It really is amazing what happened to Zell Miller

I was reading Zell Miller's speech from the 1992 Democratic National Convention, an incredible speech btw, and I found this part particularly moving.

I was born during the worst of the Depression on a cold
winter's day in the drafty bedroom of a rented house, and I was
my parent's hope for the future.
Franklin Roosevelt was elected that year, and would soon
replace generations of neglect with a whirlwind of activity,
bringing to our little valley a very welcome supply of God's
most precious commodity - hope.
My father, a teacher, died when I was two weeks old,
leaving a young widow with two small children.
But with my mother's faith in God - and Mr. Roosevelt's
voice on the radio - we kept going.
After my father's death, my mother with her own hands
cleared a small piece of rugged land.
Every day she waded into a neighbor's cold mountain creek,
carrying out thousands of smooth stones to build a house.
I grew up watching my mother complete that house from the
rocks she'd lifted from the creek and cement she mixed in a
wheelbarrow - cement that today still bears her hand prints.
Her son bears her hand prints, too.
She pressed her pride and her hopes and her dreams deep
into my soul.
So, you see, I know what Dan Quayle means when he says it's
best for children to have two parents.
You bet it is!
And it would be nice for them to have trust funds, too.
But we can't all be born rich, handsome and lucky ... and
that's why we have a Democratic Party.
My family would still be isolated and destitute if we had
not had FDR's Democratic brand of government.
I made it because Franklin Delano Roosevelt energized this
nation.
I made it because Harry Truman fought for working families
like mine.
I made it because John Kennedy's rising tide lifted even
our tiny boat.
I made it because Lyndon Johnson showed America that people
who were born poor didn't have to die poor.
And I made it because a man with whom I served in the
Georgia Senate - a man named Jimmy Carter - brought honesty and
decency and integrity to public service.

More here: http://sunsite.tus.ac.jp/pub/academic/political-science/speeches/demo-conv/zellmiller.txt

There are a lot of threads on DU about what it means to be a Democrat. In 1992 Zell Miller knew EXACTLY what it meant to be a Democrat and why he was a Democrat. Amazingly sometime within the span of 12 years, he just kinda forgot.

Sorry Zell, but if FDR were alive to witness what you did in 2004, he would give you a swift kick in the balls.

just pathetic

And then he started having his problems. What a turn for the worse.

running mate.

Maybe he would get chosen one day.

That's a bullshit excuse. I don't turn gay just cause I get turned down by a girl I like.

Gore turned him down for VP and supposedly Clinton turned him down for a cabinet position. He did not get to the US Senate until late in life and that made him more bitter because he had always wanted to be in a prominent position in Washington. Also, I think I remember someone saying that he had to have his prostate removed which led to incontinence and erectile dysfunction. I'm not going to lie, that would piss me off too, but taking his anger out on the democratic party is totally irrational. I mean damn Zell, wasn't there a time in your life that you couldn't have afforded that prostate surgery if you needed it. Isn't that what we have a democratic party for?

Clinton not only could get it up, but was flaunting it, leaving Zell no recourse but to join the republican party. Sad.

BLAME THE CLENIS!!

http://www.cafepress.com/liberalissues.37723053

is a major cause of male Republicanism. There could be a study in there somewhere. I wonder if there are any grants available.

Really is a very sad thing what bitterness did to Zell.

of the isle.The anger,bitterness,hypocrisy,deceit,power grabbing,war mongering and all those $$$$$$$$$$$$$ was too much for him to resist.It shows what a weak person he really is and the Democratic party doesn't need that type to represent us.He was nothing but a closet repuke....they will do ANYTHING to get elected,even posing as a Dem.I just can't imagine a REAL DEMOCRAT turning like that.He was a fake all along,IMHO.

If you give up all of your ideals because life doesn't go exactly the way you wanted it to, how strong were they to begin with?

At times everyone's life sucks like a vacuum, but we don't sell our our principles when that's really all you have to motivate you and carry you forward.

I think he was going for power, and when he couldn't get it with the Democrats he sold himself to the highest bidder.

It was a beautiful speech. I wonder if what it cost him to give it up was worth what he got in return?

Where did he go wrong? How did he go wrong? Why hasn't he stood up and redeemed himself in the wake of all the shit going on now?

I'm going to edit the OP to include the link to the whole speech.

It's really incredible how passionate he was about that election.

He had a hell of a speech writer. Much of that speech can be used today. Hell, all you would have to do is change the "12 dark years" to "eight dark years" and insert a "W" between the words George and Bush, and you would have it. Just read this segment.



"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.
Too many mothers today cannot tell their children what my
mother told me - that working hard and playing by the rules can
make your dreams come true.
For millions, the American dream has become what the poet
called ''a dream deferred.''
And if you recall those words, he warned us that a dream
deferred can explode.
Robbed of hope, the voices of anger rise up, rise up from
working Americans, who are tired of paying more in taxes and
getting less in services.
And George Bush doesn't get it?
Americans cannot understand why the rich can buy the best
health care in the world, but all the rest of us get is rising
costs and cuts in coverage, or no health insurance at all.
And George Bush doesn't get it?
Americans cannot walk our streets in safety, because our
''tough-on-crime'' president has waged a phony war on drugs,
posing for pictures while cutting police, prosecutors and
prisons.
And George Bush doesn't get it?
Americans have seen plants closed down, jobs shipped
overseas and our hopes fade away as our economic position
collapses right before our very eyes."

I wonder if Zell is mentally ill now or has a brain tumor or some sort of organic brain disease?

I've only known of him for a short time before Jon Stewart dubbed him Zell on Earth.

It is enough to make one wonder if there is a tumor or something grown to be present in the recent years, pressing on key sections of the brain....

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

It's also pathetically obvious that the democratic party did not, as he claims, move away from him-witness his moving treatise. So what did really happen? Sudden, massive mental breakdown? A new serum, dreamed up and implemented by the wackos working in the dark grottoes of the intelligence agencies and provided to fascist power brokers to create public turncoats-possibly more effective than rats in a cage, accomplishing a change in the victim by eating him. What really happened?

and an opportunity to whore his book.

"The B-1 bomber, that Senator Kerry opposed, dropped 40 percent of the bombs in the first six months of Operation Enduring Freedom. The B-2 bomber, that Senator Kerry opposed, delivered air strikes against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Hussein's command post in Iraq. The F-14A Tomcats, that Senator Kerry opposed, shot down Khadifi's Libyan MIGs over the Gulf of Sidra. The modernized F-14D, that Senator Kerry opposed, delivered missile strikes against Tora Bora. The Apache helicopter, that Senator Kerry opposed, took out those Republican Guard tanks in Kuwait in the Gulf War. The F-15 Eagles, that Senator Kerry opposed, flew cover over our Nation's Capital and this very city after 9/11. I could go on and on and on: against the Patriot Missile that shot down Saddam Hussein's scud missiles over Israel; against the Aegis air-defense cruiser; against the Strategic Defense Initiative; against the Trident missile; against, against, against. This is the man who wants to be the Commander in Chief of our U.S. Armed Forces? U.S. forces armed with what? Spitballs?"

And comparing it to Bush taking down Saddam Hussein. Again, if FDR were alive to see that he would laugh out loud at Zell and Bush for comparing a threat like Saddam Hussein to a threat like Hitler.

I'm not saying this to be mean, but I think the poor guy now is suffering from dementia. I pray that I am incorrect.

it would be better if dementia IS the source of his conversion. It also wouldn't hurt in making Republicanism look bad.

Like you I do not wish such a thing upon anyone but I do not consider it beyond possibility. it would certainly help explain the unexplainable.

that's not dementia

There is a reason he is called "Zig Zag"

In March 2001, in introducing Kerry at Georgia's Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, Zell Miller said:
My job tonight is an easy one: to present to you one of this nation's authentic heroes, one of this party's best-known and greatest leaders – and a good friend. …In his 16 years in the Senate, John Kerry has fought against government waste and worked hard to bring some accountability to Washington. Early in his Senate career in 1986, John signed on to the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit Reduction Bill, and he fought for balanced budgets before it was considered politically correct for Democrats to do so. John has worked to strengthen our military, reform public education, boost the economy and protect the environment.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/politics/elections/2004/rnc/dispatches/

In 2004 Kerry was reduced to:

"You can't make a chicken swim, and you can't make John Kerry anything but an out-of-touch ultraliberal from Taxachussetts."

http://www.slate.com/id/2105700/

----------------

The only thing Kerry had done inbetween was run for president of the US.

was strengthening our military, while in 2004, he believed that exactly the same policies amounted to tryng to make us defend ourselves with spitballs.

Maybe Vektor's diagnosis below, of pre-senile dementia is right (though there's nothing "pre" about it, he's over 70). Looking at his biography though, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zell_Miller it sounds like he's always been a bit of an operator and a con man. I think dementia is the more generous interpretation.

He was losing his mind by the time the 2004 DNC rolled around.

and the present Dems left him there as they have done most of us at various times. Unlike us though he was on the knife's edge of conservative Southern politics. The bi-partisan coalition that promptly got scuttled in 2001 left him as the truculent swing vote getting solid abuse from both sides and little in the way of support from his own party that never were too whole-hearted at getting the votes in unison. Adding that to the pointed past rejections when he was at his peak one can begin to understand.

I'd rather the mistake of passion than the lure of money and fame. Such passion did as much harm as anything else to the truly phony GOP Convention show. Truly it sounded like a lover scorned, not a convert won. Much of the public saw it for a rant even if they did not understand the big hurt underneath.

And it is not as if Zell did not vote for much of the party agenda. All in all the fact he is forgotten and not cursed roundly in the Hall of GOP Villainy makes some such judgment as above seem commonly accepted.

As for the failure of leaders above, in one way or another almost all have missed the mark and they certainly have enough wisdom not to throw stones.

It just seems like such a classic case of senile dementia. I saw a few of my elderly relatives go through this sort of drastic personality change accompanied with a lot of grouchiness, not long before being diagnosed with Alzheimer's. But who knows. :shrug:

Makes sense to me. We lived in Georgia 39 years, and thought he did a pretty good job when he was our governor. I remember that 1992 speech and was proud of him. A couple of years ago I heard him on CNN, recognized the voice and looked at the screen. Couldn't believe this was the same man - he'd lost lots of weight, didn't look at all like the Zell I remembered. Felt then that he must have suffered some sort of illness. TIA? Pre-senile dementia? Something went wrong and, judging by his looks, I'd say it was physical.

It's possible the GOP put feelers out to find a high-profile Dem who, for the right price, could be bought. Of course, most Dems are people of principle and intellectually honest, and couldn't be bought. But, then there was Zell...

I believe this is the case with Biden & Lieberman, but on a surreptitious level...

:evilfrown:

I was told by a high ranking officer in the GA State Dem party that some contracts of some sort were dangled in front of him.

was a candidate for US Senate for the first time in 1988 (he won.)

If he's been corrupted by money, it happened before he got to Washington.

Sadly, his poor mother must be turning in her grave that her son sold his soul for dirty $$$$$$.

They both suffer from Dennis Miller Syndrome, also known as ChickenShitItis.

to see whom he's supporting these days.

Dixiecrats. It's still alive and well in the south. Nearly everyone of our elected representatives in Oklahoma are only a breath away from being Zell. They totally sold us out on a state level at our convention and Boren sells us out every day in D.C.

My father is strongly Dem. And his sister is st...just stupid. A republican.

But my father is smart. He is self taught. His sister married a surgeon who was a staunch, foul, Republican.

And to this day, my dad is trying to get her to see the light. She just can't break through to the other side to see it. Her husband is dead now. And my dad thinks he can reach her. And it's odd that even though she actually sees my father as a genius, she can't let go of being a rebub.

And one of her children is republican, and the other is a Democrat.


It's conditioning, folks. That, and other stuff. But conditioning is one part.

I guess on Christmas we needed a thread about fruitcakes.
:crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy:

Editor's note: While the press is busy with oohs and aahs over Sen. Miller's fiery attacks on John Kerry's military votes in the Senate, it's important to remember that three years ago, Miller introduced Kerry at a dinner in his home state of Georgia, saying that Kerry was "an authentic national hero" who had "strengthened our military." The text of Miller's 2001 speech follows.


Democratic Party of Georgia's Jefferson-Jackson Dinner

– March 1, 2001

Zell Miller:

snip...

My job tonight is an easy one: to present to you one of this nation's authentic heroes, one of this party's best-known and greatest leaders – and a good friend.

He was once a lieutenant governor – but he didn't stay in that office 16 years, like someone else I know. It just took two years before the people of Massachusetts moved him into the United States Senate in 1984.

In his 16 years in the Senate, John Kerry has fought against government waste and worked hard to bring some accountability to Washington.

Early in his Senate career in 1986, John signed on to the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit Reduction Bill, and he fought for balanced budgets before it was considered politically correct for Democrats to do so.

John has worked to strengthen our military, reform public education, boost the economy and protect the environment. Business Week magazine named him one of the top pro-technology legislators and made him a member of its "Digital Dozen."


http://www.alternet.org/election04/19761

Actually, what you see with Zig Zag is the fruit of the wiretapping business:

They caught Zell doing something naughty and forced him to come to The Dark Side.

Dems didn't give him enough "love" so he thought about it at and - for his own purposes - he turned coat.

Wiretapping explains a great deal of the "What happened to So-and-so?"