THE WRATH OF ZELL MILLER

I'm a sucker for speeches. When someone gets up there and states their beliefs passionately, I tend to go along with it at first. John Edwards got me-- until I thought about it, and realized I didn't agree with him much. Same with Zell Miller. I would have cheered in Madison Square Garden, like the Republicans, but then had doubts afterwards.

Still, I appreciated Zell Miller's straight talk. Now, a lot of the press and the blogosphere have been accusing Zell Miller of being "misleading" or even of "lying." Andrew Sullivan is representative here:

Another lie: "Senator Kerry has made it clear that he would use military force only if approved by the United Nations. Kerry would let Paris decide when America needs defending. I want Bush to decide." Miller might have found some shred of ancient rhetoric that will give him cover on this, but in Kerry's very acceptance speech, he declared the opposite conviction - that he would never seek permission to defend this country.

Well, point taken. But look what Zell Miller said immediately before his claim about the United Nations.

Twenty years of votes can tell you much more about a man than twenty weeks of campaign rhetoric.

Campaign talk tells people who you want them to think you are. How you vote tells people who you really are deep inside.

Maybe it's true that Kerry told the Democratic Convention that he wouldn't seek permission (though that's not quite so clear)-- but what Zell Miller is saying is that he doesn't believe Kerry. He doesn't trust what Kerry says on the campaign trail when it goes against twenty years of Senate votes. That's his opinion. He may be right or wrong, but there's nothing "misleading" about it, and it's not a "lie."

I happen to think that Miller is right, that Kerry probably "outsource our security to Paris," as Miller puts it. He would act only within UN rules. This notion doesn't make me nearly as mad as it makes Zell Miller, though, on balance, I'm against it. Moreover, while I too would rather have Bush make the decisions about so-called "national security" (I would prefer to call it "strategy for advancing freedom") than Paris, it's for a totally different reason: Zell Miller wants Bush to decide for the sake of the American people, while I want him to decide for the sake of the Iraqi people, the Afghan people, the Sudanese people, and all the peoples of the world who live under tyrannts, who will tremble mightily at the sight of a Bush re-election.

Still, as much as I disagree with him, I respect his straight-talking passion. And I respect his willingness to stand against his party, and not just because his party is the Democrats: I respect Jim Jeffords too. One blogger compares Miller to Howard Dean. Quite apt: he's a blast from the past, a moderately conservative Democratic governor, angry at where America is headed (though the target of the anger is a bit different), feisty, frank, refreshing, partly wrong but in a forthright way that's still admirable. He's got a bit of the capacity to approve of Confederate flags, but not too much. He's disgusted with Washington partisanship. He's a bit less indifferent to the freedom of Arabs. I respect them both, though I wouldn't want either of them to be president.