Who controls the past? Zell Miller, memory and politics
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Paul Greenberg
September 8, 2004
Who controls the past, George Orwell wrote in "1984," controls the future, and who controls the present controls the past.
He was talking about thought control in a totalitarian state. A superstate with the power to rewrite history, or at least official history, in order to justify whatever it did in the past, does in the present, or will do in the future.
That's why the job of poor Winston Smith, Orwell's pseudo-historian in "1984," was to constantly update the past, so all good party members would know what, as orators at any party convention like to say, "History will show.."
History, of course, will show pretty much what the historian writing it wants it to. Which is why politics is at least one part historiography: a fight for man's memory between competing versions of past events.
The process of shaping that historical memory is a lot messier in free societies. For that matter, it isn't a snap in totalitarian states, either. Because their control of information isn't as total as the term Totalitarian would lead you to believe. See what happened in and to the happily late Soviet Union.
There is a factual core, an element of objective truth about the past that, no matter what the deconstructionists say, will out. Which is what poor Winston Smith believed, at least at the start of his interrogation. Before he was carted off to Room 101 to have his mind rearranged so he could love Big Brother.
But a 72-year-old great-grandfather like Zell Miller, whose Georgia vowels have the savor of good slow barbecue, has a memory of his own, turned and tempered over the years through many a fire. Else this old Democrat could not have delivered that rip-roarer of a keynote at the other party's convention this week. Because his memory and his party's no longer jibed. Not at all. And he was not happy about it. Which is why he was speaking at the other party's convention.
There was a slow-burning, visceral anger in his voice. It was the anger of someone who felt betrayed-not so much by his old party's beliefs but its version of reality.
Zell Miller wasn't just angry, he was mystified. He might have been a superannuated Winston Smith transported to a whole different era, country, society, and sent to the U.S. Senate from the state of Georgia. Only this Winston Smith was allowed to be mad as hell. Like a free man with a mind-and memory-of his own.
No wonder Zell Miller's words resonate with those of a certain generation-the one that can still recall among its early memories war bonds, Victory gardens, ration stamps, and various other historical artifacts, including a bipartisan foreign policy. Ol' Zell even mentioned Wendell Willkie's support of Franklin Roosevelt, another president accused of leading the nation into an unnecessary war. But the country had come together after December 7, 1941, and any doubts about that war would be expressed only warily from then on.
The question that baffles Zell Miller, and those of us who could feel and even share his fury, is why couldn't the country remain united after September 11, 2001? What happened to politics stopping at the water's edge? To a bipartisan foreign policy?
How can his party not see-and, more to the point, not feel-what Zell Miller does? Because there is another version of the past out there that shapes the present debate, and could determine the future. It is a past that emphasizes the defeat in Vietnam, and the arrogance and blindness of the Best and Brightest. It is a past in which evil could have been safely kept in its box, contained, or just ignored. It is a past that leads to a present in which September 11th didn't change everything. Or much at all.
With only the occasional attack on our embassies, ships, and skyscrapers, we managed to enjoy an economic boom for most of the Clinton Years. At least till the dot-com bubble burst. Why can't happy days be here again?
Remembering a different past, Zell Miller can't understand how someone who aspires to be commander-in-chief can vote for a war, and then oppose the appropriations to fund it at the moment of truth-no matter how John Kerry tries to explain away that vote as just a matter of parliamentary procedure, a misunderstanding because, after all, he voted for the appropriations before he voted against them.
Ol' Zell can't see how a responsible wartime leader could think, and vote, like that. Not when American troops are committed and in the field. Neither can I.
©2004 Tribune Media Services
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Text of Zell Miller's Speech at RNC
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Wed Sep 1,10:13 PM ET
By The Associated Press
Text of speech by Democratic Sen. Zell Miller (news, bio, voting record) of Georgia as prepared for delivery Wednesday at the Republican National Convention:
Since I last stood in this spot, a whole new generation of the Miller Family has been born: Four great grandchildren.
Along with all the other members of our close-knit family, they are my and Shirley's most precious possessions.
And I know that's how you feel about your family also. Like you, I think of their future, the promises and the perils they will face.
Like you, I believe that the next four years will determine what kind of world they will grow up in.
And like you, I ask which leader is it today that has the vision, the willpower and, yes, the backbone to best protect my family?
The clear answer to that question has placed me in this hall with you tonight. For my family is more important than my party.
There is but one man to whom I am willing to entrust their future and that man's name is George Bush (news - web sites).
In the summer of 1940, I was an 8-year-old boy living in a remote little Appalachian valley. Our country was not yet at war, but even we children knew that there were some crazy men across the ocean who would kill us if they could.
President Roosevelt, in his speech that summer, told America "all private plans, all private lives, have been in a sense repealed by an overriding public danger."
In 1940, Wendell Wilkie was the Republican nominee.
And there is no better example of someone repealing their "private plans" than this good man. He gave Roosevelt the critical support he needed for a peacetime draft, an unpopular idea at the time.
And he made it clear that he would rather lose the election than make national security a partisan campaign issue.
Shortly before Wilkie died, he told a friend, that if he could write his own epitaph and had to choose between "here lies a president" or "here lies one who contributed to saving freedom," he would prefer the latter.
Where are such statesmen today?
Where is the bipartisanship in this country when we need it most?
Now, while young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq (news - web sites) and the mountains of Afghanistan (news - web sites), our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrat's manic obsession to bring down our Commander in Chief.
What has happened to the party I've spent my life working in?
I can remember when Democrats believed that it was the duty of America to fight for freedom over tyranny.
It was Democratic President Harry Truman who pushed the Red Army out of Iran, who came to the aid of Greece when Communists threatened to overthrow it, who stared down the Soviet blockade of West Berlin by flying in supplies and saving the city.
Time after time in our history, in the face of great danger, Democrats and Republicans worked together to ensure that freedom would not falter. But not today.
Motivated more by partisan politics than by national security, today's Democratic leaders see America as an occupier, not a liberator.
And nothing makes this Marine madder than someone calling American troops occupiers rather than liberators.
Tell that to the one-half of Europe that was freed because Franklin Roosevelt led an army of liberators, not occupiers.
Tell that to the lower half of the Korean Peninsula that is free because Dwight Eisenhower commanded an army of liberators, not occupiers.
Tell that to the half a billion men, women and children who are free today from the Baltics to the Crimea, from Poland to Siberia, because Ronald Reagan (news - web sites) rebuilt a military of liberators, not occupiers.
Never in the history of the world has any soldier sacrificed more for the freedom and liberty of total strangers than the American soldier. And, our soldiers don't just give freedom abroad, they preserve it for us here at home.
For it has been said so truthfully that it is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest.
It is the soldier who salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who gives that protester the freedom to abuse and burn that flag.
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.
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, no pair has been more wrong, more loudly, more often than the two Senators from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry (news - web sites).
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 (news - web sites). 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 (news - web sites)'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?
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.
Senator Kerry has made it clear that he would use military force only if approved by the United Nations (news - web sites).
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?
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.
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.
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.
This election will change forever the course of history, and that's not any history. It's our family's history.
The only question is how. The answer lies with each of us. And, like many generations before us, we've got some hard choosing to do.
Right now the world just cannot afford an indecisive America. Fainthearted self-indulgence will put at risk all we care about in this world.
In this hour of danger our President has had the courage to stand up. And this Democrat is proud to stand up with him.
Thank you.
God Bless this great country and God Bless George W. Bush.
Copyright © 2004 The Associated Press
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Jewish World Review
Sept. 3, 2004 / 17 Elul, 5764Jonah Goldberg
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | First off, as a journalist, let me take the time to do what no other pundit has been willing to do: to thank Georgia Sen. Zell Miller for being named Zell. It's been a long time since a politician occasioned such euphoria over euphony in political commentary. From the conservatives I've already heard "Give 'em Zell!" "Zell it like it is!" "Zelling it Old School!" From the other side of the aisle we've had "Zellotry" and "Zell-out." And who the Zell knows what else is coming down the pike - Zello-Dolly?
So thank you, Sen. Miller (or your parents), because on this teeny-tiny point you, sir, are a uniter not a divider. And had you been christened Cleophus, the partisan divide would be just that much wider today.
Of course, Zell did some serious widening himself. His speech here Wednesday night was straight out of the Atkins diet cookbook: all red meat. As political theater, most observers here found the speech marvelous. Where they differ is on the question of whether or not it was smart.
The instant reaction from liberal and anti-Bush journalists, as well as the DNC, was that Miller was as bad as or worse than Pat Buchanan. DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe noted that at least Buchanan smiled in 1992 when he gave his (now somewhat undeservedly) infamous speech at that year's convention.
Matthew Yglesias of the American Prospect, dripping with nuance, denounced the speech as a "fascistic tirade." The New Republic openly compared Miller to Joe McCarthy. Jonathan Cohn explained that Miller was much worse than Buchanan because "Buchanan's speech, after all, was an assault on decency. Last night Miller declared war on democracy." Time magazine's Joe Klein declared on CNN, "I don't think I've seen anything as angry or as ugly as Miller's speech."
Andrew Sullivan, a senior editor at the New Republic and a highly regarded blogger, noted the contrast between the Dem's Boston keynoter, Barack Obama - "a post-racial, smiling, expansive young American" - and the Republicans. "Then you see Zell Miller," Sullivan continued, "his face rigid with anger, his eyes blazing with years of frustration as his Dixiecrat vision became slowly eclipsed among the Democrats. Remember who this man is: once a proud supporter of racial segregation, a man who lambasted LBJ for selling his soul to the negroes."
This last bit is amusing, since Zell Miller was once considered a Southern statesmen by liberals because as governor he was willing to take the politically courageous step of removing the Confederate Battle Flag from the Georgia state flag. Indeed, Sullivan's magazine dubbed Miller "as reasonable a Democrat as there is." And Miller's stemwinder of a speech at the Democratic Convention in 1992 - in which he grilled the first President Bush ("If the 'education President' gets another term, even our kids won't be able to spell potato") - didn't provoke any assaults on his humanity.
In other words, when Democrats are mean or harsh they are labeled as passionate populists or some such. When Republicans are, they get called things like "Cotton Mather behind the cross" (Maureen Dowd's words). What is "righteous anger" for Democrats becomes "hate" when offered by Republicans (or, in this case, by like-minded Democrats.)
Now, none of this is to say that Miller's speech wasn't stern stuff. But was it really, in Sullivan's words, "gob-smackingly vile"? (Translation for the un-British: very vile). This charge rests on the assertion that Miller was questioning the patriotism of Kerry and the Democratic leadership (not rank-and-file Democrats, as so many commentators seem to think), despite such qualifiers as: "It is not their patriotism - it is their judgment that has been so sorely lacking."
Both strategically and substantively, I think the speech probably crossed the line in parts. Substantively, it clearly painted with too broad a brush, at times suggesting Kerry & Co. are more than merely wrong but are actually hostile to America. And, strategically, I think the style went a bit too far. If there had been a bit less Southern wrath and a bit more Southern charm it might have been even more effective.
However, in part because Kerry's left his record undefended, Miller's speech was effective (and not that much more negative than, say, Al Sharpton's in Boston). The focus group "real Americans" I saw on TV were impressed, and I bet lots of other Americans were too. The question is whether that impression will be revised in the next few weeks as the Democrats and the media try to spin this as a disaster.
Indeed, the Republicans took a big gamble when they decided to give 'em Zell at this convention. If a Republican had delivered a speech half as relentless, the media and the Democrats would have colluded to make it the only story of the week. The Republicans calculated that a respected Democrat would be inoculated because, again, Democrats are never, ever, mean - even when they suggest Republicans are baby-killers (as Jesse Jackson did at the 1992 convention). So by concentrating all of their ammo in one sustained blast of Zellfire, they gambled that the usual counterspin about Republican "hate" wouldn't wash.
Only time will Zell if they were right.
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