Wednesday, December 4, 2002

When Senator Zell Miller (D-Ga.) was interviewed by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about his thoughts after the Nov. 5 elections, he lamented that the Democrats do not have much of a national party if their leaders are too liberal to be able to campaign for candidates in the South, and thereby do "more harm than good."

It just got worse. The Democrats have set a new standard by electing Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as leader of the party in the House of Representatives. Pelosi is a San Francisco Democrat who talks and acts like a "San Francisco Democrat." Her voting record is a liberal legend.

She came to the House in June 1987 to cast the first of several votes against welfare reform. She opposed the welfare reform legislation Bill Clinton signed in 1996, and opposed its recent reauthorization. She voted in favor of "partial birth abortion" that involves the grotesque destruction of a fully-developed child. While demonstrating her hostility to the innocent, she has repeatedly voted to protect the lives of convicted murderers sentenced to death for horrendous crimes.

Correspondingly, she has voted for increased restrictions on firearms thus taking away the ability of free citizens to defend themselves against the same predators whose lives she champions.

In 1998, Nancy Pelosi voted against barring the National Endowment for the Arts, funded from our tax dollars, from financing projects that use excretory matter in sacrilegious artwork. She opposed the expansion of Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) that would allow parents to use their own money to send their children to elementary and secondary schools of their choice. She is also voted against voucher programs that would allow parents to take their children out of failing schools and send them to successful schools.

She consistently opposes a balanced-budget initiative and has voted several times to increase taxes, but never to lower them. She opposed the Gulf War in 1991, and voted against the recent resolution on the removal of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Although she has been tough on human rights in Communist China, it must be said that her constituents include many immigrants from China who were persecuted when living there. However, she is soft on other communist regimes, such as Cuba, and supported the Marxist government of Nicaragua which was thrown out of power when it acceded to the people's demand for a free election.

She repeatedly voted to reduce funding for an antiballistic missile system, and against nuclear testing to insure our weapons are both modern and safe. When asked if she would repeal the Bush tax cuts she said, "Yes, yes! That is what the Democratic Party is for higher taxes!"

Black moderate Harold E. Ford, Jr. (D-Tenn.) opposed Pelosi. He was quoted as saying, "If you believe that the same old tired, failed policies of the Democratic caucus is a direction we ought to travel, then clearly Nancy's your choice." Nevertheless, a majority of her colleagues, (and don't kid yourselves, the national party leadership, including Bill Clinton) thought she would best represent both the past and the future of the Democratic Party.

Bill Clinton ran for office as a moderate because he knew that he could not be elected if his true socialist agenda were exposed. Once elected, he moved the country along a path towards income redistribution and dissolution of our sovereignty in favor of the U.N. He promoted programs, such as open borders, to enhance diversity at the cost of national security.

This is the same direction that Democrats like Nancy Pelosi wants the party to go but Nov. 5 indicated this is the opposite direction from where the majority of the country is looking. Sen. Miller apparently won't be inviting the House (or Senate) minority leader to visit Georgia to stump for Democratic candidates. He really doesn't deserve to be out there all alone in the cold. But his party leadership does.

William Fielder

Peachtree City