I read the whole text of Zell Miller’s speech at the Republican National Convention, and I was amazed at his ability to completely misapprehend, misrepresent, and mischaracterize.  It was staggering.

For instance:

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?

Might I be so bold as to suggest that it might possibly be the guy who has actually gone to war and served with distinction, and not the guy who got his daddy and his daddy’s friends to pull strings and get him appointed to a position in a cushy Air National Guard post that he didn’t even bother to show up and serve his time for?

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Roosevelt, in his speech that summer, told America "all private plans, all private lives, have been in a sense repealed by an overriding public danger."

…and it was true then.  The Nazi’s had invaded and attacked a significant portion of Europe, and Hitler had made clear and credible threats of attempting to conquer the world, which were backed up by a demonstrably effective war machine.

The implication that the same was true of Iraq is not at all credible.  Other than some half-hearted bluster from Saddam Hussein, there is no credible evidence that Iraq could have been a threat to anyone, much less the United States.  Not that I care much for Saddam.  He’s a crazy man, and his people are better off without him...but that doesn’t answer the very reasonable assertion that this war was mischaracterized, and misrepresented to the American people, and there has been no credible evidence linking Iraq and Saddam Hussein to Osama Bin Ladin and his organization.

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?

Maybe the guy running against our current war-time president is thinking that the best way to contribute to saving freedom is to get a reactionary neo-conservative theocrat, who has been grabbing for more and more power, out of the white house before he consolidates it into a strangle-hold.

The Republicans are making national security a partisan campaign issue.  When Dick Cheney can say that terrorists will attack the U.S. if we “elect the wrong people”…I think that sounds like a partisan campaign issue…not only that, but it sounds like he thinks that fear of terrorists should be able to dictate our vote…that’s not very American.

The statesmen of today are the men who went where they were asked to go by their country even though they didn’t want to, who served alongside the common soldier even though they had the political pull to get out of it, who were wounded and captured and tortured, and who came back and spoke their minds and hearts, and who continue to do so today, in spite of the fact that it will result in their honorable service being reviled, their words and actions called traitorous, and their personal lives attacked.  People like John McCain (Who’s honorable war record and family life was also slanderously smeared by the same bunch back in the 2000 Republican nomination process), and John Kerry.

Where is the bipartisanship in this country when we need it most?

Seriously?  You really asked that?  You, a supporter of the most unilateral, antagonistic, divisive, go-it-alone, hard-line tool of the reactionary right wing of the Republican party want to know what happened to bipartisanship in this country?  Wow.  I mean…wow.

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.

Hey, Afghanistan…I’m right with you… was from the beginning.  Most of the freaking world was with us from the beginning.  Go get ‘em.  As for Iraq…I don’t think we needed to go there.  I don’t think there was any reason to go there except Dick Cheney wanted that oil, and Saddam wasn’t our evil lap-dog anymore.  Go ahead and prove otherwise.  I would love to support you whole-heartedly.  They’re not even trying to prove that we needed to go there.  It’s like they think it doesn’t matter.  Young people are dying in Iraq because George W. Bush sent them there, and they will continue dying until he is out of office.  Unless it can be proven to my satisfaction that their blood is worth whatever it is we’re spending it on, you bet your bippy I’m obsessed with getting him out of office and making the dying stop as soon as possible.  All he has to do is convince me we need to be there.  I want to believe that we are doing the right thing…but I won’t buy it just on his say-so.

What has happened to the party I've spent my life working in?

If you don’t recognize it when you see it, are you sure it ever existed?

I can remember when Democrats believed that it was the duty of America to fight for freedom over tyranny.

Yep…that would be the same party…fighting tyranny in the making here at home, and fielding a guy who made his name doing it abroad in Vietnam.  We ARE still talking about the Democrats…right? 

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.

Then you should be mad at George W., because even he has called it an occupation.  It is an occupation.  Now that we’ve liberated Iraq from Saddam Hussein, we HAVE to occupy it, because if we don’t we’ll have created a bigger mess than it was to begin with.

And nothing makes this mother of two sons madder than seeing American troops used to gain oil profits for Dick Cheney and his cronies.  My kids aren’t draft age yet, but I’d like to see this conflict ended, and no others begun, and all our troops home safely before they get there.

I don’t know anybody who hates soldiers, and thinks that the soldiers are categorically bad or evil.  Many liberals I know have friends and family serving in Iraq, and honor their service and desire to defend America, and deeply resent that their faithful commitment to the country is being so sorely misused.

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.

I’m not sure whether to call those statements silly, hateful, or dishonest…so I’m going to go with all three.

Actually, it is the soldier AND the reporter, AND the poet, AND the agitator, AND the protestor who have given us freedom.  Soldiers, reporters, agitators and protestors have ALL died in the cause of freedom, and pitting them against each other, and holding one above the other is wrong.  It wouldn’t surprise me to find that a poet has died in the cause of freedom, either.  I just can’t think of one now.

Other occupations that have produced defenders of freedom include statesmen, teachers, novelists, pipefitters, welders, migrant farm workers, itinerant preachers…and the list goes on.  Each serves as they are able, and each should be honored as is proper and fitting.

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.

Have a little talk with G. W…he’s publicly referred to it as an occupation…unless you think he’s not the kind of person who speaks his heart in public, he is unfit by your definition.

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.

Hmmm…why would they think something like that?  We’ve done nothing but good.  We brought stability and secular government to Iraq by putting Saddam Hussein in power, brought prosperity and spirituality to the middle east by pouring billions of dollars into business deals with the Saud family, and supporting their political power so that they could promote religious fundamentalism and hate of the west, we’ve brought further stability to the region by giving carte blanche to Israel and supporting everything they decide to do to the Palestinian people…that sort of strong, unwavering leadership couldn’t possibly have contributed at all to the current situation.  This irrational hate for America just sprung up out of nowhere.  They should know that.  We’re just random victims of the reasonless chaos that rules the universe.

Fortunately, we have the following list of munitions to fix all of that, get the oil we need to run all those wonderful war machines, and make Halliburton even richer.  I love it when a plan comes together.

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.

Well now, that’s a mighty fine strawman you’ve got there.  Yup.  That’ll keep the crows off the field real nice until you’re ready to knock it down with some feather-light argument to make your opposition look foolish.

It would be better if you could refute their actual position, but we make do with what we have, don’t we?

Alright, I've had enough for today.  I might get back to this tomorrow...I'll certainly get to it at some later date...there's just too much more good material here...

Until then.