approved by the United Nations.
Kerry would let Paris decide when America needs defending.
I want Bush to decide.
John Kerry, who says he doesn't like outsourcing, wants to outsource our national security.
That's the most dangerous outsourcing of all. This politician wants to be leader of the free world.
Free for how long?
For more than 20 years, on every one of the great issues of freedom and security, John Kerry has been more wrong, more weak and more wobbly than any other national figure.
As a war protester, Kerry blamed our military.
As a Senator, he voted to weaken our military. And nothing shows that more sadly and more clearly than his vote this year to deny protective armor for our troops in harms way, far away.
George Bush understands that we need new strategies to meet new threats.
John Kerry wants to re-fight yesterday's war. George Bush believes we have to fight today's war and be ready for tomorrow's challenges. George Bush is committed to providing the kind of forces it takes to root out terrorists.
No matter what spider hole they may hide in or what rock they crawl under.
George Bush wants to grab terrorists by the throat and not let them go to get a better grip.
From John Kerry, they get a "yes-no-maybe" bowl of mush that can only encourage our enemies and confuse our friends.
I first got to know George Bush when we served as governors together. I admire this man. I am moved by the respect he shows the first lady, his unabashed love for his parents and his daughters, and the fact that he is unashamed of his belief that God is not indifferent to America.
I can identify with someone who has lived that line in "Amazing Grace," "Was blind, but now I see," and I like the fact that he's the same man on Saturday night that he is on Sunday morning.
He is not a slick talker but he is a straight shooter and, where I come from, deeds mean a lot more than words.
I have knocked on the door of this man's soul and found someone home, a God-fearing man with a good heart and a spine of tempered steel.
The man I trust to protect my most precious possession: my family.
This election will change forever the course of history, and that's not any history. It's our family's history.
The only question is how. The answer lies with each of us. And, like many generations before us, we've got some hard choosing to do.
Right now the world just cannot afford an indecisive America. Fainthearted self-indulgence will put at risk all we care about in this world.
In this hour of danger our President has had the courage to stand up. And this Democrat is proud to stand up with him.
Thank you.
God Bless this great country and God Bless George W. Bush.
Democratic Sen. Zell Miller (news, bio, voting record) of Georgia, waves after giving the keynote address at the Republican National Convention Wednesday, Sept.1, 2004, in New York. (AP Photo/Joe Cavaretta)
It was Fabulous!
And a big thanks goes out to our American Soldiers, who have given all so we can be free!
Thank You Soldiers! God's Speed!!
A very powerful and apropos illustration of the world our fathers and grandfathers lived in versus what we have today.
Text Of Zell Miller's RNC Speech (Full Text)
With a enthusiatic group of posters!
That was the best speech I have ever heard in my life.
That was a speech aimed at Terry Mc-Awful and snide approach to this campaign.
He defined it well : Democrats care more about their political power than they do about our national security.
I'd love to be a fly on the wall so that I could watch Kerry's reaction to Zell's speech!
FANTASTIC....I missed it & have to wait for the replay!
Okay I like Zell but the pic has got to go it looks like Heil...... it is an awful image......
The speech was great he was angry but he is not a nazi.....
It was an amazing speech by Zell Miller.
-Jazhawk
Marked
Thank you for posting this I was not able to watch it...
To print out and wear as a Campaign Button, go HERE. Over 3,100 hits as of 9/1! Feel free to reuse this anywhere you wish...Predictable uproar about Zell's speech over at DU.
They're going completely bonkers.
And, just like the Swift Boat Vets for Truth, since they can't address the specifics of what he said, they're shooting the messenger.
Again.
(I've nicked some of the profanity, others at DU did it themselves.)
Look at these post titles:
**Official Zell Miller Speech Thread**
Bless you. I don't have the stomach for the traitorous Zellout.
what an angry little pissant
Kick (nt).
One more kick
Zell Miller and AIPAC conspired to topple Cynthia McKinney
The conscience of the Democratic party?
so, i'm going to need a puke bucket...good start
I want this man out of the party now!
The a*shole is on
The Devil Went Down To Georgia
Yeah that was interesting!
You're kidding about the music, right?
I bet your grandchildren are looking forward to paying off Bush's debt
Jesus Christ.
FLIP - FLOP ALERT - Zell supported Bill Clinton....
Dear Zell. F*ck Off.
why didn't he stay in the valley?
He's so pale that looks like he just got a facial from Rove
his family members are his most precious *possessions*???????
He say "Mines own posessions"?????
I caught that
yes - hub and I just looked at each other
My precious!
I caught that
Comparing WWII to the War on Terra
Zell has lost his f*cking mind
Somebody needs to tell this dipstick that we ARE occupiers
what a loser
He is an attention whore, nothing more. (nt)
As a Georgia resident, let me apologize for this POS traitor.
The Democrats are obsessed with overthrowing the CIC?
Putting down the Dem tendency to oppose the war
BARF!
Now "Occupy" is a bad word....
Has Zell always looked this angry?
you've got to be kidding - they are taking credit for every
He calls Kerry a "manic Democrat." Let's talk about manic Democrats,
What rock did this Doofus crawl out from under?
Can the doublespeak GET any thicker?
for the umteenth time, Reagan didn't free me!
Zell Must Love Kerry.....HE'S THE SOLDIER.
Gawd
Is Zell sure he's a Democrat? Or is he flip-flopping?
I sure wouldn't want to be a person working in HIS office
So, Zell, if I'm not with you, does that mean I'm against you?
this fervor makes me wonder...
F*ck off, Zell
Dems "believe America is the problem"
News in Brief
I just don't understand how he could go from lovin'kerry to now hate him
Have you noticed how long ZigZagZell's nose is?
Why is he referring to Democrats as "they"?
Attacking Fellow Senators
He's chock full of lies
He looks so mad
These are fightin' words...
A mighty man of straw towers above the convention floor
I'm fraid Zell might give you a handful.
Wow, Never knew
I hate to say it but he's persuasive
Dick Cheney ALSO opposed the VERY SAME bombers
Bingo!!!
I'm really scared
The B1 and B2 are good because they dropped bombs . . .
F*cking Liar With That Patriot Missile Line -NT-
There's no way this guy is a Dem
What a jackass......
Is he trying to scare people into voting for Bush?
Thank you Pat Buch...I mean Zell!
20 years from now
This is not good...
The DNC MUST revoke his membership in the Democratic party
The guy's lying faster than I can count.
3 nights, not one mention of Osama or the Economy
What a lying weenie. Spouting the repuke lie about Kerry wanting to
he just lied through his ugly yellow teeth
Mr Haney endorses Bu$h
Please, I liked Mr. Haney.
Kick Him Out Of The Party Tonight! -NT-
Can we do that?...you'd think they would have by now...
Maybe They Just Wanted To Let Him Hang Himself Real Good. -NT-
Zell Miller is distorting Kerry's record... pure character assassination
Plenty ammo here for the Dems to kick his traitorous ass out of the party
Turned him on for a minute
I'm Sure France Will Be Real Pleased By That Line...FOOOOOL.
Zell
Nothing new about Republicans associating w/ traitors.
He's a raving Alzheimers ravaged lunatic ! -nt-
WHAT A F*CKING LIAR!, he twists the truth better than the repukes
Unbelievable bullsh1t from Zell
Bush said No one wants to be occupied..I don't..Did Zell forget that?
Emperor Palpatine much Zell? Wholly crap this guy is hilarious!
Those right-wingers will rush out and buy his book now !
Miller has no character.
What a freaking lunatic! nt
I've knocked on the door of this mans soul and found someone home??
FEAR DANGER FEAR DANGER
Oh Sweet Jesus I'm going to puke. n/t
This Democrat!??!?
Wow! With a Dem like that,
How did we ever manage to TRICK the Republicans into letting him speak??
I'm shaking....
Good thing
Again with the "possessions" . . .
What'd he say about god?
What's that smell? Oh,its Zell.
hes a coward...he trashes this party but still remains in it....he has no
God Bless George W. Bush! oh paaleeze! gag me!
"Free for how long?" (if kerry was elected)
Re: What's that smell....? LMAO!
Republicans wanna-beeees should go to Snopes before talking
I can't watch TV now. Is his speech effective with swing voters?
Maybe if the swing voters
Or a fan of Hitler
Yea
Looks like the audience Adores him? WTF?
Bush41 sure loved Zell tonight
He's a prick BUT DAMN
I disagree
WTF was that
I disagree...what an ugly spectacle...
you know what that hatefest speech reminded me of?
Looks like he's giving the Seig Heil w/ one hand and j-----g off
Me too ! the hate he brought out and the lies he told and the
Yikes!
broken link
The letting the U.N. decide whether we go to war is the worst kind of lie
Now America..Do you see what Georgia is surrounded by?
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