Uhmmm... How about that Zell Miller?

[Allison]

Tonight, for the first time this election year, I heard a politician whom I had absolutely no doubt was speaking with all his heart. I disagreed with most of his speech and think he's horribly misguided, of course ...but ... holy shit ... you gotta admire passion like that. That man was righteous indignation incarnate.

[Rooster]

Now I wish I'd seen it.

[Allison]

Oh man, you'll hear about it. That's for sure. Lots of zingers perfect for cable news soundbites. I swear, if John Kerry had crossed that stage, I have no doubt Zell Miller would have punched him right in the nose. He was angreeeeee.

[Grundy]

Good ol' Crazy Zell! He puts the 'ola' in bi-polar.

Awesome delivery. It was terrific to see someone all pissed off for a change. I kept thinking "how is this guy going to continue in the Senate as a Dem?" but then I hear he is retiring.

Something must have really ticked him off cause he bitch-slapped the entire Democratic party for its last 20 years of pro-peace, people-first strategy. The facts of his speech though are as disingenuous on Kerry's Senate record as the latest Swiftboat mockumentory is on Kerry' character. However, it seems the tactics of constantly repeating quotes out of context and votes out of context works pretty well on the average Fox News-viewer, er I mean gullible American.

Its just good marketing in that we really respond well to those small catch phrases like "Where's the beef?", "If it dont fit, you must acquit" and "I voted for it before I voted against it". I suggest Kerry fire his staff and replace them with Jonnie Cochran immediately.

[Jammer]

He was indeed fired up. The whole "Democrat speaking at the RNC" angle will be a hit with Joe Sixpack, too, even if he is a lame duck retired sort of Democrat.

They really needed him on last night's lineup, too. Dick Cheney is a brilliant man (even if you think he's evil, you have to admit that he's a pretty smart, articulate dood), but GOOD GOD he's got a hell of a monotone delivery. From this point forward, he shall be referred to as "Deputy Dog."

Jammer

[Rooster]

Disengenuous? Is that what its called when someone's record is brought to light?

[Allison]

They really needed him on last night's lineup, too. Dick Cheney is a brilliant man (even if you think he's evil, you have to admit that he's a pretty smart, articulate dood), but GOOD GOD he's got a hell of a monotone delivery. From this point forward, he shall be referred to as "Deputy Dog."

Jammer
I totally agree. Brilliant, but evil. ;)

But seriously, Zell was a hard act to follow. I mean, I know they couldn't have had Cheney speak before Miller, but it would have ended the night on a higher note if they had. After Miller, everyone was going nuts ... and then, 60 seconds later, Cheney is up there bringing everyone down again. Kinda sucked for them.

[Swifty_Johnson]

Okay, who is a more Boring Speaker, Cheney or Kerry? If we had those two debate, everyone watching will fall asleep.

Swifty

[Roscoes_C&W]

Well with Cheney there's the outside chance that he will tell someone to CHENEY OFF as Boom would say.

[Murrie]

AFTER that speech he got in a fight with Chris Mathews from Hardball.

Challenged him to a duel:
watch it here:
http://video.msn.com/video/p.htm?prepend=77ff0b06-ef9a-42a8-b329-9afcf270061f&autoStart=0&menu=News&menuItem=Business&list=hotvideo_topnews

"I wish we lived in a time when I could challenge you to a duel"

too funny. One of the most amusing interviews ive ever seen. Maybe politics would be more fun if they had boxing matches or something.

I like seeing these news wienies called on their hit and run interview type tactics

Id agree though that some of the stuff he voted against was defence cutbacks purposed by Dick Cheney during the Clinton administration like the B-1 bomber.
The really damning votes, the ones that I really think are going to hurt Kerry, are the votes against the first gulf war, and against the 87 billion last year.

This is the fault of the Kerry campaign IMHO for allowing the Republicans to be the ones that define Kerrys senate record. If they had spend less time talking about vietnam and more time talking up Kerry's Senate record (of which there are many good votes) then some of these accusations wouldnt have much of an impact. As I see it this was a big time screwup politically speaking by the Democrats.

[Allison]

Disengenuous? Is that what its called when someone's record is brought to light?
No, disengenuous is using a single vote on a single bill to deliberately and publicly distort a person's position on an issue. It would be like if I took some out-of-context sentence from a GWB speech, something that sounded awful all by itself, and then said, Look what he said! Technically, he did say it. But it would be disengenuous of me to make it sound like something it wasn't.

Which is why senators aren't very successful at White House runs. It's just too easy for an opponent to pluck out a single vote and make it look like the Senator is against something he's not. And a lot of people believe it when they hear, Senator X voted against <insert wonderful thing here>. And then Senator X has to go around and try to explain, Okay I did vote against that wonderful thing, it's true. But that's because there was an even better version of that wonderful thing that we wanted to pass instead. So we voted against the first version of the wonderful thing and then for the second version of the wonderful thing. Undertand? And no, people don't understand.

And Senator X's opponent keeps plucking out single votes and putting Senator X on the defensive, and more and more people start to believe the wrong thing, and Senator X's opposition knows it's wrong, but he's just laughing all the way to the swearing-in ceremony.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying John Kerry is the sole victim of this sort of tactic by any means. Everyone does it. And Zell Miller did it last night.

[Allison]

The really damning votes, the ones that I really think are going to hurt Kerry, are the votes against the first gulf war, and against the 87 billion last year.
I don't see the 87 billion dollar thing as an issue because, well, he really did vote for it before he voted against it. ;) It can be explained. It wasn't a matter of him trying to block the funding, it was just a disagreement about how to pay for the funding. But, I know it's going to hurt him nonetheless. Anything that has to be explained will hurt a candidate.

But, I agree on the first Gulf War vote. That's the big one, as far as I'm concerned, because it's going to be really hard to justify. I'm really surprised more people haven't been talking about that one.

[Murrie]

Well I would say that overall Kerry is on the Left Wing of his party, especially regarding his defense voting.
I dont believe he is a stong candidate on defense because his track record has been in opposition to the majority of defense spending and programs.
I would agree that if it was only a couple of examples (such as the b1 vote) then I would be giving Kerry the benefit of the doubt but as per my research and review of his senate record he is in favor of and has continually voted for a weaker american militarily and intelegence force. (he has voted against something like 3/4th of all defensive and intelegence enhancing bills, and for nearly every bill to cut defence and intelegence)

In another time and place in history this would not be as big a deal for me personally, but right here, right now, having a proven anti military voting record is big negative in my book.

I dont think Zells speech would have had the same impact if only the Kerry campaign had taken the time to focus attention on the good side of his voting record, which defense is not part of, but instead they thought they could just play it safe and coast to the election on kerrys war record from 30 years ago. (which by the way really opened the door for the Swift Vets to have an impact, if his campaign was about his senate record he could easily blow them off as dragging up "ancient history")

I guess we will see how it plays out in November.

[Allison]

My take on Kerry and defense is much different, I guess.

I sat down one day and started to research the laundry list of votes listed on GWB's website that they claimed showed Kerry was weak on defense, among other things. I only got through about half of them before I got frustrated and quit, because a lot of the votes in question that I researched turned out to be things that were overwhelmingly passed by both Republicans and Democrats ... some cutting back on Cold War-era installations, others cutting back on funding to agencies that had been caught with their hand in the cookie jar, and others in response to a government shut-down ... a lot of them were cutbacks that even Dick Cheney supported.

It sounds convincing to say, Kerry voted to cut funding for ... , but as you know, taken out of context, any vote can be misleading of a candidate's true intent.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Kerry has been hawkish on defense, but I certainly don't think he's been soft, either.

But, even if we were to agree that John Kerry's voting record has been soft on defense, I don't think it's fair to judge that record with a post-9/11 yardstick. America has been attacked on her own soil. That changes everything. I can't even fathom the notion that John Kerry, or anyone else we put in the White House, wouldn't respond to a direct threat to the United States with all the might of this nation. Post 9/11, I just don't see how it would be possible to be "soft on defense."

[Allison]

Oh and ... this just in: John Kerry will be responding to Zell Miller's speech tonight, at midnight, one hour after Bush finishes up at the convention. :ooer: He must be pissed. Lol.

[Swifty_Johnson]

I don't see the 87 billion dollar thing as an issue because, well, he really did vote for it before he voted against it.

Okay, so he didn't get his way on the first bill, so the troops have to suffer? That is going to be a hard one to pass off.

Swifty

[Aelfwine]

Okay, so he didn't get his way on the first bill, so the troops have to suffer? That is going to be a hard one to pass off.

Swifty

Maybe if we could see all the crap that was tagged onto the bill we would all understand better. Picking out individual voting records, like Miller did, is useless to anyone who hasnt read the bill. We all know bills have alot of "pork" tagged on to them. What was tagged onto all the major bills people are crying foul about? Do you know Swifty? I sure don't.

[Allison]

Okay, so he didn't get his way on the first bill, so the troops have to suffer? That is going to be a hard one to pass off.

Swifty
Come on, Swifty. You know as well as I that the outcome of almost every bill is known prior to the vote. Kerry and every other senator on the floor knew that 2nd bill was going to pass overwhelmingly. His no vote wasn't going to amount to a hill of beans. It was a purely symbolic statement that he knew could be criticized later. But he voted his conscience anyway in order to make the statement that he felt strongly about how we should go about paying for that 87 billion.

If you're going to criticize Kerry for his no vote on the 2nd bill, then you have to also criticize all those Republicans who opposed the first one. But they weren't trying to block the 87 billion any more than Kerry was. It was just a difference of opinion about how to pay for it.

[Rooster]

"But he voted his conscience anyway in order to make the statement that he felt strongly about how we should go about paying for that 87 billion."

You claim to know his conscience now?

[Swifty_Johnson]

But he voted his conscience anyway in order to make the statement that he felt strongly about how we should go about paying for that 87 billion.

Voting for that Bill was a strong show of support for the troops. He could have introduced a seperate bill to repeal the tax cuts and voted for that to show is conscience.

If you're going to criticize Kerry for his no vote on the 2nd bill, then you have to also criticize all those Republicans who opposed the first one.

You mean criticize the Republicans for voting no on a highly political bill that was just intoduced to make the president look bad? Removing the tax cuts would not have raised the money to fund the bill, and would have had a backlash that would have lead to LESS money being collected and further hurting the U.S. So voting NO was the right thing to do.

Fund the troops first, than figure out how to pay for it.

Swifty

[Allison]

You claim to know his conscience now?
Yes. I consulted Miss Cleo, as I do in all important matters.

[Rooster]

Isn't she in jail? :p

[Hammer]

The 91 vote is harder to explain. But to me what really makes him look bad is how quickly he went from Pro-war from to anti-war. When we saw what kind of traction Dean was gathering as the most vocal anti-war candidate he became an anti-war candidate too. This was before the insurgent stuff, lack of WMD, etc. It was solely Kerry deciding that in order to get his campaign out of the ditch he needed to run hard to the left. His campaign was basically declared dead at one point. Now he's running back to the right. How can we possibly know where Kerry stands? For my money Kerry is a dove in a hawk suit. It's clear that Vietnam effected Kerry in a way which few of us could understand.

[Boom]

Disengenuous? Is that what its called when someone's record is brought to light?
No, Disingenuous is when someone says a bunch of distortions that goes against their previous remarks, or goes against the plain truth, to slam someone. You are assuming his speech accurately brought Kerry's record to light. I haven't heard the entire speech either, but I have seen some excerpts which are clearly lies.

Miller: "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-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." [9/1/04]
Kerry never voted against those weapon systems. I know this because those weapon systems never came up for votes. Apparently, Zell is refering to general appropriation bills that Kerry voted against in 1991 and 1995. Those were like for the whole budget. Obviously Kerry wasn't trying to cut the entire military down to zero, he was trying to have the budget rewritten. And if Zell is so livid at people who want to cut these weapon systems, he should be ranting at Cheney. Check out the following facts.
Cheney Launched Massive Post Cold War Military Cuts
"I've always liked to remind everybody at the outset that we are already embarked upon a massive reduction in U.S. military capability, a 25-percent cut in force structure. We've got the lowest active force today that we've had since before Korea. I've eliminated 70,000 civilian jobs in the last 18 months out of the Pentagon. I've closed or terminated 81 programs. We're shutting down 300 military bases worldwide. It's a massive reduction already underway." [ABC, "This Week," 9/29/91]

Cheney Cut F-14D Tomcats.
In 1991, Cheney was successful in scrapping plans for new F-14 Tomcat fighters. In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, Cheney said, "What I recommended to the Committee was that we shut down the new F-14D production line, which will save almost $2.5 billion…" [Newday, 2/5/91; Cheney testimony, House Armed Services Committee, 7/13/89]

Cheney Proposed Cuts to B-2 Program.
According to the Boston Globe, in 1990, "Defense Secretary Richard Cheney announced a cutback… of nearly 45 percent in the administration's B-2 Stealth bomber program, from 132 airplanes to 75…" [Boston Globe, 4/27/90]

Cheney Proposed Cutting AH-64 Apaches.
In testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Defense Subcommittee, Cheney said, "This is just a list of some of the programs that I've recommended termination: the V-22 Osprey, the F-14D, the Army Helicopter Improvement Program, Phoenix missile, F-15E, the Apache helicopter, the M1 tank, et cetera." In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, Cheney said, "The Army, as I indicated in my earlier testimony, recommended to me that we keep a robust Apache helicopter program going forward, AH-64…I forced the Army to make choices…So I recommended that we cancel the AH-64 program two years out." [Cheney testimony, Senate Appropriations Committee, Defense Subcommittee, 6/12/90; Cheney Testimony, House Armed Services Committee, 7/13/89]

Cheney Blocked Modernizing F-14A’s.
"Cheney signed off on the fiscal 1991 recisions on Jan. 7, more than a week before the start of the war with Iraq. The decision to cut off F-14 remanufacture — modernizing F-14As into Ds — is consistent with what sources said is an apparent Cheney fiscal 1992 budget decision to turn down the Navy's request for new F-14D procurement, while supporting funding for an upgraded F/A-18 with increased strike capability. F-14 funds recisions were from the procurement account, sources said." [Aerospace Daily, 1/23/91]

Cheney Tried to End Production of F-15.
"But the overall message brought out by Cheney on Wednesday was that the industry will face cutbacks through the mid-1990s…The Pentagon plan includes an end to production of the Grumman F-14 and McDonnell F-15 jet fighters, both of which have significant content in California, including radars built by Hughes." [LA Times, 1/30/92]
Cheney specifically tried to kill (sometimes successfully) the same exact weapons programs that Zell accused Kerry of trying to kill.

Zell is all over the map. This is what he said about Kerry's 20 years of service in the Senate at the convention a few days ago.

Miller: "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."

But here is what he said 3 years ago about the first 16 years of that service.

Miller: "In his 16 years in the Senate, John Kerry has fought against government waste and worked hard to bring some accountability to Washington. Early in his Senate career in 1986, John signed on to the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit Reduction Bill, and he fought for balanced budgets before it was considered politically correct for Democrats to do so. John has worked to strengthen our military, reform public education, boost the economy and protect the environment." — U.S. Senator Zell Miller [Remarks to the Democratic Party of Georgia Jefferson Jackson Dinner 2001]
That's right, he said Kerry worked to strengthen our military. Just 3 years ago. Now he says that during that same time Kerry was auctioning off our military. In that very same speech he refered to Kerry as, "one of this nation's authentic heroes, one of this party's best-known and greatest leaders." So 3 years ago Zell says that Kerry is one of our greatest leaders and now he says that for the last 20 years Kerry has been more wrong and weak then anyone on issues of freedom and security.

THAT is what Grundy means by disingenuous. My sig is just a little extra icing on the cake.

[Hammer]

And before that speach Zell was a democrat - now he's a segregationist;)