But don't waste your breath telling that to the leaders of my party today. In their warped way of thinking America is the problem, not the solution. They don't believe there is any real danger in the world except that which America brings upon itself through our clumsy and misguided foreign policy. It is not their patriotism -- it is their judgment that has been so sorely lacking. They claimed Carter's pacifism would lead to peace. They were wrong. They claimed Reagan's defense buildup would lead to war. They were wrong.

"And they are all honorable men!" Of course patriotism is being impugned - the whole preceding section was about partisanship versus patriotism. Which is why Miller has to say he's not questioning anyone's patriotism.

And, no pair has been more wrong, more loudly, more often than the two Senators from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry. Together, Kennedy/Kerry have opposed the very weapons system that won the Cold War and that is now winning the War on Terror. Listing all the weapon systems that Senator Kerry tried his best to shut down sounds like an auctioneer selling off our national security but Americans need to know the facts. 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?

This is probably the strongest part of Miller's speech, because he appears to go into details. He apologizes first, since details is Beltway stuff is politician stuff is not "real" stuff, but, hey, Americans need to know the facts. And what a damning list of facts they are. Too bad most of them are false; the negative votes to which Miller refers were almost all part of larger appropriations bills which included a host of objectionable items. But that really is the sort of detail that no one has time to listen to. The deployment of details is fascinating to watch. When Democrats go into detail, one often gets the sense that they're having fun. Gore's Lockbox, Kerry's medicare plans... the Democrats seem to revel in the boring, minute details, while America snores. Here, in contrast, Miller just puts down a very powerful list of (false) details and ends it with a winning punchline (spitballs). And it is all in the service of the core message: You'll die if you vote for the other guy.

If only the detail-happy, policy-wonk Democrats could heed this advice. The only good detail is one tied to a clear, negative message about the other side. No American between Arlington and Oakland cares about percentages, deductibles, interest rates, or "plans." They care about these items only insofar as they give evidence of the character of the candidates. Miller's laundry list is a brilliant use of detail in the service of his message.

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.

Again, note the contrast between real, deep, soulful men - and "campaign talk." Our guy is a real man. The other guy isn't really. The same sorts of attacks are used against lawyers, professionals, New Yorkers, and anyone who speaks with a vocabulary above an 8th grade level. Richard Hofstadter's landmark "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life" is as true today as it was a half century ago. Real men don't think too much.

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. John Kerry, who says he doesn't like outsourcing, wants to outsource our national security. That's the most dangerous outsourcing of all. This politician wants to be leader of the free world. Free for how long?

With the foundations laid and the subthemes set out, now the personal attack can really begin. Notice, though, how essential those foundations are. Miller has established his credentials as a real American, and has set the terms of the debate as being between patriotism and partisanship, a view of America as right and a cosmopolitan critique of America as being wrong. At this point, facts get left behind completely; Kerry has never said he'd use force only if approved by the UN. That is simply a lie. However, in the context of the critique, it makes sense, and so it doesn't seem like a lie. And how would Kerry defend himself here? He'd have to articulate a middle position - which is the same as wobbling.

For more than 20 years, on every one of the great issues of freedom and security, John Kerry has been more wrong, more weak and more wobbly than any other national figure. As a war protester, Kerry blamed our military.

No - Kerry blamed the politicians who sent soldiers over to die while themselves smoking cigars in safe Washington brownstones. Much like Bush (draft dodger), Cheney (draft dodger) and Rumsfeld (draft dodger). But again, which is likely to be more persuasive - a complicated set of facts, or a simple narrative?

As a Senator, he voted to weaken our military. And nothing shows that more sadly and more clearly than his vote this year to deny protective armor for our troops in harms way, far away. George Bush understands that we need new strategies to meet new threats. John Kerry wants to re-fight yesterday's war. George Bush believes we have to fight today's war and be ready for tomorrow's challenges. George Bush is committed to providing the kind of forces it takes to root out terrorists. No matter what spider hole they may hide in or what rock they crawl under. George Bush wants to grab terrorists by the throat and not let them go to get a better grip. From John Kerry, they get a "yes-no-maybe" bowl of mush that can only encourage our enemies and confuse our friends.

The attack portion of the speech is now concluded. It works not because it is accurate (it isn't) and not because it is relevant (it isn't) but because it is tied to a coherent worldview of real men and fakes, and because it speaks to the deep fears Americans hold - both of the foundations set up in the very first paragraph. With brilliantly brief but effective references to happy moments (finding Saddam in a spider hole) and hot-button issues (Israel, a few paragraphs above), Miller almost subliminally invokes sacred cow after sacred cow, without dwelling on any. Even in the foregoing paragraphs, which unlike most of the speech occasionally lapse into standard campaign jargon ("ready for tomorrow's challenges"), Miller is really continuing the same conversation, over and over and over. He's completely on message, and has completely disguised a series of outrageous propositions, and inaccuracies, in "plain talk." Our guy's for real, theirs is a fake, and you'll die if you vote for Kerry.

I first got to know George Bush when we served as governors together. I admire this man. I am moved by the respect he shows the first lady, his unabashed love for his parents and his daughters, and the fact that he is unashamed of his belief that God is not indifferent to America. I can identify with someone who has lived that line in "Amazing Grace," "Was blind, but now I see," and I like the fact that he's the same man on Saturday night that he is on Sunday morning. He is not a slick talker but he is a straight shooter and, where I come from, deeds mean a lot more than words. I have knocked on the door of this man's soul and found someone home, a God-fearing man with a good heart and a spine of tempered steel. The man I trust to protect my most precious possession: my family.

"Where I come from" is, to my mind, the lynchpin of the entire speech. Miller, with his accent and his roots, evokes a 'real America' that is the essential facade of the Republican artifice. In policy terms, the Republican party has done more to destroy the real America - the place of family farms, family-owned businesses, and close-knit communities - than any other single organization in American history. By favoring multinational corporations, supporting the outsourcing of jobs, and starving local governments of the money they need, the Right has led to the Wal-Mart-ization of America, and the destruction of the American middle class. Yet it is the Democrats who are cast as opponents of the Real America. How is this done? Through speeches like this one. Slick talker vs. straight shooter, 'where I come from' versus New York and Massachusetts. To reiterate, this is the same nativist line that has been used against immigrants, Jews, Catholics, Italians, Mexicans, African-Americans, communists, labor organizers, and liberals of every stripe for over one hundred years.

The consolation, incidentally, is that, for the Left, our side almost always wins, even though their side wields the power. The Sixties won; women are not going back in the kitchen, and gays are not going back into the closet. Nixon won in 1968 and 1972, but the soul of the country moved leftward, and continues to do so, driven by cultural and economic forces that are more powerful than politics.

Personally, I believe that Bush is indeed a "God-fearing man with a good heart." He's just an intellectual child. He can't see that squashing enemies like bugs simply makes more enemies. He can't see that insider politics which reward the richest really do hurt people, in violation of God's repeated commandments to clothe the naked and help the poor. And he can't see that his particular brand of religious values is not the only bulwark against moral anarchy. He is God-fearing, and I think he does probably have a "good" heart, as goodness is defined in his particular moral system. But his administration has wrought great, great evil at home and abroad: killing thousands, destroying God's natural environment, causing the weakest to suffer more.

In the Jewish moral discourse, a good heart is only a part of the picture. One also needs a well-developed moral sensibility, and that takes an intellect as well. That is a value that Miller does not share; his rhetoric of manliness and 'men of action' (one is put to mind of Dostoyevsky on this point, whom presumably Miller has not read) subverts the Jewish moral impulse to question, analyze, and reconsider. Those are traits that men of action do not possess, and that Bush clearly lacks.

[1]       [2]       3       [4]       [5]       [6]       [next->] Image: Zell Miller's boyhood home (from miller.senate.gov)