LinkFlorida Times Union
January 26, 2004
Zell tells 'em
Zell Miller is a national treasure. Not only is he clear-thinking and independent, his folksy imagery is legendary.
After telling how Iraqi living standards improved after Saddam Hussein's fall, for example, the Georgia Democrat rebutted leaders of his own party who say America shouldn't have attacked without more international support.
"I was doing some work on my back porch in Young Harris, Ga., tearing out a section of old stacked rocks,' Miller began, 'when all of a sudden, I uncovered a nest of copperhead snakes.
"Now, a copperhead is dangerous; it will kill you. It could kill one of my grandchildren. It could kill one of my four great-grandchildren who play around there all the time.
"And, you know, when I discovered those copperheads, I didn't call Shirley, like I do about nearly everything else. I didn't ask the City Council to pass a resolution. I didn't even call any of my neighbors.
"I just took a hoe and knocked them in the head and killed them dead as a doorknob. Now, I guess you could call it a unilateral action. Or maybe a pre-emptive strike.
"I took their poisonous heads off because they were a threat to me, and they were a threat to my home and to my family.
"They were a threat to all I hold dear. And isn't that what this is all about?"
Miller is exactly right. We can only add that the Democrats who feel so much moral outrage that President Bush would make a pre-emptive strike against Iraq without United Nations approval are the very ones who cheered the previous administration for making a pre-emptive strike against Serbia without U.N. approval. The only difference was that nobody ever suggested Serbia ever would be a threat to Americans.