Zell Miller on "Vietnam, Iraq, and the 2004 Election"
I receive a monthly newsletter entitled "Imprimis" (Latin for in the first place), published by Hillsdale College in Michigan. Each volume consists of a speech given by a conservative speaker; this month it was Miller's address on December 9, 2004 in Washington, D.C. As you probably know, Miller, a Democrat, gave the keynote address at the 2004 Republican National Convention, and has written a book entitled, A National Party No More: The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat. You can probably find the text of his speech at www.hillsdale.edu.
What I want to do here is just highlight a few passages from the speech, then pose a question.
"The most significant meaning of the 2004 election is that America has renounced the worst lessons of the post-Vietnam era . . . In the 2004 election, the American people confronted the ghost of Vietnam and considered the threats in today's world . . . American has rejoined the contest for freedom, which is manifested in a new form called the Bush Doctrine. That is why the rejection of a Vietnam-tainted worldview in this election is so monumental. A bad idea must be weeded out before a good one can take root . . . ever since Vietnam, all those other sacred struggles for freedom [here he names Pearl Harbor, Argonne, Auschwitz, Korea, Gettysburg, and others]were overshadowed by the experience of that one struggle. For too many, all else was forgotten."
"Many of us can remember when this view arrived: It was the 1972 election when the Democratic Party of FDR, Harry Truman and JFK was taken over by the anti-war Democratic Party of George McGovern. From that point on, a post-Vietnam mindset dominated the Democratic Party. We never got over it . . . These Democratic radicals opposed our funding of the Contras in Nicaragua. They opposed our support for El Salvador against Marxist guerillas and, generally, our support for freedom fighters anywhere in the world."
"So what did we get from the Vietnam-obsessed theorists in the Iraq War? In essence, they decided to re-fight Vietnam. They recalled that in the 1960s, the way they achieved victory was by pulling down the president from within rather than defeating the enemy aboard . . . In almost every situation where their responsibility to their country conflicted with their desire for political power, they chose political power over the best interest of their country." He then quotes Shakespeare, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and Winston Churchill.
I suggest that the civil war in El Salvador is not something he should ask people to look at too closely--the death squads of the ruling government are legendary. That, however, is beside my current point: if the Democratic Party has been going to hell in a handbasket since 1972, why has Miller, who was first elected to office in the late 1950s, remained a "lifelong Democrat?" If you detest everything that a party stands for for over 30 years, why on earth would you remain in that party?
What I want to do here is just highlight a few passages from the speech, then pose a question.
"The most significant meaning of the 2004 election is that America has renounced the worst lessons of the post-Vietnam era . . . In the 2004 election, the American people confronted the ghost of Vietnam and considered the threats in today's world . . . American has rejoined the contest for freedom, which is manifested in a new form called the Bush Doctrine. That is why the rejection of a Vietnam-tainted worldview in this election is so monumental. A bad idea must be weeded out before a good one can take root . . . ever since Vietnam, all those other sacred struggles for freedom [here he names Pearl Harbor, Argonne, Auschwitz, Korea, Gettysburg, and others]were overshadowed by the experience of that one struggle. For too many, all else was forgotten."
"Many of us can remember when this view arrived: It was the 1972 election when the Democratic Party of FDR, Harry Truman and JFK was taken over by the anti-war Democratic Party of George McGovern. From that point on, a post-Vietnam mindset dominated the Democratic Party. We never got over it . . . These Democratic radicals opposed our funding of the Contras in Nicaragua. They opposed our support for El Salvador against Marxist guerillas and, generally, our support for freedom fighters anywhere in the world."
"So what did we get from the Vietnam-obsessed theorists in the Iraq War? In essence, they decided to re-fight Vietnam. They recalled that in the 1960s, the way they achieved victory was by pulling down the president from within rather than defeating the enemy aboard . . . In almost every situation where their responsibility to their country conflicted with their desire for political power, they chose political power over the best interest of their country." He then quotes Shakespeare, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and Winston Churchill.
I suggest that the civil war in El Salvador is not something he should ask people to look at too closely--the death squads of the ruling government are legendary. That, however, is beside my current point: if the Democratic Party has been going to hell in a handbasket since 1972, why has Miller, who was first elected to office in the late 1950s, remained a "lifelong Democrat?" If you detest everything that a party stands for for over 30 years, why on earth would you remain in that party?
posted by English Professor | 3:18 PM
<< Home