Worth a second reading

These words by Georgia Democrat Zell Miller are worth re-reading, or reading for the first time incase you missed them. This is his speech at the Republican National Convention in 2004.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54300-2004Sep1.html


Quote: 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President Roosevelt, in a speech that summer, told America, "All private plans, all private lives, have been in a sense repealed by an overriding public danger."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.

MILLER: 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.

(APPLAUSE)

Where are such statesmen today? Where is the bipartisanship in this country when we need it most?

(APPLAUSE)

Today, at the same time 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 Democrats' manic obsession to bring down our commander in chief.

(APPLAUSE)

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.

~~~
Quote: 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.

(APPLAUSE)

MILLER: It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.

(APPLAUSE)

It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest.

(APPLAUSE)

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 he abuses to burn that flag.

(APPLAUSE)

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.
~~~

Words well spoken!

 

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.

(APPLAUSE)

Where are such statesmen today? Where is the bipartisanship in this country when we need it most?
~~~~~~~~~~~

It would sure be nice if both sides of the aisle would put the good of the country ahead of the good of the party, or the good of my own ambitions.

 

Zell did not say "Follow the leader, no matter what he does." Apparently you may have missed the point.

The point is that partisan politics have no place in a wartime situation. Looking for the good of the country, not the good of the party, or the good of my own self-interest should be paramount. Some are so bitter against the President that they would prefer a military defeat for the country if it would also rid them of Bush.

 

This line really struck me during the speech. The lead-up to it was that Kerry had been against every defense bill that came up in his 20 years in the Senate.

I used this as a slogan on shirts/hats/bumperstickers that I sold on my CafePress store during the 2004 campaign. http://www.cafepress.com/spitballarmy