It's Miller Time

Democrat Zell Miller gave an impressive speech at the Republican National Convention. Below is an excerpt from that speech. Click here for the complete transcript. It's not very long and well worth the time it takes to read it.

Chris Mathews of MS-NBC had an interview with Miller after his speech. Mathews was his usual self, talking over the response to the questions he asks. Check out this video of that interview and see how an ex-marine handles a loud-mouthed and belligerent interviewer. It's too good to miss. The Zell Miller\Chris Mathews mix-up
Michelle Malkin is the person Miller is talking about in this quote from the interview :

"You are not going to do to me what you did to that young lady the other day, browbeating her to death."

Stop by Ms. Malkin's page to see what she has to say about the speech. She picked out a few quotes from the very quotable speech. A few here :

"Look at his record. A man's record is what he is"

"I didn't question their patriotism, I question their judgment"

"That was a metaphor, do you know what a metaphor is?"

"Get out of may face. If you're going to ask a question you let me answer."

"I wish we lived in the day that I could challenge you to a duel."

"Are you going to shut up after you ask the question?"

Editor & Publisher has more on that interview. An excerpt :

"Probably the most incendiary moment in all of the television coverage of the Republican National Convention so far occurred shortly after 11 p.m. Wednesday night, during a Chris Matthews interview with Senator Zell Miller on MSNBC, which started hot and then grew even hotter after a question about reporters and freedom the press."

---Larry Everett

Zell Miller Speech at the RNC

"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 (news - web sites) 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 (news - web sites).

Together, Kennedy/Kerry have opposed the very weapons system that won the Cold War and that is now winning the War on Terror."