You say partisan politics is tearing this country apart and then endorse a guy who delivered what was easily the most divisive speech of either convention?
Exactly. Painting an entire group that you've been a member of for years in a bad light is NEVER a popular thing. But more often than not, it is ACCURATE. In the next few days, I imagine you'll hear much the same thing about the Arabic newspapers that said most terrorists are Muslims. (Check out this link:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5912071/)
Zell Miller didn't go on to criticize the Republicans, but he could have. They're just as bad. He simply sees them right on *ONE* issue - one which he considers overriding. And to be quite honest, I agree.
As for the racism issue: look back 40 years, and I'll be willing to bet you'll find that every Congressman who has been around that long has endorsed racism at some point. To me, that's a non-issue any more. It has been ever since the '80s.
If Miller's speech was divisive, then he was correct: the Democrats do not support the actions take by the President toward Iraq. It's that simple. And if Iraq is going to be made into an issue, then I side with President Bush - whether or not I believe he was right. Once we're in, we're all in - right or wrong.
I grew up while the Vietnam war was going on. I've heard that war fought over and over and over in classrooms and opinions of brainwashed zombies by both sides. I can tell you exactly what went wrong there: when the decision was made that we were sending our soldiers there to die, we fought about whether we should have gone or not. WHEN THE DECISION WAS MADE, EVERY AMERICAN WAS A PART OF THAT WAR, WILLING OR NOT. Those who tried to say, "Well, I wasn't" are the problem. They're just as tempting a target for terrorists today as the folks who supported the war...BECAUSE ONE AMERICAN IS PRETTY MUCH THE SAME AS ANY OTHER.
Come on: you've heard those words said about blacks, about whites, about Asians...and the world says the same thing about the attitudes of Americans. They are the words of stereotype - and stereotype is a universal language.
We allowed the country to be divided on Vietnam, and we're doing the same thing on Iraq.
We need to support our soldiers and our leaders - at least, publicly. If we disagree, we'll replace the Congressmen, and have them cut off funding, and let them tell the President, "Bring our troops home." But we won't leave our soldiers out there to die, or to be stung by our criticism of their actions, and we DEFINITELY won't rally the folks fighting against them.
My friend Bill Massino, singer for Three Pints Gone (and also ex-military), often says in his Memorial Day show in St. Louis that soldiers recognize the fact that their lives are a commodity, and that if they are to be spent, then they want it to be spent well and with purpose. That applied in WWII (which is the war the song Bill sings is about), but it also applied in Vietnam, and it applies in Iraq.
WE ALL WENT TO IRAQ. A congressman saying otherwise isn't fit to be in Congress, much less fit to lead the country, most especially as President.
I refused to vote for Bush in the 2000 election because I believe the man is a thief. (If you walk into a bank, walk out of the bank with money while the bank has no money, and you don't have debt, then in my book, you're a bankrobber.) I'll refuse to vote for him again. But there's no way in the world I'll vote for Kerry.
I feel that to do so would be a betrayal of our troops.
