Text 1703, 249 rader
Skriven 2004-09-02 07:48:31 av John Hull (1:379/1.99)
Ärende: Text of Zell Miller speech 
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ELECTION 2004
Text of Zell Miller's speech
'I have knocked on the door of this man's soul ... '

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Posted: September 1, 2004
10:30 p.m. Eastern


© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com 

 

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plans, all private lives, have been in a sense repealed by an overriding public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 Gadhafy'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. 




John 

America:  First, Last, and Always!
Go to www.madgorilla.us for all your Domain Name Services at the lowest rates.

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 * Origin: We are the Watchmen of our own Liberty! (1:379/1.99)