Recently, Zell Miller, Georgia's
junior senator, who knows how to boil things down
to the basics, explained why it's important that
Saddam Hussein be defanged. But he's also a good
storyteller. Here's the text of Senator Miller's
remarks, made on the Senate floor, about the need
to help President Bush deal with Iraq.
"Mr. President, I have signed
on as an original co-sponsor of the Iraq resolution,
and I'd like to tell you a story about why I think
it is the right path to take: A few weeks ago, we
were doing some work on my back porch back home,
tearing out a section of old stacked rocks, when
all of a sudden I uncovered a nest of copperhead
snakes.
Now, I'm not one to get alarmed
at snakes. I know they perform some useful functions,
like eating rats. And when I was a young lad, I
kept snakes as pets. I had an indigo snake, a bull
snake, a corn snake and many others. I must have
had a dozen king snakes at one time or another.
They make great pets and you only
had to feed them a mouse every 30 days. I read all
the books by Raymond C. Ditmars, who was the foremost
herpetologist of his day. That's an expert on snakes.
For a while, I wanted to be a herpetologist, but
the pull of being a big-league shortstop outran
that childhood dream.
I reminisce this way to explain
that snakes don't scare me like they do some people.
And I guess the reason is that I know the difference
between those that are harmless and those that will
kill you. In fact, I bet I may be the only senator
in this body who can look at the last three inches
of a snake's tail and tell you whether it's poisonous
or not. I can also tell the sex of a snake, but
that's another story.
A copperhead will kill you. It could
kill one of my dogs. It could kill one of my grandchildren.
It could kill any of my four great grandchildren.
They play all the time where I found these killers.
And you know, when I discovered these copperheads,
I didn't call my wife Shirley and ask her advice,
like I do on most things. I didn't yell for help
from my neighbors or take it to the city council.
I just took a hoe and knocked them in the head and
killed them. Dead as a doorknob.
I guess you could call it a unilateral
action. Or preemptive or even bellicose and reactive.
I took their poisonous heads off because they were
a threat to me. And they were a threat to my home
and my family. They were a threat to all I hold
dear.
And isn't that what this is all
about?"
