"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. -- U.S. Senator Zell Miller [Remarks to the Democratic Party of Georgia Jefferson Jackson Dinner 2001]
"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. -- U.S. Senator Zell Miller [Remarks to the Democratic Party of Georgia Jefferson Jackson Dinner 2001]
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Miller and Cheney reached deep into Kerry's past to present him as a danger to Americans' security -- at times mischaracterizing the Democrat's positions in the process. "Senator Kerry has made it clear that he would use military force only if approved by the United Nations," Miller said. Cheney, in turn, said Kerry "began his political career by saying he would like to see our troops deployed 'only at the directive of the United Nations.' " The vice president said, "Kerry denounces American action when other countries don't approve -- as if the whole object of our foreign policy were to please a few persistent critics."
Both men apparently were referring to a 1970 interview Kerry gave to the Harvard Crimson. In his speech accepting his party's nomination in July, Kerry said: "I will never give any nation or any institution a veto over our national security."
Miller portrayed Kerry as "an auctioneer selling off our national security." He recited a long list of weapons systems he said Kerry opposed. Miller's list was mostly derived from a single Kerry vote against a spending bill in 1991, rather than individual votes against particular systems. The bill was also opposed by five Republican senators at the time, and Cheney, who was defense secretary then, was demanding even deeper cuts in defense spending by Congress.
As Bush has often done, both speakers also condemned a vote Kerry cast against Bush's request for $87 billion for military and reconstruction spending in Iraq and Afghanistan. Cheney said Kerry "does not seem to understand the first obligation of a commander in chief -- and that is to support American troops in combat."
Kerry voted for an alternative version of the bill that would have funded some of the spending by raising taxes on incomes greater than $312,000. For his part, Bush had vowed to veto a version of the bill that passed that would have converted half of the Iraq rebuilding plan into a loan.
Miller also angrily denounced Kerry for saying the United States is occupying Iraq. "Motivated more by partisan politics than by national security, today's Democratic leaders see America as an occupier, not a liberator," he said, later adding: "No one should dare to even think about being the commander in chief of this country if he doesn't believe with all his heart that our soldiers are liberators abroad and defenders of freedom at home."
It was not immediately clear what Miller was referring to, although Bush himself has spoken of Iraq as being "occupied."
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