NEW YORK, Sept. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- The following are remarks by Senator
Zell Miller (D-GA) as prepared for delivery at the 2004 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 eight-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plans, all private lives, have been in a sense repealed by an overriding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 bi-partisanship 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% 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 twenty 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 protestor, 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.
Paid for by the Committee on Arrangements for the
2004 Republican National Convention
2 Penn Plaza * New York, NY 10121 * (212) 356-2004
Not authorized by any candidate or candidate committee
SOURCE 2004 Republican National Convention
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