Here's one I like.
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Roosevelt, in his speech that summer, told America "all private plans, all private lives, have been in a sense repealed by an overriding public danger."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.
Sorry, but national security trumps immigration. I'll vote Constitution Party the day John McCain gets the GOP presidential nomination. As long as George Bush is our presidential candidate, I'll vote for him and pray that the Lord guides him.
Here's one I like.
This is one of the best conservative speeches I've heard at a Republican convention since Pat Buchanan gave his famous address, and Reagan before him.
Congratulations Zell!
WhooooBoy! Give 'Em Hell, Zell!!
do you suppose Zell gave his own party hell because he knows they are imploding anyway. Bush is going to get one heck of a bounce from this convention.
It will be interesting to see poll numbers after Zell Miller's speech. I think this speech could be remembered as one of the legendary convention events of all time. 20 years from now people will look back on it the masterpiece that it is.
ABC talked over the first four minutes of Zell. On NBC, the entire time Lynn Cheney was talking, John McRino gave his rebuttal of Miller's speech to Brokaw. He put words in Miller's mouth, and negated his speech. McCain is a liability, and a moron. He also said that he didn't want to "show a lack of DISrespect to his constituents". Let Bush make a dumb boner like that and see if it slides, but Lap Dog gets a pass.
HOOORAH!!
Ninth inning, bases loaded, 2 outs, count 3/2, and Zell Miller hits one clear out of the township, way beyond the ballpark boundary.
Thank God he is a Marine. We have many more all over the nation who will never forgive Skerry for his 30 years of words and deeds against the military.
I also thank Zell for his support.God Bless You Zell.
Awesome! Thanks so much for posting. I have printed it out and plan to post/distribute tomorrow.
He was incredible.
I can say without reservation that I wish I had paid more attention to Zell Miller in the past years and not just now in the twilight of both his life and mine.
He showed tonight what being an American Patriot is all about. HIs speech was utterly outstanding.
God Bless you Zell Miller!
That was one incredible speech..
Now to copy this and give it to my husband, he's been waiting for it :)
Very nice speach. It almost wants me to vote Republican again. I wont though because I'm not convinced that Pres. Bush is serious about our national security as long as he refuses to get serious on immigration reform. Vote for the Constitution Party!! www.constitutionparty.org
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Please don't waste your vote. We need every single GOP vote all down the line.
Thanks for posting the text of the speech, I wasn't able to watch it. Wow.. Just wow! Guess I'm going to have to brave CSPAN and watch this on the computer.
Browkaw showed again that he doesn't respect the VP or the office he holds. Lynn Cheney is one of the smartest people in America. Hillary isn't fit to shine Lynn's shoes. Brokaw fawns over both the Clintoons.
John McVain will sit there and spew any kind of words just as long as the camera is on him. Sometimes I think I am listening to a morphed combination of Mumbles from Dick Tracy and Jack Nicholson, with a mouth full of marbles. When will McVain realize he is supporting a man who made his hell as a POW more of a hell? What mental block has McVain created about his time as a POW?
http://miller.senate.gov/email.htm
I just sent Senator Miller another note. I thanked
him for speaking from the heart and standing up to
Chris Mathews.
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