| GREG-STRANGE.COM |
"If you haven't found something strange during the
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
PROVIDING SUBSTANTIVE COMMENTARY ON THE
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
A Zinger From Zell
"Our commander-in-chief talks like Dirty Harry, but acts
like Barney Fife." --- Then Democratic Governor Zell Miller of
Georgia speaking of the first President Bush during his keynote
address at the 1992 Democratic Convention.
"In this hour of danger our president has had the courage to
stand up. And this Democrat is proud to stand with him." ---
Democratic Senator Zell Miller speaking of the current
President Bush during his keynote address at the 2004
Republican Convention.
Well, they don't call him Zigzag Zell for nothing down in
Georgia. And in the minds of a lot of people, particularly
Democrats, Zell's appearance as keynote speaker at the
Republican Convention was the ultimate zinger in a long career
of zealful zigzagging.
As for the speech itself, all you could say after Zell was
finished verbally eviscerating his own Democratic Party and its
presidential candidate was zounds, zowie and zooks! Talk
about righteous anger. He never cracked a smile, his eyes
blazed like some Pentecostal preacher gone mad and his
speech was a nonstop excoriating diatribe during which he
paused hardly at all, even to acknowledge rousing applause.
Some even said that if young children were watching, they
were probably scared out of their wits. Okay, so we can all
agree that Zell was not the guy who was going to come into the
Republicans' party in New York City wearing a lampshade on
his head and tossing out jocular one-liners like Henny
Youngman. He was on a serious mission and he took care of
business, period.
So why did he cross over to the other side? Because, as he
has said, 9/11 changed everything (except, unfortunately, his
own Democratic Party) and he's mad as hell and he's not going
to take it anymore. When it comes to fighting terror, Zell's
become a real zealot, pure and simple, and he doesn't believe
that John Kerry, or much of anybody else in his party, is serious
about the subject.
As could have been foreseen two minutes into his speech, the
consensus the next day amongst mainstream media types was
that it was a mean-spirited, hate-filled rant and that Zell was a
traitor to his party. Of course, anyone who is truly concerned
about "mean-spirited" politics should seriously try taking a
look at what is spewed from the left on a regular basis.
For instance, what about Al Sharpton's thunderous rant at
the Democratic Convention? What about any speech Al Gore
has made in the last year? How about Ted Kennedy and his
accusations of a war "cooked up in Texas" for political reasons.
What about MoveOn.org? What about Michael Moore? What
about 99% of the very vocal, anti-Bush entertainment industry?
What about the endless stream of best-selling, Bush-bashing,
Bush-hating tomes?
In short, what about any of these people on the left, their
well-verbalized hatred of Bush, and their constant
comparisons of Bush and/or members of his administration to
Hitler, Hitler's Brown Shirts, the Gestapo, etc., etc., etc.? Why
is it the consensus that Zell is mean-spirited, but none of these
other raving bedlamites are?
Look, Zell, like most Republicans, and unlike most
Democrats, believes that fighting terror is the number one
concern right now, beside which all others pale in comparison.
He understands that life and civilization as we know it are
threatened by Islamic nihilists and they can't be successfully
defeated with half-hearted measures and a constant looking
for approval from timid "old Europe" allies from the days of
yore. Presumably, that's why he delivered his speech in a
rather forceful manner.
Even while the Republican Convention was going on, Islamic
terrorists took over a school in Russia and ended up
slaughtering hundreds of children. Such acts of unfathomable
barbarity make it difficult to argue that we need to wage a more
"sensitive" war against terror, as Kerry had recently done. In
fact, it becomes difficult to argue anything other than that we
should seek them out wherever they are and kill them
dead--and do it with or without the blessings from on high
(Paris, Brussels, Berlin, etc.).
But even as that unspeakable incident was ongoing in
Russia, Kerry was mostly zeroed in on the criticism he was
receiving from Republicans and whining about it ceaselessly
wherever people would gather to hear one of his stodgy,
patrician-sounding speeches. The other main item on his
agenda was, as usual, going on about his heroic tours of duty in
Vietnam and charging every Republican he could with being a
lily-livered coward who stayed out of that war through
deferments.
The only problem with such criticism is that everyone who
did serve, according to Kerry's own Congressional testimony,
was a raping, pillaging, baby-killing war criminal. So, logically
speaking, why should we (a.) admire Kerry for having gone over
there or (b.) look down on those who avoided becoming war
criminals?
But it's useless to argue with the tortured logic of Kerry's
Vietnam War hero candidacy. Kerry's four months of service in
Vietnam is the centerpiece of his campaign because if you look
at his resume, there is no other "there" there. But most of us
simply want to know which presidential candidate has the
backbone to do what is necessary to fight the evil that threatens
us all.
Zell Miller made his case at the Republican Convention in no
uncertain terms. Whether or not his speech was
"mean-spirited" is a trivial distraction. Only the substance of
it matters.
"Our commander-in-chief talks like Dirty Harry, but acts
like Barney Fife." --- Then Democratic Governor Zell Miller of
Georgia speaking of the first President Bush during his keynote
address at the 1992 Democratic Convention.
"In this hour of danger our president has had the courage to
stand up. And this Democrat is proud to stand with him." ---
Democratic Senator Zell Miller speaking of the current
President Bush during his keynote address at the 2004
Republican Convention.
Well, they don't call him Zigzag Zell for nothing down in
Georgia. And in the minds of a lot of people, particularly
Democrats, Zell's appearance as keynote speaker at the
Republican Convention was the ultimate zinger in a long career
of zealful zigzagging.
As for the speech itself, all you could say after Zell was
finished verbally eviscerating his own Democratic Party and its
presidential candidate was zounds, zowie and zooks! Talk
about righteous anger. He never cracked a smile, his eyes
blazed like some Pentecostal preacher gone mad and his
speech was a nonstop excoriating diatribe during which he
paused hardly at all, even to acknowledge rousing applause.
Some even said that if young children were watching, they
were probably scared out of their wits. Okay, so we can all
agree that Zell was not the guy who was going to come into the
Republicans' party in New York City wearing a lampshade on
his head and tossing out jocular one-liners like Henny
Youngman. He was on a serious mission and he took care of
business, period.
So why did he cross over to the other side? Because, as he
has said, 9/11 changed everything (except, unfortunately, his
own Democratic Party) and he's mad as hell and he's not going
to take it anymore. When it comes to fighting terror, Zell's
become a real zealot, pure and simple, and he doesn't believe
that John Kerry, or much of anybody else in his party, is serious
about the subject.
As could have been foreseen two minutes into his speech, the
consensus the next day amongst mainstream media types was
that it was a mean-spirited, hate-filled rant and that Zell was a
traitor to his party. Of course, anyone who is truly concerned
about "mean-spirited" politics should seriously try taking a
look at what is spewed from the left on a regular basis.
For instance, what about Al Sharpton's thunderous rant at
the Democratic Convention? What about any speech Al Gore
has made in the last year? How about Ted Kennedy and his
accusations of a war "cooked up in Texas" for political reasons.
What about MoveOn.org? What about Michael Moore? What
about 99% of the very vocal, anti-Bush entertainment industry?
What about the endless stream of best-selling, Bush-bashing,
Bush-hating tomes?
In short, what about any of these people on the left, their
well-verbalized hatred of Bush, and their constant
comparisons of Bush and/or members of his administration to
Hitler, Hitler's Brown Shirts, the Gestapo, etc., etc., etc.? Why
is it the consensus that Zell is mean-spirited, but none of these
other raving bedlamites are?
Look, Zell, like most Republicans, and unlike most
Democrats, believes that fighting terror is the number one
concern right now, beside which all others pale in comparison.
He understands that life and civilization as we know it are
threatened by Islamic nihilists and they can't be successfully
defeated with half-hearted measures and a constant looking
for approval from timid "old Europe" allies from the days of
yore. Presumably, that's why he delivered his speech in a
rather forceful manner.
Even while the Republican Convention was going on, Islamic
terrorists took over a school in Russia and ended up
slaughtering hundreds of children. Such acts of unfathomable
barbarity make it difficult to argue that we need to wage a more
"sensitive" war against terror, as Kerry had recently done. In
fact, it becomes difficult to argue anything other than that we
should seek them out wherever they are and kill them
dead--and do it with or without the blessings from on high
(Paris, Brussels, Berlin, etc.).
But even as that unspeakable incident was ongoing in
Russia, Kerry was mostly zeroed in on the criticism he was
receiving from Republicans and whining about it ceaselessly
wherever people would gather to hear one of his stodgy,
patrician-sounding speeches. The other main item on his
agenda was, as usual, going on about his heroic tours of duty in
Vietnam and charging every Republican he could with being a
lily-livered coward who stayed out of that war through
deferments.
The only problem with such criticism is that everyone who
did serve, according to Kerry's own Congressional testimony,
was a raping, pillaging, baby-killing war criminal. So, logically
speaking, why should we (a.) admire Kerry for having gone over
there or (b.) look down on those who avoided becoming war
criminals?
But it's useless to argue with the tortured logic of Kerry's
Vietnam War hero candidacy. Kerry's four months of service in
Vietnam is the centerpiece of his campaign because if you look
at his resume, there is no other "there" there. But most of us
simply want to know which presidential candidate has the
backbone to do what is necessary to fight the evil that threatens
us all.
Zell Miller made his case at the Republican Convention in no
uncertain terms. Whether or not his speech was
"mean-spirited" is a trivial distraction. Only the substance of
it matters.