Zell Miller: Voice of Reason

Further proof that the good people of Georgia will elect just about anyone, short of Boss Hog and Roscoe Peco Train, to serve them. (Wait a minute, they did elect Bob Barr and Newt Gingrich. Who could forget that dynamic duo?)

Also, Zell Miller: additional proof that Republicans will hitch their caboose to absolutely any freight train coming through, even one that is hysterically out of control, rabid.

Without further adieu, I present to you snippets from Zell Miller, everyone:

Matthews started in on Miller by asking him if his dismissive caricature of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry as a coward who would approve military defensive measures only if the French gave their approval was a useful contribution to the debate:

MATTHEWS: When Democrats come out as they often do--liberal Democrats-- and attack conservatives and say, they want to starve little kids, they want to get rid of education, they want to kill the old people. That kind of rhetoric is not educational , is it?

MILLER: I'm not saying that. Wait a minute. This is your program and I'm a guest on your program, so I want to try to be as nice as I possibly can to you. I wish I was over there where I could get a little closer up into your face. But I'm not going to stand here and listen to that kind of stuff. I didn't say anything about not feeding poor kids. What are you doing?

MATTHEWS: No, I'm saying, that when you said tonight, I just want you to--

MILLER: You're saying a bunch of baloney that didn't have anything to do with what I said up there on the rostrum.

MATTHEWS: Do you believe, senator, truthfully, that John Kerry wants to defend the country with spitballs. Do you believe that?

MILLER: That was a metaphor, wasn't it? You know what a metaphor is.

MATTHEWS: Well what do you mean by that metaphor?

MILLER: He certainly doesn't want to defend the country with the B1 bomber or the B2 bomber or the Harrier jet or the Apache helicopter or all the other things that I mentioned. And there were even more of them than here. You've got to quit taking these Democratic talking points and using them –

MATTHEWS: No, I'm using your talking points and asking you if you really believe them.

MILLER: Well, let's use John Kerry's talking points from what he's had to say on the floor of the Senate where he's talked about them being occupiers; where he put out this whenever he was running for the U.S. Senate--about what he wanted to cancel. Cancel to me means do away with.

MATTHEWS: What did you mean by--?

MILLER: I think we ought to cancel this interview.

MATTHEWS: That would be my loss senator.

MILLER: You're hopeless. I wish I was over there. In fact, I wish that we lived in the day--

MATTHEWS: I gotta warn you, we're in a tough part of town over here. But I do recommend you come over, because I like you. If a Republican senator broke ranks and came over and spoke to the Democrats, would you respect him?

MILLER: Yes, Of course I would. I've seen that happen from time to time.

MATTHEWS: What did Jim Jeffords say to you? Jim Jeffords of Vermont switched parties after getting elected--

MILLER: If you're going to ask a question--

MATTHEWS: Well it's a tough question, it takes a few words.

MILLER: Get out of my face! If you're going to ask me a question, step back and let me answer. I wish we lived in the day when you could challenge a person to a duel .Now that would be pretty good. But don't pull that kind of stuff on me like you did that young lady when you had her there browbeating her to death.

MATTHEWS: (in cross talk) Let me tell you, she was suggesting that John Kerry purposely shot himself to win a medal, and I was trying to correct the record.

MILLER: I'm not her. you get in my face, and I'm going to get back in your face. And the only reason you're doing it is because you're standing way over there in Herald square.

Another one from CNN:

JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Senator Miller, the Democrats are pointing out that John Kerry voted for 16 of 19 defense budgets that came through Congress while he was in the Senate, and many of these votes that you cited (in criticizing John Kerry in your speech), Dick Cheney also voted against, that they were specific weapons systems.

MILLER: What I was talking about was a period of 19 years in the Senate. I've been in the Senate for four years. There's quite a few years' difference there. I have gotten documentation on every single one of those votes that I talked about here today. I've got more documentation here than the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library put together on that.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SENIOR ANALYST: You also were, I would say, almost indignant that anyone would possibly call America military occupiers, not liberators, on at least four occasions. President Bush has referred to the presence of American forces in Iraq as an occupation, and the question is: Are you not selectively choosing words to describe the same situation the president of the United States is describing?

MILLER: I don't know if the president of the United States uses those words, but I know Senator Kennedy and Senator Kerry have used them on several occasions.

GREENFIELD: Yes. So has President Bush.

MILLER: Well, I don't know about that.

GREENFIELD: Well, we'll...

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: You know that when the secretary -- when the vice president was the secretary of defense he proposed cutting back on the B-2 Bomber, the F-14 Tomcat as well. I covered him at the Pentagon during those years when he was raising serious concerns about those two weapons systems.

MILLER: Look, the record is, as I stated, he voted against, he opposed all of those weapons systems. That, to me, I think shows the kind of priority he has as far as national defense. Look, John Kerry came back from Vietnam as a young man unsure of whether America was a force for good or evil in the world. He still has that uncertainty about him.

WOODRUFF: You praised him...

GREENFIELD: Then why did you say in 2001 that he strengthened the military? You said that three years ago.

MILLER: Because that was the biographical sketch that they gave me. This young senator -- not young senator, but new senator had come up there, and all I knew was that this man had won the Purple Heart three times and won the Silver Star and...

Look, I went back and researched the records, and I looked at these, and I -- when I was putting that speech together, I wanted to make sure, whenever I sat down with people like you who would take these talking points from the Democrats and who also have covered politics for years, that I would know exactly what I was talking about, and we don't have time to go through it on the air, but I can go through every one of those things that were mentioned about where he voted.

He voted against the B-1 Bomber...

BLITZER: A lot of--

MILLER:-- on October the 15th, '90, and on and on.

WOODRUFF: But do you simply reject the idea that Vice President Cheney, as Wolf said and as we know from the record, also voted against some of these systems?

MILLER: I don't think Cheney voted against these.

BLITZER: No, but he opposed some of them when he was the defense secretary, and sometimes he was overruled by the Congress because he was concerned, he was worried that the defense of the United States could be better served by some other weapons systems, not specifically those. I'm specifically referring to the B-2 and the F-14 Tomcat.

MILLER: I'm talking about John Kerry's record. I'll let Dick Cheney, the vice president, answer those charges. He knows what happened in the Department of Defense years ago. I don't know that.

But I do know, because I've looked it up and it's there for everyone to see, that he voted against those positions as far as those weapons were concerned. He voted against all the weapons that really won the war against Communism, the Cold War and that are now winning the war on terror.

BLITZER: I know you have to move on because you have other things to do, but when you were speaking tonight -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- you seemed very angry.

MILLER: Me angry?

BLITZER: Yes, sir.

MILLER: No, no. I'm sorry if I gave that appearance.

Source: Zorn

Arnold, corny jokes from the Bush twins, the venerable throwback band Foghat, (not to mention the candidates themselves) and now zany Zell Miller. Notice that Colin Powell, Condileeza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld are conspicuously absent.

The Republican National Convention---one big circus. Ladies and gentlemen...our current administration.

I'm laughing so hard that I'm crying....