Miller picked up where the Swift boat ads left off. It isn't simply that John Kerry dishonored his fellow veterans when he returned from Vietnam (though that is reason enough to vote against him), it is his stellar record of liberal soft-headedness in a 20-year career in the United States Senate. John Kerry consistently underestimates the dangers this nation faces. When the Soviet Union was attempting to gain nuclear supremacy in the 1980s, they endorsed and (through their willing agents among European and American leftists) popularized the idea of a "nuclear freeze." Reagan saw through it. He knew that a freeze would actually cement a Soviet advantage in intercontinental ballistic missiles. But Kerry fell for it. As a new senator he introduced the Comprehensive Nuclear Freeze bill. Kerry was also an early and influential opponent of the Strategic Defense Initiative, and a consistent opponent of new weapons systems including, as Zell Miller itemized, many of those that are helping us to defeat the terrorists today.
Like so many in the Democratic Party, Kerry was soft on the Sandinista communists, voting against aid to the anti-communist Contras. More than most, Kerry put his prestige on the line by meeting with Sandinista commandante Daniel Ortega. The little communist in designer glasses easily snookered the liberal from Massachusetts by promising to abide by the "Contadora" process (a Central American brokered deal). But only days after reassuring Kerry and others that he was interested in peace, Ortega flew to Moscow.
That is the public record. Kerry partisans will perhaps attempt to argue that raising such painful history amounts to questioning their man's patriotism. But frankly, Kerry's patriotism, or lack of it, is utterly beside the point. We elect presidents for their judgment -- and that is Kerry's chief vulnerability.