Zell, Zell, Zell!

1) The whole speech. So many stirring lines. These were some of the best:

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…

2) The Hardball interview. (Courtesy of Media Bistro.) Video also up at The Daily Recycler.

More at The Media Drop and Wizbang, who gives us some of the night’s zingiest Zellbites:

“Look at his record. A man’s record is what he is”

“I didn’t question their patriotism, I question their judgment”

“That was a metaphor, do you know what a metaphor is?”

“Get out of may face. If you’re going to ask a question you let me answer.”

“I wish we lived in the day that I could challenge you to a duel.”

“You are not going to do to me what you did to that young lady the other day, browbeating her to death.

“Are you going to shut up after you ask the question?”

Thank you, Sen. Miller, for showing The Caveman how a true gentleman thinks, speaks, and acts.

Update: More from the Washington Dispatch. And Ace of Spades HQ. And CultureShockTv.

Update II: Before Sen. Miller delivered his convention address, Tacitus reported last night at Red State on a disturbing rumor–that there was a battle going on between Sen. Miller and “the people in charge” of the convention over his text, which was deemed “too conservative.” Unbelievable. Tacitus reported after Sen. Miller delivered the speech that it had been “toned down.” As Tacitus noted:

Takes your breath away to imagine the original.

Indeed.