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CNN Live Event/Special
Speeches of Zell Miller, Lynne Cheney, Dick Cheney
Aired September 01, 2004 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight's agenda for this hour, Zell Miller, the Democratic Senator from Georgia speaking at the Republican Convention, endorsing the president of the United States.
He'll be followed by Lynne Cheney, the wife of the vice president. She will introduce her husband Dick Cheney. He will deliver the major speech this hour, strong words coming up from the Republican National Convention here at Madison Square Garden.
Thanks very much for joining us. I'm Wolf Blitzer, together with my colleagues, Judy Woodruff and Jeff Greenfield. Judy Woodruff, Zell Miller, the last time he delivered a keynote speech 12 years ago right here, Madison Square Garden but at that time he was bashing the first President Bush.
WOODRUFF: And he is playing just the opposite role tonight, Wolf. We believe he is the only person ever to make a keynote address at both a Democratic convention and a Republican convention.
But, you're right, the job is outside down. Tonight, he is here to praise the son of the man he criticized 12 years ago and to argue in very specific red meat terms why John Kerry, his own party's nominee, should not be president.
GREENFIELD: We could understand why it's always an attractive thing for a party to get the other guy to come but there are two other things about this, the allegation that he (UNINTELLIGIBLE) looks the other way.
The Republicans are saying, yes, he was a Democrat all his life but after 9/11 he felt he had to change. Second, it took a Democrat to deliver what you are about to hear tonight, which is some of the toughest language about another party you'll hear in a modern convention.
I don't even know if this language is red meat or raw meat but it is in terms of how Zell Miller is about to describe the Democratic Party and tear it, it is as rough, it is as hard, it is as really dramatic an indictment as I can remember of any recent convention.
WOODRUFF: I think it's worth pointing out, Wolf, Zell Miller is far more valuable to this convention as a Democrat. People keep saying, "Why don't you leave the Democratic Party and become a Republican?" He's much more valuable and he knows it if he stays in the Democratic Party because he can do more damage (UNINTELLIGIBLE). BLITZER: And he insists he's still a Democrat and he's not going to be leaving this party. Zell Miller is being introduced right now, the Senator, the long-time Senator from Georgia delivering the keynote address for the Republicans, this as we point out we believe the first time ever a sitting member of one party becoming the keynote speaker for the other party at their presidential convention. Here's Zell Miller.
SEN. ZELL MILLER (D), GEORGIA: Thank you very much. Thank you.
Since I last stood...
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you very much. 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?
(APPLAUSE)
MILLER: The clear answer to that question has placed me in this hall with you tonight. For my family is more important than my party.
(APPLAUSE)
There is but one man to whom I am willing to entrust their future, and that man's name is George W. Bush.
(APPLAUSE)
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 man across the ocean who would kill us if they could.
President Roosevelt, in a 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.
MILLER: And he made it clear that he would rather lose the election than make national security a partisan campaign issue.
(APPLAUSE)
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.
(APPLAUSE)
Where are such statesmen today? Where is the bipartisanship in this country when we need it most?
(APPLAUSE)
Today, at the same time young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrats' manic obsession to bring down our commander in chief.
(APPLAUSE)
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.
MILLER: But not today.
(APPLAUSE)
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.
(APPLAUSE)
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 Poland to Siberia, because Ronald Reagan rebuilt a military of liberators, not occupiers.
(APPLAUSE)
Never in the history of the world has any soldier sacrificed more for the freedom and liberty of total strangers than the American soldier.
(APPLAUSE)
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.
(APPLAUSE)
MILLER: It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.
(APPLAUSE)
It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest.
(APPLAUSE)
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 he abuses to burn that flag.
(APPLAUSE)
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.
(APPLAUSE)
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.
MILLER: 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. (APPLAUSE)
Together, Kennedy and Kerry have opposed the very weapons system that won the Cold War and that are 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.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
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 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.
(APPLAUSE)
MILLER: The F-14A Tomcats, that Senator Kerry opposed, shot down Gadhafi's Libyan MiGs over the Gulf of Sidra.
(APPLAUSE)
The modernized F-14D, that Senator Kerry opposed, delivered missile strikes against Tora Bora.
(APPLAUSE)
The Apache helicopter, that Senator Kerry opposed, took out those Republican Guard tanks in Kuwait in the Gulf War.
(APPLAUSE)
The F-15 Eagles, that Senator Kerry opposed, flew cover over our Nation's capital and this very city after 9/11.
(APPLAUSE)
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? Spit balls?
(APPLAUSE)
Twenty years of votes can tell you much more about a man than 20 weeks of campaign rhetoric.
MILLER: Campaign talk tells people who you want them to think you are. How you vote tells people who you really are deep inside.
(APPLAUSE)
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.
(APPLAUSE)
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.
(APPLAUSE)
MILLER: 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 harm's way, far away.
AUDIENCE: Boooooo.
MILLER: George W. Bush understands that we need new strategies to meet new threats.
John Kerry wants to re-fight yesterday's war. President Bush believes we have to fight today's war and be ready for tomorrow's challenges. President 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.
(APPLAUSE)
George W. 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.
MILLER: I first got to know George W. 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...
(APPLAUSE) ... and the fact that he is unashamed of his belief that God is not indifferent to America.
(APPLAUSE)
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.
(APPLAUSE)
He is not a slick talker but he is a straight shooter. And where I come from, deeds mean a lot more than words.
(APPLAUSE)
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...
(APPLAUSE)
... the man I trust to protect my most precious possession: my family.
(APPLAUSE)
MILLER: 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. Faint- hearted 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.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you. God bless this great country. And God bless George W. Bush.
(APPLAUSE)
BLITZER: Zell Miller, the Democratic Senator from Georgia sounding very, very much like a Republican. In fact, immediately the Democratic committee, the political party issued a statement saying his keynote address sounded like an angry rabid elephant -- Jeff.
GREENFIELD: They pointed out that President Bush has called the Iraq occupation, occupation, and called him a hero.
BLITZER: All right. Here's Lynne Cheney.
LYNNE D. CHENEY, WIFE OF VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: Well, thank you for that warm welcome.
In the weeks and months after September 11th, I had so many people come up to me and say how glad they were that George Bush and Dick Cheney were in the White House.
(APPLAUSE)
I knew exactly what they meant. These men are strong. They are steadfast. They are exactly the leaders we need at this moment in our history.
(APPLAUSE)
And let me say a word, too, about Laura Bush. She not only reassured us in those days after the towers fell, she has been a first lady of enormous grace and dignity. And I am honored to be her friend.
(APPLAUSE)
I first met Dick Cheney when he was a teenager, quite a handsome teenager, as a matter of fact. He had a crew cut. He played football. He was the president of our senior class.
But while most of the boys I knew saw the charm of driving back and forth, time and again, between the two A&W Root Beer stands in our small town, Dick did not.
And when practically everybody in Casper, Wyoming, started doing "The Twist," I can tell you, Dick did not.
(LAUGHTER)
He also spent as much time listening as he did talking, which is pretty unusual in a teenager.
Over the years, I figured out that he was someone you could depend on, someone you could trust, someone I wanted to have at my side through all the hard parts of life and all the joyful ones. He is caring and honest, wise and kind, as our much-loved daughters will testify and our beloved granddaughters, as well -- we have a new grandson, too -- grandchildren, as well.
(APPLAUSE)
One of our granddaughters asked Dick not long ago if he knew anyone famous.
(LAUGHTER)
And I treasure the fact that she didn't he was.
Dick first entered public life as the gentleman from Wyoming...
(APPLAUSE)
... and he loved his 10 years as our state's congressman.
It was his privilege to serve as secretary of defense during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.
(APPLAUSE)
And it has been the highest honor for him to serve beside our president for the past four years.
(APPLAUSE)
Ladies and gentlemen, my husband, the love of my life, Dick Cheney, the vice president of the United States.
DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you.
I'm sure glad Zell Miller's on our side.
(APPLAUSE)
Mr. Chairman, delegates, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans: I accept your nomination for vice president of the United States.
(APPLAUSE)
AUDIENCE: Four more years. Four more years. Four more years.
D. CHENEY: Thank you.
I'm honored by your confidence. And tonight I make this pledge: I will give this campaign all that I have.
And together we will make George W. Bush president for another four years.
(APPLAUSE)
Tonight I will talk about this good man and his fine record leading our country. And I may say a word or two about his opponent.
(LAUGHTER)
I am also mindful now that I have an opponent of my own.
AUDIENCE: Boooo.
D. CHENEY: People tell me that Senator Edwards got picked for his good looks, his sex appeal and his great hair. I say to them: how do you think I got the job?
(LAUGHTER) (APPLAUSE)
On this night, as we celebrate the opportunities that America offers, I am filled with gratitude to a nation that has been good to me, and I remember the people who set me on my way in life. My grandfather noted that the day I was born was also the birthday of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And so he told my parents they should send President Roosevelt an announcement of my birth.
(LAUGHTER)
D. CHENEY: Now, my grandfather didn't have a chance to go to high school. For many years he worked as a cook on the Union Pacific Railroad. And he and my grandmother lived in a railroad car.
But the modesty of his circumstances didn't stop him from thinking that President Roosevelt should know about my arrival.
(LAUGHTER)
My grandfather believed deeply in the promise of America and had the highest hopes for his family. And I don't think it would surprise him all that much that a grandchild of his stands before you tonight as vice president of the United States.
(APPLAUSE)
It is the story of this country that people have been able to dream big dreams with confidence they would come true, if not for themselves, then for their children and grandchildren.
And that sense of boundless opportunity is a gift that we must pass on to all who come after us.
From kindergarten to graduation, I went to public schools. And I know that they are a key to being sure that every child has a chance to succeed and to rise in the world.
D. CHENEY: When the president and I took office, our schools were shuffling too many children from grade to grade without giving them the skills and the knowledge they need.
So President Bush reached across the aisle and brought both parties together to pass the most significant education reform in 40 years.
(APPLAUSE)
With higher standards and new resources, America's schools are now on an upward path to excellence, and not for just a few children, but for every child.
(APPLAUSE)
Opportunity also depends on a vibrant, growing economy. As President Bush and I were sworn into office, our nation was sliding into recession, and American workers were overburdened with federal taxes. Then came the events of September 11th, which hit our economy very hard. So President Bush delivered the greatest tax reduction in a generation, and the results are clear to see.
(APPLAUSE)
Businesses are creating jobs. People are returning to work. Mortgage rates are low, and home ownership in this country is at an all-time high. The Bush tax cuts are working.
(APPLAUSE)
D. CHENEY: Our nation has the best health care in the world and President Bush is making it more affordable and accessible to all Americans.
(APPLAUSE)
And there is more to do. Under this President's leadership, we will reform medical liability so the system serves patients and good doctors, not personal injury lawyers.
(APPLAUSE)
These have been years of achievement, and we are eager for the work ahead. And in all that we do, we will never lose sight of the greatest challenge of our time: preserving the freedom and security of this nation against determined enemies.
(APPLAUSE)
AUDIENCE: Four more years. Four more years. Four more years.
D. CHENEY: Thanks you all.
(APPLAUSE)
Since I last spoke to our national convention, Lynne and I have had the joy of seeing our family grow. We now have a grandson to go along with our three wonderful granddaughters...
(APPLAUSE)
And the deepest wish of my heart and the object of all my determination is that they and all of America's children will have lives filled with opportunity, and that they will inherit a world in which they can live in freedom, in safety and in peace.
(APPLAUSE)
Four years ago, some said the world had grown calm, and many assumed that the United States was invulnerable to danger. That thought might have been comforting; it was also false. Like other generations of Americans, we soon discovered that history had great and unexpected duties in store for us. September 11th, 2001, made clear the challenges we face. On that day we saw the harm that could be done by 19 men armed with knives and boarding passes. America also awakened to a possibility even more lethal: this enemy, whose hatred of us is limitless, armed with chemical, biological, or even nuclear weapons.
Just as surely as the Nazis during World War II and the Soviets during the Cold War, the enemy we face today is bent on our destruction.
As in other times, we are in a war we did not start, and have no choice but to win.
(APPLAUSE)
Firm in our resolve, focused on our mission, and led by a superb commander in chief, we will prevail.
(APPLAUSE)
The fanatics who killed some 3,000 of our fellow Americans may have thought they could attack us with impunity, because terrorists had done so previously.
But if the killers of September 11th thought we had lost the will to defend our freedom, they did not know America, and they did not know George W. Bush.
(APPLAUSE)
From the beginning, the president made clear that the terrorists would be dealt with and that anyone who supports, protects or harbors them would be held to account.
(APPLAUSE)
In a campaign that has reached around the world, we have captured or killed hundreds of Al Qaida. In Afghanistan, the camps where terrorists trained to kill Americans have been shut down and the Taliban driven from power.
(APPLAUSE)
In Iraq, we dealt with a gathering threat and removed the regime of Saddam Hussein.
(APPLAUSE)
Seventeen months ago, he controlled the lives and fortunes of 25 million people. Tonight he sits in jail.
(APPLAUSE)
President Bush does not deal in empty threats and half measures. And his determination has sent a clear message. Just five days after Saddam was captured, the government of Libya agreed to abandon its nuclear weapons program and turn the materials over to the United States.
(APPLAUSE)
Tonight, the uranium, the centrifuges and plans and designs for nuclear weapons that were once hidden in Libya are locked up and stored away in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, never again to threaten America.
(APPLAUSE)
D. CHENEY: The biggest threat we face today is having nuclear weapons fall into the hands of terrorists. The president is working with many countries in a global effort to end the trade and transfer of these deadly technologies. The most important result thus far, and it is a very important one, is that the black-market network that supplied nuclear weapons technology to Libya, as well as to Iran and North Korea, has been shut down.
(APPLAUSE)
The world's worst source of nuclear weapons proliferation is out of business, and we are safer as a result.
(APPLAUSE)
In the global war we are fighting, we owe a mighty debt to the men and women of the United States armed forces.
D. CHENEY: They fought the enemy with courage and reached out to civilians with compassion, rebuilding schools and hospitals and roads.
They have won stunning victories. They have faced hard duty and long deployments. And they have lost comrades, more than 1,100 brave Americans, whose memories this nation will honor forever.
(APPLAUSE)
The men and women who wear the uniform of the United States represent the very best of America. They have the thanks of our nation. And they have the confidence, the loyalty and the respect of their commander in chief.
(APPLAUSE)
In this election, we will decide who leads our country for the next four years. Yet there is more in the balance than that. Moments come along in history when leaders must make fundamental decisions about how to confront a long-term challenge abroad or how best to keep the American people secure at home.
D. CHENEY: We faced such a moment after World War II, when we put in place the policies that defended America throughout the Cold War. Those policies -- containing Communism, deterring attack by the Soviet Union, promoting the rise of democracy -- were carried out by Democratic and Republican presidents in the decades that followed.
This nation has reached another of those defining moments. Under President Bush, we have put in place new policies and created new institutions to defend America, to stop terrorist violence at its source, and to help move the Middle East away from old hatreds and resentments and toward the lasting peace that only freedom can bring.
(APPLAUSE)
This is the work not of months, but of years. And keeping these commitments is essential to our future security.
For that reason, ladies and gentlemen, the election of 2004 is one of the most important not just in our lives, but in our history.
(APPLAUSE)
D. CHENEY: And so it is time to set the alternatives squarely before the American people.
The president's opponent is an experienced senator. He speaks often of his service in Vietnam, and we honor him for it.
(APPLAUSE)
But there is also a record of more than three decades since. And on the question of America's role in the world, the differences between Senator Kerry and President Bush are the sharpest, and the stakes for the country are the highest.
(APPLAUSE)
History has shown that a strong and purposeful America is vital to preserving freedom and keeping us safe. Yet time and again, Senator Kerry has made the wrong call on national security.
Senator Kerry began his political career by saying he would like to see our troops deployed "only at the directive of the United Nations."
AUDIENCE: Booo.
D. CHENEY: During the 1980s, Senator Kerry opposed Ronald Reagan's major defense initiatives that brought victory in the Cold War.
AUDIENCE: Booo.
D. CHENEY: In 1991, when Saddam Hussein occupied Kuwait and stood poised to dominate the Persian Gulf, Senator Kerry voted against Operation Desert Storm.
AUDIENCE: Booo.
D. CHENEY: Even in this post-9/11 period, Senator Kerry doesn't appear to understand how the world has changed. He talks about leading a "more sensitive war on terror"...
(LAUGHTER) ...as though Al Qaida will be impressed with our softer side.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
He declared at the Democratic convention that he will forcefully defend America after we have been attacked. My fellow Americans, we have already been attacked...
(APPLAUSE)
AUDIENCE: USA. USA. USA.
D. CHENEY: We are faced with an enemy who seeks the deadliest of weapons to use against us, and we cannot wait for the next attack. We must do everything we can to prevent it, and that includes the use of military force.
(APPLAUSE)
Senator Kerry denounces American action when other countries don't approve, as if the whole object of our foreign policy were to please a few persistent critics.
(APPLAUSE)
But, in fact, in the global war on terror, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, President Bush has brought many allies to our side.
(APPLAUSE)
D. CHENEY: But as the President has made very clear, there is a difference between leading a coalition of many nations and submitting to the objections of a few.
(APPLAUSE)
George W. Bush will never seek a permission slip to defend the American people.
(APPLAUSE)
AUDIENCE: USA. USA. USA.
D. CHENEY: Senator Kerry also takes a different view when it comes to supporting our military. Although he voted to authorize force against Saddam Hussein, he then decided he was opposed to the war, and voted against funding for our men and women in the field.
AUDIENCE: Booooo.
Flip-flop. Flip-flop. Flip-flop.
(APPLAUSE) D. CHENEY: He voted against body armor, ammunition, fuel, spare parts, armored vehicles, extra pay for hardship duty and support for military families.
AUDIENCE: Booo.
D. CHENEY: Senator Kerry is campaigning for the position of commander in chief.
AUDIENCE: Booo.
D. CHENEY: Yet he does not seem to understand the first obligation of a commander in chief, and that is to support American troops in combat.
(APPLAUSE)
D. CHENEY: In his years in Washington, John Kerry has been one of a 100 votes in the United States Senate. And fortunately on matters of national security, his views rarely prevailed.
(APPLAUSE)
But the presidency is an entirely different proposition. A senator can be wrong for 20 years, without consequence to the nation.
(APPLAUSE)
But a president -- a president -- always casts the deciding vote.
(APPLAUSE)
And in this time of challenge, America needs and America has a president we can count on to get it right.
(APPLAUSE)
AUDIENCE: Four more years. Four more years. Four more years.
D. CHENEY: On Iraq, Senator Kerry has disagreed with many of his fellow Democrats. But Senator Kerry's liveliest disagreement is with himself.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
His back-and-forth reflects a habit of indecision and sends a message of confusion. And it's all part of a pattern. He has, in the last several years, been for the No Child Left Behind Act and against it. He has spoken in favor of the North American Free Trade Agreement and against it. He is for the Patriot Act and against it.
Senator Kerry says he sees two Americas. It makes the whole thing mutual.
(APPLAUSE)
America sees two John Kerry's.
(APPLAUSE)
The other candidate in this race is a man our nation has come to know and one I've come to admire very much. I watch him at work every day. I have seen him face some of the hardest decisions that come to the Oval Office and make those decisions with the wisdom and humility Americans expect in their president.
(APPLAUSE)
George W. Bush is a man who speaks plainly and means what he says. He is a person of loyalty and kindness.
D. CHENEY: And he brings out those qualities in those around him. He is a man of great personal strength and, more than that, a man with a heart for the weak and the vulnerable and the afflicted.
(APPLAUSE)
We all remember that terrible morning when, in the space of just 102 minutes, more Americans were killed than we lost at Pearl Harbor. We remember the president who came to New York City and pledged that the terrorists would soon hear from all of us.
(APPLAUSE)
George W. Bush saw this country through grief and tragedy. He has acted with patience and calm and a moral seriousness that calls evil by its name.
(APPLAUSE)
In the great divide of our time, he has put this nation where America always belongs: against the tyrants of this world and on the side of every soul on Earth who yearns to live in freedom.
(APPLAUSE)
Fellow citizens, our nation is reaching the hour of decision, and the choice is clear.
D. CHENEY: President Bush and I will wage this effort with complete confidence in the judgment of the American people. The signs are good, even in Massachusetts.
(APPLAUSE)
According to a news account last month, people leaving the Democratic National Convention asked a Boston policeman for directions. He replied, leave here, and go vote Republican.
AUDIENCE: Four more years. Four more years. Four more years. D. CHENEY: President Bush and I are honored to have the support of that police officer and of Democrats, Republicans and independents from every calling in American life.
(APPLAUSE)
We are so fortunate, each and every one of us, to be citizens of this great nation and to take part in the defining event of our democracy, choosing who will lead us.
Historian Bernard DeVoto once wrote that when America was created, the stars must have danced in the sky.
(APPLAUSE)
Our president understands the miracle of this great country. He knows the hope that drives it and shares the optimism that has long been so important a part of our national character. He gets up each and every day determined to keep our great nation safe so that generations to come will know the freedom and opportunities we have known and more.
(APPLAUSE)
When this convention concludes tomorrow night, we will go forth with confidence in our cause and in the man who leads it. By leaving no doubt where we stand and asking all Americans to join us, we will see our cause to victory.
Thank you very much.
(APPLAUSE)
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Aired September 1, 2004 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight's agenda for this hour, Zell Miller, the Democratic Senator from Georgia speaking at the Republican Convention, endorsing the president of the United States.
He'll be followed by Lynne Cheney, the wife of the vice president. She will introduce her husband Dick Cheney. He will deliver the major speech this hour, strong words coming up from the Republican National Convention here at Madison Square Garden.
Thanks very much for joining us. I'm Wolf Blitzer, together with my colleagues, Judy Woodruff and Jeff Greenfield. Judy Woodruff, Zell Miller, the last time he delivered a keynote speech 12 years ago right here, Madison Square Garden but at that time he was bashing the first President Bush.
WOODRUFF: And he is playing just the opposite role tonight, Wolf. We believe he is the only person ever to make a keynote address at both a Democratic convention and a Republican convention.
But, you're right, the job is outside down. Tonight, he is here to praise the son of the man he criticized 12 years ago and to argue in very specific red meat terms why John Kerry, his own party's nominee, should not be president.
GREENFIELD: We could understand why it's always an attractive thing for a party to get the other guy to come but there are two other things about this, the allegation that he (UNINTELLIGIBLE) looks the other way.
The Republicans are saying, yes, he was a Democrat all his life but after 9/11 he felt he had to change. Second, it took a Democrat to deliver what you are about to hear tonight, which is some of the toughest language about another party you'll hear in a modern convention.
I don't even know if this language is red meat or raw meat but it is in terms of how Zell Miller is about to describe the Democratic Party and tear it, it is as rough, it is as hard, it is as really dramatic an indictment as I can remember of any recent convention.
WOODRUFF: I think it's worth pointing out, Wolf, Zell Miller is far more valuable to this convention as a Democrat. People keep saying, "Why don't you leave the Democratic Party and become a Republican?" He's much more valuable and he knows it if he stays in the Democratic Party because he can do more damage (UNINTELLIGIBLE). BLITZER: And he insists he's still a Democrat and he's not going to be leaving this party. Zell Miller is being introduced right now, the Senator, the long-time Senator from Georgia delivering the keynote address for the Republicans, this as we point out we believe the first time ever a sitting member of one party becoming the keynote speaker for the other party at their presidential convention. Here's Zell Miller.
SEN. ZELL MILLER (D), GEORGIA: Thank you very much. Thank you.
Since I last stood...
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you very much. 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?
(APPLAUSE)
MILLER: The clear answer to that question has placed me in this hall with you tonight. For my family is more important than my party.
(APPLAUSE)
There is but one man to whom I am willing to entrust their future, and that man's name is George W. Bush.
(APPLAUSE)
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 man across the ocean who would kill us if they could.
President Roosevelt, in a 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.
MILLER: And he made it clear that he would rather lose the election than make national security a partisan campaign issue.
(APPLAUSE)
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.
(APPLAUSE)
Where are such statesmen today? Where is the bipartisanship in this country when we need it most?
(APPLAUSE)
Today, at the same time young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrats' manic obsession to bring down our commander in chief.
(APPLAUSE)
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.
MILLER: But not today.
(APPLAUSE)
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.
(APPLAUSE)
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 Poland to Siberia, because Ronald Reagan rebuilt a military of liberators, not occupiers.
(APPLAUSE)
Never in the history of the world has any soldier sacrificed more for the freedom and liberty of total strangers than the American soldier.
(APPLAUSE)
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.
(APPLAUSE)
MILLER: It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.
(APPLAUSE)
It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest.
(APPLAUSE)
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 he abuses to burn that flag.
(APPLAUSE)
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.
(APPLAUSE)
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.
MILLER: 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. (APPLAUSE)
Together, Kennedy and Kerry have opposed the very weapons system that won the Cold War and that are 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.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
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 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.
(APPLAUSE)
MILLER: The F-14A Tomcats, that Senator Kerry opposed, shot down Gadhafi's Libyan MiGs over the Gulf of Sidra.
(APPLAUSE)
The modernized F-14D, that Senator Kerry opposed, delivered missile strikes against Tora Bora.
(APPLAUSE)
The Apache helicopter, that Senator Kerry opposed, took out those Republican Guard tanks in Kuwait in the Gulf War.
(APPLAUSE)
The F-15 Eagles, that Senator Kerry opposed, flew cover over our Nation's capital and this very city after 9/11.
(APPLAUSE)
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? Spit balls?
(APPLAUSE)
Twenty years of votes can tell you much more about a man than 20 weeks of campaign rhetoric.
MILLER: Campaign talk tells people who you want them to think you are. How you vote tells people who you really are deep inside.
(APPLAUSE)
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.
(APPLAUSE)
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.
(APPLAUSE)
MILLER: 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 harm's way, far away.
AUDIENCE: Boooooo.
MILLER: George W. Bush understands that we need new strategies to meet new threats.
John Kerry wants to re-fight yesterday's war. President Bush believes we have to fight today's war and be ready for tomorrow's challenges. President 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.
(APPLAUSE)
George W. 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.
MILLER: I first got to know George W. 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...
(APPLAUSE) ... and the fact that he is unashamed of his belief that God is not indifferent to America.
(APPLAUSE)
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.
(APPLAUSE)
He is not a slick talker but he is a straight shooter. And where I come from, deeds mean a lot more than words.
(APPLAUSE)
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...
(APPLAUSE)
... the man I trust to protect my most precious possession: my family.
(APPLAUSE)
MILLER: 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. Faint- hearted 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.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you. God bless this great country. And God bless George W. Bush.
(APPLAUSE)
BLITZER: Zell Miller, the Democratic Senator from Georgia sounding very, very much like a Republican. In fact, immediately the Democratic committee, the political party issued a statement saying his keynote address sounded like an angry rabid elephant -- Jeff.
GREENFIELD: They pointed out that President Bush has called the Iraq occupation, occupation, and called him a hero.
BLITZER: All right. Here's Lynne Cheney.
LYNNE D. CHENEY, WIFE OF VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: Well, thank you for that warm welcome.
In the weeks and months after September 11th, I had so many people come up to me and say how glad they were that George Bush and Dick Cheney were in the White House.
(APPLAUSE)
I knew exactly what they meant. These men are strong. They are steadfast. They are exactly the leaders we need at this moment in our history.
(APPLAUSE)
And let me say a word, too, about Laura Bush. She not only reassured us in those days after the towers fell, she has been a first lady of enormous grace and dignity. And I am honored to be her friend.
(APPLAUSE)
I first met Dick Cheney when he was a teenager, quite a handsome teenager, as a matter of fact. He had a crew cut. He played football. He was the president of our senior class.
But while most of the boys I knew saw the charm of driving back and forth, time and again, between the two A&W Root Beer stands in our small town, Dick did not.
And when practically everybody in Casper, Wyoming, started doing "The Twist," I can tell you, Dick did not.
(LAUGHTER)
He also spent as much time listening as he did talking, which is pretty unusual in a teenager.
Over the years, I figured out that he was someone you could depend on, someone you could trust, someone I wanted to have at my side through all the hard parts of life and all the joyful ones. He is caring and honest, wise and kind, as our much-loved daughters will testify and our beloved granddaughters, as well -- we have a new grandson, too -- grandchildren, as well.
(APPLAUSE)
One of our granddaughters asked Dick not long ago if he knew anyone famous.
(LAUGHTER)
And I treasure the fact that she didn't he was.
Dick first entered public life as the gentleman from Wyoming...
(APPLAUSE)
... and he loved his 10 years as our state's congressman.
It was his privilege to serve as secretary of defense during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.
(APPLAUSE)
And it has been the highest honor for him to serve beside our president for the past four years.
(APPLAUSE)
Ladies and gentlemen, my husband, the love of my life, Dick Cheney, the vice president of the United States.
DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you.
I'm sure glad Zell Miller's on our side.
(APPLAUSE)
Mr. Chairman, delegates, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans: I accept your nomination for vice president of the United States.
(APPLAUSE)
AUDIENCE: Four more years. Four more years. Four more years.
D. CHENEY: Thank you.
I'm honored by your confidence. And tonight I make this pledge: I will give this campaign all that I have.
And together we will make George W. Bush president for another four years.
(APPLAUSE)
Tonight I will talk about this good man and his fine record leading our country. And I may say a word or two about his opponent.
(LAUGHTER)
I am also mindful now that I have an opponent of my own.
AUDIENCE: Boooo.
D. CHENEY: People tell me that Senator Edwards got picked for his good looks, his sex appeal and his great hair. I say to them: how do you think I got the job?
(LAUGHTER) (APPLAUSE)
On this night, as we celebrate the opportunities that America offers, I am filled with gratitude to a nation that has been good to me, and I remember the people who set me on my way in life. My grandfather noted that the day I was born was also the birthday of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And so he told my parents they should send President Roosevelt an announcement of my birth.
(LAUGHTER)
D. CHENEY: Now, my grandfather didn't have a chance to go to high school. For many years he worked as a cook on the Union Pacific Railroad. And he and my grandmother lived in a railroad car.
But the modesty of his circumstances didn't stop him from thinking that President Roosevelt should know about my arrival.
(LAUGHTER)
My grandfather believed deeply in the promise of America and had the highest hopes for his family. And I don't think it would surprise him all that much that a grandchild of his stands before you tonight as vice president of the United States.
(APPLAUSE)
It is the story of this country that people have been able to dream big dreams with confidence they would come true, if not for themselves, then for their children and grandchildren.
And that sense of boundless opportunity is a gift that we must pass on to all who come after us.
From kindergarten to graduation, I went to public schools. And I know that they are a key to being sure that every child has a chance to succeed and to rise in the world.
D. CHENEY: When the president and I took office, our schools were shuffling too many children from grade to grade without giving them the skills and the knowledge they need.
So President Bush reached across the aisle and brought both parties together to pass the most significant education reform in 40 years.
(APPLAUSE)
With higher standards and new resources, America's schools are now on an upward path to excellence, and not for just a few children, but for every child.
(APPLAUSE)
Opportunity also depends on a vibrant, growing economy. As President Bush and I were sworn into office, our nation was sliding into recession, and American workers were overburdened with federal taxes. Then came the events of September 11th, which hit our economy very hard. So President Bush delivered the greatest tax reduction in a generation, and the results are clear to see.
(APPLAUSE)
Businesses are creating jobs. People are returning to work. Mortgage rates are low, and home ownership in this country is at an all-time high. The Bush tax cuts are working.
(APPLAUSE)
D. CHENEY: Our nation has the best health care in the world and President Bush is making it more affordable and accessible to all Americans.
(APPLAUSE)
And there is more to do. Under this President's leadership, we will reform medical liability so the system serves patients and good doctors, not personal injury lawyers.
(APPLAUSE)
These have been years of achievement, and we are eager for the work ahead. And in all that we do, we will never lose sight of the greatest challenge of our time: preserving the freedom and security of this nation against determined enemies.
(APPLAUSE)
AUDIENCE: Four more years. Four more years. Four more years.
D. CHENEY: Thanks you all.
(APPLAUSE)
Since I last spoke to our national convention, Lynne and I have had the joy of seeing our family grow. We now have a grandson to go along with our three wonderful granddaughters...
(APPLAUSE)
And the deepest wish of my heart and the object of all my determination is that they and all of America's children will have lives filled with opportunity, and that they will inherit a world in which they can live in freedom, in safety and in peace.
(APPLAUSE)
Four years ago, some said the world had grown calm, and many assumed that the United States was invulnerable to danger. That thought might have been comforting; it was also false. Like other generations of Americans, we soon discovered that history had great and unexpected duties in store for us. September 11th, 2001, made clear the challenges we face. On that day we saw the harm that could be done by 19 men armed with knives and boarding passes. America also awakened to a possibility even more lethal: this enemy, whose hatred of us is limitless, armed with chemical, biological, or even nuclear weapons.
Just as surely as the Nazis during World War II and the Soviets during the Cold War, the enemy we face today is bent on our destruction.
As in other times, we are in a war we did not start, and have no choice but to win.
(APPLAUSE)
Firm in our resolve, focused on our mission, and led by a superb commander in chief, we will prevail.
(APPLAUSE)
The fanatics who killed some 3,000 of our fellow Americans may have thought they could attack us with impunity, because terrorists had done so previously.
But if the killers of September 11th thought we had lost the will to defend our freedom, they did not know America, and they did not know George W. Bush.
(APPLAUSE)
From the beginning, the president made clear that the terrorists would be dealt with and that anyone who supports, protects or harbors them would be held to account.
(APPLAUSE)
In a campaign that has reached around the world, we have captured or killed hundreds of Al Qaida. In Afghanistan, the camps where terrorists trained to kill Americans have been shut down and the Taliban driven from power.
(APPLAUSE)
In Iraq, we dealt with a gathering threat and removed the regime of Saddam Hussein.
(APPLAUSE)
Seventeen months ago, he controlled the lives and fortunes of 25 million people. Tonight he sits in jail.
(APPLAUSE)
President Bush does not deal in empty threats and half measures. And his determination has sent a clear message. Just five days after Saddam was captured, the government of Libya agreed to abandon its nuclear weapons program and turn the materials over to the United States.
(APPLAUSE)
Tonight, the uranium, the centrifuges and plans and designs for nuclear weapons that were once hidden in Libya are locked up and stored away in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, never again to threaten America.
(APPLAUSE)
D. CHENEY: The biggest threat we face today is having nuclear weapons fall into the hands of terrorists. The president is working with many countries in a global effort to end the trade and transfer of these deadly technologies. The most important result thus far, and it is a very important one, is that the black-market network that supplied nuclear weapons technology to Libya, as well as to Iran and North Korea, has been shut down.
(APPLAUSE)
The world's worst source of nuclear weapons proliferation is out of business, and we are safer as a result.
(APPLAUSE)
In the global war we are fighting, we owe a mighty debt to the men and women of the United States armed forces.
D. CHENEY: They fought the enemy with courage and reached out to civilians with compassion, rebuilding schools and hospitals and roads.
They have won stunning victories. They have faced hard duty and long deployments. And they have lost comrades, more than 1,100 brave Americans, whose memories this nation will honor forever.
(APPLAUSE)
The men and women who wear the uniform of the United States represent the very best of America. They have the thanks of our nation. And they have the confidence, the loyalty and the respect of their commander in chief.
(APPLAUSE)
In this election, we will decide who leads our country for the next four years. Yet there is more in the balance than that. Moments come along in history when leaders must make fundamental decisions about how to confront a long-term challenge abroad or how best to keep the American people secure at home.
D. CHENEY: We faced such a moment after World War II, when we put in place the policies that defended America throughout the Cold War. Those policies -- containing Communism, deterring attack by the Soviet Union, promoting the rise of democracy -- were carried out by Democratic and Republican presidents in the decades that followed.
This nation has reached another of those defining moments. Under President Bush, we have put in place new policies and created new institutions to defend America, to stop terrorist violence at its source, and to help move the Middle East away from old hatreds and resentments and toward the lasting peace that only freedom can bring.
(APPLAUSE)
This is the work not of months, but of years. And keeping these commitments is essential to our future security.
For that reason, ladies and gentlemen, the election of 2004 is one of the most important not just in our lives, but in our history.
(APPLAUSE)
D. CHENEY: And so it is time to set the alternatives squarely before the American people.
The president's opponent is an experienced senator. He speaks often of his service in Vietnam, and we honor him for it.
(APPLAUSE)
But there is also a record of more than three decades since. And on the question of America's role in the world, the differences between Senator Kerry and President Bush are the sharpest, and the stakes for the country are the highest.
(APPLAUSE)
History has shown that a strong and purposeful America is vital to preserving freedom and keeping us safe. Yet time and again, Senator Kerry has made the wrong call on national security.
Senator Kerry began his political career by saying he would like to see our troops deployed "only at the directive of the United Nations."
AUDIENCE: Booo.
D. CHENEY: During the 1980s, Senator Kerry opposed Ronald Reagan's major defense initiatives that brought victory in the Cold War.
AUDIENCE: Booo.
D. CHENEY: In 1991, when Saddam Hussein occupied Kuwait and stood poised to dominate the Persian Gulf, Senator Kerry voted against Operation Desert Storm.
AUDIENCE: Booo.
D. CHENEY: Even in this post-9/11 period, Senator Kerry doesn't appear to understand how the world has changed. He talks about leading a "more sensitive war on terror"...
(LAUGHTER) ...as though Al Qaida will be impressed with our softer side.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
He declared at the Democratic convention that he will forcefully defend America after we have been attacked. My fellow Americans, we have already been attacked...
(APPLAUSE)
AUDIENCE: USA. USA. USA.
D. CHENEY: We are faced with an enemy who seeks the deadliest of weapons to use against us, and we cannot wait for the next attack. We must do everything we can to prevent it, and that includes the use of military force.
(APPLAUSE)
Senator Kerry denounces American action when other countries don't approve, as if the whole object of our foreign policy were to please a few persistent critics.
(APPLAUSE)
But, in fact, in the global war on terror, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, President Bush has brought many allies to our side.
(APPLAUSE)
D. CHENEY: But as the President has made very clear, there is a difference between leading a coalition of many nations and submitting to the objections of a few.
(APPLAUSE)
George W. Bush will never seek a permission slip to defend the American people.
(APPLAUSE)
AUDIENCE: USA. USA. USA.
D. CHENEY: Senator Kerry also takes a different view when it comes to supporting our military. Although he voted to authorize force against Saddam Hussein, he then decided he was opposed to the war, and voted against funding for our men and women in the field.
AUDIENCE: Booooo.
Flip-flop. Flip-flop. Flip-flop.
(APPLAUSE) D. CHENEY: He voted against body armor, ammunition, fuel, spare parts, armored vehicles, extra pay for hardship duty and support for military families.
AUDIENCE: Booo.
D. CHENEY: Senator Kerry is campaigning for the position of commander in chief.
AUDIENCE: Booo.
D. CHENEY: Yet he does not seem to understand the first obligation of a commander in chief, and that is to support American troops in combat.
(APPLAUSE)
D. CHENEY: In his years in Washington, John Kerry has been one of a 100 votes in the United States Senate. And fortunately on matters of national security, his views rarely prevailed.
(APPLAUSE)
But the presidency is an entirely different proposition. A senator can be wrong for 20 years, without consequence to the nation.
(APPLAUSE)
But a president -- a president -- always casts the deciding vote.
(APPLAUSE)
And in this time of challenge, America needs and America has a president we can count on to get it right.
(APPLAUSE)
AUDIENCE: Four more years. Four more years. Four more years.
D. CHENEY: On Iraq, Senator Kerry has disagreed with many of his fellow Democrats. But Senator Kerry's liveliest disagreement is with himself.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
His back-and-forth reflects a habit of indecision and sends a message of confusion. And it's all part of a pattern. He has, in the last several years, been for the No Child Left Behind Act and against it. He has spoken in favor of the North American Free Trade Agreement and against it. He is for the Patriot Act and against it.
Senator Kerry says he sees two Americas. It makes the whole thing mutual.
(APPLAUSE)
America sees two John Kerry's.
(APPLAUSE)
The other candidate in this race is a man our nation has come to know and one I've come to admire very much. I watch him at work every day. I have seen him face some of the hardest decisions that come to the Oval Office and make those decisions with the wisdom and humility Americans expect in their president.
(APPLAUSE)
George W. Bush is a man who speaks plainly and means what he says. He is a person of loyalty and kindness.
D. CHENEY: And he brings out those qualities in those around him. He is a man of great personal strength and, more than that, a man with a heart for the weak and the vulnerable and the afflicted.
(APPLAUSE)
We all remember that terrible morning when, in the space of just 102 minutes, more Americans were killed than we lost at Pearl Harbor. We remember the president who came to New York City and pledged that the terrorists would soon hear from all of us.
(APPLAUSE)
George W. Bush saw this country through grief and tragedy. He has acted with patience and calm and a moral seriousness that calls evil by its name.
(APPLAUSE)
In the great divide of our time, he has put this nation where America always belongs: against the tyrants of this world and on the side of every soul on Earth who yearns to live in freedom.
(APPLAUSE)
Fellow citizens, our nation is reaching the hour of decision, and the choice is clear.
D. CHENEY: President Bush and I will wage this effort with complete confidence in the judgment of the American people. The signs are good, even in Massachusetts.
(APPLAUSE)
According to a news account last month, people leaving the Democratic National Convention asked a Boston policeman for directions. He replied, leave here, and go vote Republican.
AUDIENCE: Four more years. Four more years. Four more years. D. CHENEY: President Bush and I are honored to have the support of that police officer and of Democrats, Republicans and independents from every calling in American life.
(APPLAUSE)
We are so fortunate, each and every one of us, to be citizens of this great nation and to take part in the defining event of our democracy, choosing who will lead us.
Historian Bernard DeVoto once wrote that when America was created, the stars must have danced in the sky.
(APPLAUSE)
Our president understands the miracle of this great country. He knows the hope that drives it and shares the optimism that has long been so important a part of our national character. He gets up each and every day determined to keep our great nation safe so that generations to come will know the freedom and opportunities we have known and more.
(APPLAUSE)
When this convention concludes tomorrow night, we will go forth with confidence in our cause and in the man who leads it. By leaving no doubt where we stand and asking all Americans to join us, we will see our cause to victory.
Thank you very much.
(APPLAUSE)
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