Terry Shaffer – 10/10/04

This page was last updated on October 10, 2004.

The truth about Zell Miller; Terry Shaffer; Beaver County Times; October 10, 2004.

For the bulk of my rebuttal of this letter, see my critique of Miller a political dinosaur.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“I have been an active participant in Pennsylvania politics for many years and I’ve seen and heard a lot of things that have surprised me.

“However, nothing has shocked me more than U.S. Sen. Zell Miller coming to Beaver Falls to speak on behalf of President Bush.

“Nicknamed ‘Zig Zag Zell,’ by his friends because of the way he’s flip-flopped on every issue in his career, the soon-to-be former Democratic senator from Georgia cemented his reputation as a double-agent by delivering the Keynote Address at the Republican National Convention - a speech so filled with hate and vitriol it was hard to watch.”

[RWC] His opponents called Sen. Miller “zig zag Zell,” not his friends.

I saw a speaker angry with his party, but I didn’t hear “a speech … filled with hate and vitriol.” Decide for yourself if Zell Miller’s speech was “filled with hate and vitriol.” You can read the text or see the video.

Let me paraphrase what Sen. Miller said about the speech during the Beaver Falls rally. Miller said, “The journalists and pundits said I was mad or angry. How perceptive of them.” Sure he was angry. He felt the party he supported all his life – and continues to support – deserted him and many other Democrats on the issue of national security. Today’s Democrat party leadership bears no resemblance to the Democrats of the early 1960s. Today’s Democrat leadership was born in the anti-war – anti-America may be more accurate – protests of the late 1960s and early 1970s and they carry those beliefs to this day.

I believe what really bothers folks like Mr. Shaffer is that Sen. Miller accurately presented John Kerry’s national security record during his tenure in the Senate. You’ll note Mr. Shaffer didn’t attack the speech’s factual content. All Mr. Shaffer can do is try to attack Sen. Miller’s character.

“The unvarnished truth about Miller is that he is a social and economic conservative hawk who has leeched off the Georgia Democratic Party and its heavy concentration of African American voters to get himself elected to various offices for the past four decades.”

[RWC] I’m not sure what this paragraph means. Does Mr. Shaffer mean Zell Miller pulled the wool over the eyes of Georgia voters for most of his public life? If I were a Georgian, I’d be insulted.

“Outside Georgia, however, ‘Zig Zag Zell’ sings a different tune. His heroes are men like the late former U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond and Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott, neither of whom have admirable records on issues of racial equality.

“Miller was the running-mate of Gov. Lester Maddox, a self-admitted racist who got his political start as a restaurant owner who distributed ax handles to white customers with instructions to use them on any African American attempting to enter his restaurant.

“When President Lyndon Johnson advanced a strong civil rights agenda in 1964, ‘Zig Zag Zell’ Miller was quoted in The Atlanta Constitution as saying that President Johnson had ‘sold his birthright for a mess of dark pottage.’

“Zell Miller ... in Beaver Falls ... to speak on behalf of President Bush ....

“Go figure.”

[RWC] Face it, Mr. Shaffer, more Democrats than you like to admit believe as Zell Miller.