Zell Miller to Present Swift Boat Vets with "Courage Under Fire" Award

[darrels joy]

Zell Miller to Present Swift Boat Vets with "Courage Under Fire" Award

"The Swift Boat Veterans performed an invaluable service to America," Miller says accepting the CPAC invitation

ALEXANDRIA, VA - Georgia Senator Zell Miller will present the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth with the American Conservative Union's "Courage Under Fire Award" at the 32nd annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). The award will be presented at the CPAC Reagan Banquet, February 18, 2005.

"ACU is honored that Zell Miller has agreed to present this award to the Swift Boat Veterans," said ACU Chairman David A. Keene. "Sen. Miller is himself a veteran, a former Marine. He has been a champion both in the Senate and within the Democratic Party on behalf of military preparedness and a strong national defense.

"No one who heard Sen. Miller's inspiring speech at the Republican National Convention in New York will soon forget his passion, conviction, or commitment to a militarily strong America. Sen. Miller spoke to CPAC last year and he electrified the audience. We look forward to hearing from him again as he presents the Swift Vets this prestigious award," Keene said.

"The Swift Boat Veterans performed an invaluable service to America," Sen. Miller said in accepting CPAC's invitation to present the award. "These veterans took a lot of undeserved criticism for daring to speak the truth. I'm honored to be asked to present them with this award in recognition of their courage under fire."



CPAC is a project of the American Conservative Union Foundation, in association with Young America's Foundation and Human Events. The conference is co-sponsored by over 70 of the nation's leading conservative organizations. For continued updates on the program or to register online, visit www.cpac.org.

"CPAC" is not a "political action committee (PAC)" as defined by federal law. The conference name and initials predate the creation of those entities and is merely coincidental.

[Seascamp]

For certain, Zell has burned his bridges and all that is remaining is smoldering charcoal and hot smoking nails in the rear view mirror. Rumor has it that he may be doing some commentary for Fox once he fully retires and that should be really interesting. The Swift Vets took a hell of an individual and personal pounding and probably served up as much as they got, so some positive recognition is the right thing to do, or at least in the more conservative circles.

Once off this series of projects I hope to find Zell's book and see what he has to say about things and things. Alas, Zell?s book is truly a candidate to be ?Banned in Boston?, aarrgg.


Scamp

[Gimpy]

Zell Miller has been making a lot of news lately. It was just a few short years ago that he was praising John Kerry in all sorts of ways, but now he is famous for a harsh attack on John Kerry specifically and liberals generally.

That, however, is not the news: what's news is the idea that some have that this will undermine the Republican chances in the future of what some have labeled as his "unhinged" and "hate-filled" views that will forever now be associated with the "new" republicans.


Zell Miller's address to the RNC will, I think, go down as a critical moment in the past campaign, and probably in the history of the Republican party.

I kept thinking of the contrast with the Democrats' keynote speaker, Barack Obama, a post-racial, smiling, expansive young American, speaking about national unity and uplift. Then you see Zell Miller, his face rigid with anger, his eyes blazing with years of frustration as his Dixiecrat vision became slowly eclipsed among the Democrats.

Remember who this man is: once a proud supporter of racial segregation, a man who lambasted LBJ for selling his soul to the negroes. His speech that night was in this vein, a classic Dixiecrat speech, jammed with bald lies, straw men, and hateful rhetoric.

As native born southerner to this country myself, and as someone who has been to many Southern states and enjoyed astonishing hospitality and warmth and sophistication of our true heritage, I have long dismissed some of the Northern stereotypes about the South. But Zell Miller did his best to revive them. The man's speech was not merely crude; it added whole universes to the word crude.


Miller had absolutely every right to critize John Kerry's record on defense in the Senate in his early years. Some of it was ripe for criticism, and I'll not condemn him (Miller) for that. However, Miller fails to recognize and offer any simliar criticism of Dick Cheney for even MORE "cuts" to the same defense" programs" during and AFTER that same time period??? Where is the justice or "fair play" in these deceptions??

But that doesn't mean Kerry is a traitor or hates America's troops or believes that the U.S. is responsible for global terror(just as the same I'm sure is true of Cheney), if so, then by God so is Dick Cheney, right?. And the attempt to say so is a despicable attempt to smear someone's very patriotism.


Appealing to the crudest form of patriotism and the easiest smears is wrong when it is performed by folks like Michael Moore, and it is JUST as wrong when it is spat out by zealots & traitors like Zell Miller. His speech that night was therefore a revealing night for me. I watched a Democrat at a GOP Convention convince me that I could never, ever be a Republican again (and I once was BTW). If they wheel out lying, despicable, angry old men like this as their keynote, I'll take Obama. Any day thank you very much!


Zell will have his "place" in history right alongside Lester Maddox, George Wallace, Strom Thurmond, David Dukes, and all the other race-baiting, hate-mongers and Grand Wizards of their time! I wouldn't take the time to piss on him if he were on fire!

[Seascamp]

Hmmm, I was thinking that Michael Moore spoke the loudest, left the most lasting impression and perhaps is the voice of the emerging neo-Liberals. Given a choice between listening to Zell or Jaba Moore, methinks I?ll listen to what Zell has to say and just loose Moore?s hate trip verbalizations in the ambient white noise and Brownian motion of bright pink anarchists.

Scamp

[Gimpy]

To each his own....................I suppose!

Not much of a "choice" either way in my book!

I'll NOT take either!

Miller is certainly entitled to his opinion. He recently made some obnoxious remarks about rap music on the floor of the Senate. I don?t mind rap(don't particularly like most of it though), but ? call me old-fashioned ? I have to say I prefer Fleetwood Mac, The Doobie Brothers, Credence Clearwater Revival, The "Boss", John Mellencamp and Elton John over ANY "Rap" artist.. It?s a matter of taste. Zell has his, I have mine, lots of other people have theirs.


There?s a bunch of contemporary music I find distasteful, but I?m not interested in having the FCC try to ban Toby Keith from the airwaves any more than I am Janet Jackson. That would be, to coin a phrase, un-American.


See, here in America, there are lots of people, all looking for the ?life, liberty and pursuit of happiness? guaranteed to us in our Constitution. Some find their salvation in Jesus and the Bible.

Me, not so much. Even though I consider myself a "believer" in most of Christian beliefs. Some watch the Super Bowl and Nascar. I?d rather watch baseball or a good game of 9 ball or "snooker".

Some folks find their own gender sexually attractive. For better or worse, I don?t seem to be wired that way (thankfully). But as long as these folks don?t do any harm to me or my property, I really don?t have much to say about what they like or how they live their lives. For one thing, I don?t care, and for another, even if I did, it?s none of my damn business.


Miller and those who agree with him clearly do care. They are intensely interested in other people?s choices, other people?s values, and other people?s legal and consensual behavior. Rather than seeing American society and civilization as the end-product of millions of individual tastes, expressed through personal choices in commerce, aesthetics, religious (or non-religious) affiliation, they see an ideal culture to which individuals must be made to conform.


Their ideals come from a selective (some would say ?narrow?) understanding of history, theology, art and human understanding that lacks diversity and thoughtful introspection, but has the virtue of simplicity. It provides their often complicated and ambiguous lives with a sense of clarity and purpose, and offers hope when objective conditions might tend toward despair. And that?s just fine ? for them.


Like all human beings, they desperately seek external validation for their individual tastes. The worst of them are not content with the lives that their decisions have constructed for themselves, but want everyone to live as they do. Appeals to ?tradition? and Scripture color their opinions with righteousness, and a sense of participation in a larger cultural movement animates their crusade to have their tastes, morals and preferences embroidered into the formal institutions of public life and enforced on the unwilling through the actions of the government.


Even though they "preach" less government, it really only means when it suits THEIR OWN AGENDAS!


Fortunately, the founders of this country understood these tendencies and created a system with a bias toward freedom.


Under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, it is very difficult to use the coercive power of government to enforce matters of taste and morals, and comparatively easy for claimants to compel respect and equal treatment for minority positions and views. The United States is a liberal republic by design, from inception. Its institutions are built to embrace change and open questioning of everything, from policies to values, and its laws are hostile to the imposition of orthodoxy.

People like Miller have a real problem with this, but it?s not by accident. For someone who claims to support the ?original intent? of the founders, Miller ought to read his Federalist Papers a little bit more carefully before demanding fundamental changes to our system that breach the wall between Church and State, and demand that the government take sides on issues of values and morals.


The right to rage against the ignorance, tastelessness and wrongheadedness of our fellow citizens is our birthright as Americans. Miller is in a long tradition of cranks and critics, hardened by age and narrowed by fear, supposedly calling down from on high against the decline of morals and the crumbling of civilization.


Yet, despite it all, American civilization endures, prospers, grows and changes. We manage to make do and find happiness in our lives, sometimes by exploring new experiences and other times by falling back on the comforts of tradition. So to the Zell Millers past and present, real believers in democracy say, thanks for your concern, but we're going to be all right.



As a young man, Miller himself must have reached a point in his life where he had to decide which beliefs of his elders he would keep, and what new ideas he would embrace. In his political life, he less than gracefully accepted the dramatic change in race relations that swept over his (and my) native state. He probably had to make a radical reassessment of old notions he had grown up with, and for this he deserves a little respect, even though he had to be dragged to the proverbial "well" kicking and screaming all the way.


That?s why it?s pitiable ? pathetic, even ? to see this statesman (???) in the twilight of his career, cowering in fear: fear of change, fear of freedom, fear of the choices his fellow citizens might make unless coerced and indoctrinated by government. The one he "claims" (like most republicans) to want "less" of??


Why is Zig Zag Zell so wrong and so full of "hate"?? Because he hates and fears Americans ? at least the ones not just like him - and he does not trust us with our own freedom. He and those like him are doomed to their own failed "system" of personal "choices".

[reconeil]

Can't help but noticing that except for: "Screw Zell Miller" and other digs against a Senator, Veteran and ex-Marine, you too and much like most other Dem LOOSERS have pretty-much mellowed-out in The Politically Purposeful Character Assassinating Department. Hear pretty-much the same daily from many officials, pundits and DNC hacks or whatever echelon of POOR LOOSERS daily on TV.

Nowadays, and all of a sudden, Dems quite differently favor political: "Fairness" and "Bipartisanship" as being all that matters for America,...when quite the opposite is ACTUALLY believed or is ACTUALLY true.
Only in dictatorships does Dem style: "Bipartisanship" ACTUALLY WORK WELL.

Unfortunately, many easily duped fools buy-into that politically and purposefully orchestrated Leftist deceptivenessss, and thusly end up giving The LOOSERS just as much muscle and voice in matters of concern, as before. Some don't realize how: "Bipartisanship" is ACTUALLY interpretted by most DEMOCRAT LOOSERS.

To Democrat Officials or Leaders of the now EVEN MORE Minority Party THAN BEFORE, DNC "Bipartisanship" decrees that ALL DEMOCRATS act, react and vote as ONE, and that about half of all Republicans cave-into The Leftists Party's desires, wants and wishes,...even though usually much more foreigner-favoring over The American Citizenry's needs.

The only difference in the past about Dem or Socialist style bipartisanship and/or when The Dems were the winners, in charge and in control,...is that NO Republican Votes were ever needed FOR ANYTHING. Therefore NO political: "Fairness" or "Bipartisanship" was ever whiningly grovelled for,...SINCE NOT NEEDED.

Regardless Gimpy, and even though a staunch, die-hard or refusing to admit defeat Dem LOOSER, you-gotsta-admit that your honestly believing (???) that it's perfectly alright for the likes of: "Moore" to express himself freely in America, whereas Zell Miller must be despised, hated and muzzled according to yourself and DNC gods,...is most certainly much more THAN-A-BIT-LAME.
Being quite silly aside, such makes The DNC and/or DEMOCRATS seem so overall quite Big Brotherish and/or Soviet, French or Arab-like at best. Don't you think?

Neil

[Gimpy]

I don't!

You and Zig Zag Zell belong together. :re:

[SuperScout]

Either Gimpy tried to entertain us with yet another wondrous example of cutNpaste, or he's experiencing another delusion attack. Personally, I find it impossible to believe that he was once a Republican, as he claims.

And like most liberals, Gimpy completely misses the boat about what angers people like Zel Miller. Miller doesn't fear change, but laments the nihilistic change that has overcome the Democrat party, changes that have moved a once proud party to embrace ultra leftists, anti-American attitudes. Not surprisingly, many recent elections have demonstrated that the majority of American has also rejected the ultra left positions as embraced by the Democrat party, resulting in more Republicans being elected. If Miller was such a doctrinaire opponent to change, how then could he have switched from once being a segregationist, as alleged, to a person with a much more open mind?

Miller has no fear of freedom, but fears it being compromised by extremists like Michael Moore, like other radicals who call for the assassination of political leaders - horribly demented forces of evil that were not condemned by the Democrat party, but used by them in a desperate and vain attempt to lure more voters.

Personally, I find nothing redeeming about homosexual marriage, abortion on demand, partial birth abortion, an inequitable tax system, the exorcising of Christ from Christmas, or lying under oath. But those positions, and other morally reprehensible stances are part and parcel of the Democrat platform, and the voters have in multiple examples of common sense, rejected what the Demos have offered.

[reconeil]

You're right-on-the-money with that: "Personally, I find nothing redeeming...................." paragraph.

Plus, I too must've hit-pay-dirt with a response, since instead of normally getting YARDAGE out of patriotfiles.com's resident Democrat Eber Alles and/or The State (naturally Democrat or Socialist State) Eber Alles or Leftist Gimpy,...I only got a few words.

Counting ones blessings aside,...I really appreciated not being personally insulted or called names as before, while saying: "You and Zig-Zag-Zell belong together". "Works-fir-me".

Besides,...what better than be lumped together with an ex-U.S. Marine, a U.S. Veteran and a U.S. Senator???

Well,...OK. I know that more than a few (myself included) would much prefer being lumped together as ex-U.S. Cavalry Recon Troopers, and especially with: "The VERY Few and The VERY Proud", The; "We Were Soldiers" Unit and/or "First into Baghdad" 3rd Recon Sqdn of The 7th Cavalry,...instead of with Marines. But, so what? Marines aren't really that bad a lot, either.

Neil

[Gimpy]

It's my understanding that Z.Z. Zell has been hired for another job other than the "Mouth of the South for The Bush Bumblers" at FOX NEWS. A major drug company has hired him on as their "Poster boy for Prozac"! They figured anyone who rants and raves like that is surely in dire need of HEAVY medication!


The only interesting question left to ask about Zell Miller is: Is he actually stupid enough to believe he made valid points in that speech to the RNC? Or did he know his entire speech was a sham and just not care? Either way, he was (is) a shameful example of backwoods, redneck, hillbilly ignorance that embarrassed just about every single citizen (past & present.....Republican OR Democrat)) from Georgia who has a minimal amount of thought processes & cognizant abilities left to dodge a "spit ball" thrown by this idiot!

He certainly seemed flustered when he was told, after the fact, that Dick Cheney, as the Sec?y of Defense, was also against many of the same weapons programs that he ?accused? Kerry of voting against. That can only mean one thing. If, on the basis of those votes, John Kerry was unfit to serve in the White House, then the only logical conclusion is that Zell Miller believes Dick Cheney is also unfit to serve in the White House. Right? What dingbat and/or fugitive from reality can't see the logic in that???


Was I the only one who noticed he was foaming at the side of his mouth? Has anyone checked to see whether his masters of disaster in the Whitehouse (I mean, Karl Rove & cohorts) have made sure Miller has gotten his rabies shot?


Anyway, factcheck.org debunked all of this stuff that Miller claimed months ago. Anyone with enough intellegence to determine a "spit ball" from "horses ass" would already know that though, wouldn't they?? Evidently not some folks from New Jersey and Texas, huh???


Zell Miller would like people to think he's a principled centrist offering a tough-love critique of his party - but he's nothing more than another mindless Republican hack. And that's a fact, Jack!


Here's what he had to say about Republicans in 1992 at the Democratic National Convention........"I am a Democrat because we are the party of hope. For 12 dark years the Republicans have dealt in cynicism and skepticism. They've mastered the art of division and diversion, and they have robbed us of our hope. "


.... Looks like they (Repubs) are still doin the same old same old now, huh?


Well, he was as RIGHT then......as he is WRONG now !

P.S.--------I won't be around for a few days because I'm heading up to "Hotlanta" to spend the holidays with our chidren and grandchildren. So any attempted rebuttal to the above comments and any further antagonizm they may arouse will go without a timely response by me until my return.

So...........have a Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year! And, I'll be hollerin back at ya later! If I happen to see Z.Z. Zell I'll tell him that y'all still love him, OK? Of course, that'll be AFTER I cuss his ass out!