Zell Miller
Jesse Taylor is furious after seeing the speeches:
I honestly think this is going to help Republicans lose the election. This isn't just negative - this is ass-out mean in a way that a serious political party really can't and shouldn't embrace. It's hard to watch, and I'm jaded past the point of comprehension to Republican nastiness. This is not the way a party appeals to the center - the strategy seems to be little more than getting the base so angry that undecided voters and centrists rush into the party in order to escape the wrath of the rageaholics in Madison Square Garden.

Jesse Taylor is making the mistake of the closed minded - believing in essence that because he stronlgy disagrees with the speech and the passion of the speaker that the speech is negative. Zell Miller may have been slightly cliched, but negative he was not. Zell had a legitimate concern - whether John Kerry is as fit for handling national security. If Zell had answered that concern by questioning John Kerry's intelligence, that would have been negative. If Zell had answered that concern by calling John Kerry a Fascist or a Communist, that would have been negative. If Zell had answered that concern by attacking Kerry's personal life, that would have been negative. Zell did none of those things.

This is not to say that I enjoyed Zel's speech. I found it a bit too cliched, seeking sound bites for commercials as opposed to being enjoyable in a coherent sort of way (I am listening to Cheney's speech as I write this).

Anyway, out of this conglomeration of sound bites several caught my eye. The best line was clearly the - "U.S. forces armed with what, spitballs?" line that was said in reference to Kerry's habit of voting against advanced weapons systems.

This was good as well.
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.
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

This one as well was good
Kerry would let Paris decide when America needs defending.
I want Bush to decide.
John Kerry, who says he doesn't like outsourcing, wants to outsource our national security.

Read the speech yourself. You'll find a passioned speech. You'll find firm views. You'll find somebody who may have been a little boring although who he spiced his cliches with interesting lines. You'll find a politician who questioned Kerry's judgment, not his personal life. The judgement of a politician is the chief issue in politics. If debating the judgment of our politicians in matters of public policy is negativity, then politics truly has become solely the art of the photo op. I don't believe that it has, and deep down, I don't think Jesse does either.