GOP backs away from Zel Miller’s blast

[chet]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5897622/

After gauging the harsh reaction from Democrats and Republicans alike to Sen. Zell Miller’s keynote address at the Republican National Convention, the Bush campaign — led by the first lady — backed away Thursday from Miller’s savage attack on Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, insisting that the estranged Democrat was speaking only for himself.

Late Thursday, Miller’s name was removed from the list of dignitaries who would be sitting in the first family’s box during the president’s acceptance speech later in the evening. No explanation was immediately offered, but the change was made only a few hours after Laura Bush, asked about Miller’s deeply personal denunciation of his own party’s nominee, said in an interview with NBC News that “I don’t know that we share that point of view.”

I am sure SK will let us know that Zel Miller is a democrat and he is NOT THE PRESIDENT!!! So it is actually Kerry's fault...

Chet

[Nick Walter]

I am sure SK will let us know that Zel Miller is a democrat and he is NOT THE PRESIDENT!!! So it is actually Kerry's fault...

Chet

Let the poo flinging begin.

[awdougherty]

Are they going to back away from Cheney's bullshit claims as well? His were stated more quietly I guess.

And where was his lesbian daughter? Rumor is she was asked not to show. If true, that redefines disgusting.

[chet]

Nick Walter, yes, you are exactly what i was talking about. Nothing to offer but tears and demanding to stop the truth.

Wah wah wah.

Chet

[quatoria]

What a backstabbing bunch of shits. They ask Zell to come speak for them, they examine his speech, they approve his speech, Cheney cheers him on in the speech right afterwards - but when people are repulsed by it, he's persona non-grata, and they don't know him. These people disgust me. Do they have any principles whatsoever, other than personal advancement? If there hadn't been an outcry against Zell's comments, comments that the RNC loved so much they made him Keynote speaker, comments that have been enthusiastically endorsed and defended (and lauded and praised) by republican political partisans all over the spectrum, they would have stood back and cheered the man on. He may be a democrat, but last night, he was the chosen voice of the Republican party. And now that the message is out there, and it's politically expediant to do so, they say he doesn't represent them, and was just off on a crazy personal rampage.

Ugh. I'm just so damned disgusted right now. I knew this was coming, expected it - but I'm still nauseated by it.

[awdougherty]

Agree 100% quatoria. They knew exactly what he was going to do, but since it didn't fly, he's suddenly a leper. I really believe he was just fulfilling his Republican role. The highest ups can't attack like that. Let Zell the Democrat do it...

oh, it didn't work... DISAVOW DISAVOW!!

[Brian Rucker]

Maureen Dowd had an interesting theory on News Night just now, not that I'm necessarily buying into it. She thinks they put Miller on before Cheney so Cheney would look less crazy by comparison.

[BrewersDroop]

What a bunch of cunts.

[Euri]

I'm finding that opinions of mine I believed at once to simply be my own biases are now objectively factual. The Republican party is lead by scum, and supported by the ignorant or the selfish.

[Ignatius P. Reilly]

While I don't disagree with the observation that the Republicans' clumsy disavowals of Miller's keynote speech are an extremely poor reflection on their characters, one must say:

What sweet poetic justice that Miller -- a traitor to his own party in the most repugnant manner -- should be left at the end of his career not enjoying the adulation of the Republicans he cast his lot with, but alone, all alone, without a friend to stand by his side. Shakespeare couldn't have done it better.

Bravo!

[steve]

I hope some reporters ask the Republicans whether they vetted Miller's speech (like they do with all of them), or if he went off script, like Al Sharpton did at the DNC. (Or maybe someone has asked this already.)

Because distancing yourself from a speech you approved is an example of pure hypocrisy that I think even Desslock might get behind.

I do hope moveon or someone mimics that "angry Democrats" ad with some of these RNC speeches.

[quatoria]

I would guarantee you that there are reporters or political operators out there who had a full copy of the speech Miller gave before he gave it. Several even commented on their blogs, things to the effect of "I decided not to pre-read his comments, because I wanted my reaction to be genuine..." nobody goes "off the script" at the RNC.

[MrJoshua]

Are you people as naive as you seem? Everything about this convention is scripted, including the media comments. There is nothing better than having an ally zing the opponent and then back away. You get the benefit of the zing being out there while looking un-negative at the same time.

Have any of you ever seen a Presidential campaign before? Jesus.

[soondifferent]

Are you people as naive as you seem? Everything about this convention is scripted, including the media comments. There is nothing better than having an ally zing the opponent and then back away. You get the benefit of the zing being out there while looking un-negative at the same time.

Have any of you ever seen a Presidential campaign before? Jesus.

But making him the keynote speaker? Backing away from an approved keynote speech? Wouldn't it have had the same effect if he was just another speaker?

[quatoria]

Are you people as naive as you seem? Everything about this convention is scripted, including the media comments. There is nothing better than having an ally zing the opponent and then back away. You get the benefit of the zing being out there while looking un-negative at the same time.

Have any of you ever seen a Presidential campaign before? Jesus.

Are you as hypocritical as you seem? Consider what your reaction would have been, were the Democrats to put up a keynote speaker to say the things that they're afraid to say, a speaker who gave a speech approved from the top down and tailor made to evoke a specific reaction, and then those same democrats were seen to publically desert and abandon that speaker. It doesn't take much effort to imagine the faux outrage and mockery that would evoke from you, on these forums and outrage. Somehow, however, your ability to judge these things has been utterly obliterated by your partisan cheerleading. Since it's your boys behaving without ethics or loyalty, you cheer them on, and talk about what a brilliant tactical move it was, and how anyone who would actually try to hold them to any standard of integrity is surely a fool or a child.

And I'd wager you won't acknowledge even the vaguest sense of how ironic it is that the members and supporters of the party that has tried to claim moral and spiritual superiority in this election are delighted to publically backstab one another whenever it gets convenient. Does it really seem ethical, to you, to calculate in your head whether or not a betrayal or ethical lapse is of benefit to your party before you decide whether or not it should bother you? Can someone who does that on a daily basis really be said to have any ethics at all?

[Oppressor]

I think they set Zell up as well. Not that I agreed with anything the guy said, but either he went into it knowingly in exchange for a nice payoff, or he went in unknowingly, and now they're hanging him out to dry.

He threw red meat to the lunatic fringe quite nicely. Bravo Karl Rove, bravo.

Just wait 'til they find a scapegoat for the Valerie Plame affair - it'll be the same shit, new scandal.

[JeffL]

I think they set Zell up as well. Not that I agreed with anything the guy said, but either he went into it knowingly in exchange for a nice payoff, or he went in unknowingly, and now they're hanging him out to dry.

He threw red meat to the lunatic fringe quite nicely. Bravo Karl Rove, bravo.

Just wait 'til they find a scapegoat for the Valerie Plame affair - it'll be the same shit, new scandal.

The biggest problem for the Republicans seems to be that they think too short term and shallowly (not a word, but...) I'm betting getting Zell up there was their response to having Ron Reagan speak the the Dem convention. "Oh yeah? Well, we'll have a Democratic SENATOR speak at our convention!" And the only people he probably appealed to, as an old white conservative, was the base they already have sown up.

They needed the equivilent to Obama to go after the independants that are going to decide this election. A young, exciting face of the future.

[MrJoshua]

Are you people as naive as you seem? Everything about this convention is scripted, including the media comments. There is nothing better than having an ally zing the opponent and then back away. You get the benefit of the zing being out there while looking un-negative at the same time.

Have any of you ever seen a Presidential campaign before? Jesus.

Are you as hypocritical as you seem? Consider what your reaction would have been, were the Democrats to put up a keynote speaker to say the things that they're afraid to say, a speaker who gave a speech approved from the top down and tailor made to evoke a specific reaction, and then those same democrats were seen to publically desert and abandon that speaker.

Calling me hypocritical for something you assume I would do. Makes sense.

Did I complain about any of the Bush attacks at the DNC? No. Were any of those attacks backed away from by anyone? No. I never even commented on the Whoppi Goldberg thing because it is expected. Use non-affiliates who support you to make "extreme" statements and then condemn the statements later when no one is looking.

It. Happens. Every. Time.

[russellmz00]

I think they set Zell up as well. Not that I agreed with anything the guy said, but either he went into it knowingly in exchange for a nice payoff, or he went in unknowingly, and now they're hanging him out to dry.

He threw red meat to the lunatic fringe quite nicely. Bravo Karl Rove, bravo.

Just wait 'til they find a scapegoat for the Valerie Plame affair - it'll be the same shit, new scandal.

I'm betting getting Zell up there was their response to having Ron Reagan speak the the Dem convention. "Oh yeah? Well, we'll have a Democratic SENATOR speak at our convention!" And the only people he probably appealed to, as an old white conservative, was the base they already have sown up.

i read karl rove thinks that the gop base is all that's really needed to win this election, that the republican stay at homes in 2000 were the reason why they didn't get a slam dunk win.

(admittedly my source is a frothing at the mouth anti-bush blog so i can easily be 540 degrees wrong here)

[Jason McCullough]

I hope that's really Rove's thinking; the stuff I've read professional-poll-wise indicates that votes aren't out there.

[JeffL]

I hope that's really Rove's thinking; the stuff I've read professional-poll-wise indicates that votes aren't out there.

That would be insanity. Rove may be a lot of things, but I don't think he's politically naive. Neither party has the hard core numbers to win a presidential election without the moderate/independant 20%.