Zell Miller

Zell Miller is telling a tale, a parable about a mountaineer, his new bride and their stubborn mule. The silver-haired senator from Georgia is seated in his office on Capitol Hill, amid small shrines to Mickey Mantle and the U.S. Marine Corps, wearing a charcoal gray suit and shiny black cowboy boots. He has made it his mission lately to torment the Democratic Party, his lifelong political home, and verbally torture John F. Kerry, the party's presumptive presidential nominee.

Georgia Sen. Zell Miller, the highest profile Democrat to endorse President Bush for re-election, will speak at the Republican National Convention this summer. According to a congressional aide who spoke on condition of anonymity, Miller will give his address on Wednesday night of the four-day convention in New York that begins Aug. 30. Twelve years ago he delivered the keynote address for Bill Clinton at the 1992 Democratic National Convention.

Republicans on Thursday announced that a conservative Democrat, Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, would be the keynote speaker at their party's national convention -- the latest signal of President Bush's effort to woo swing voters in his reelection bid. Miller, who is retiring from his Senate seat, endorsed Bush several months ago and previously had been named as a convention speaker.

The speech Sen. Zell Miller delivers tonight will be the first time a Democrat has delivered the Republicans' keynote address. It will also be the political swan song for the 72-year-old former governor of Georgia. Miller, an old-fashioned Southern Democrat, was reared in an Appalachian hollow where it was said that a yellow dog could get elected sooner than a Republican. He was a strong supporter of President Clinton and delivered the keynote address at the Democratic convention in 1992.

On Wednesday, there were developing stories that cable news normally loves -- a hurricane bearing down on Florida, a hostage situation at a school in Russia, and the bombshell out of Eagle, Colo., that prosecutors in the Kobe Bryant sexual assault case were going to drop their charges. But the 24-hour news networks mostly kept their death grip on the Republican National Convention. This was hours before Vice President Dick Cheney spoke.

The people who crowded Manuel's Tavern to watch Sen. Zell Miller deliver the keynote speech at the Republican National Convention behaved less like political activists than jilted lovers. Not content with groaning toward the television, they squeezed whoopee cushions. They shook their fists and sang, "Liar, liar, pants on fire!" They made fun of his rural accent. But behind the beer-fueled gaiety of the "Give Zell Hell" party was a sense of deep injury.

Sen. John McCain, who has pushed for more civility in this year's presidential race, is warning that the biting attack on Sen. John F. Kerry by a fellow Democrat at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night might harm President Bush's efforts to woo swing voters. McCain (R-Ariz.) said the keynote address by Sen. Zell Miller (D-Ga.) could prove as controversial as a speech by Pat Buchanan at the 1992 GOP convention in Houston.

Chris Matthews is ready for a rematch. When the MSNBC anchor tangled with Sen. Zell Miller on Wednesday night after the Georgia Democrat's fiery keynote speech to the Republican National Convention, it made for some of the best television of the week. It also turned Miller overnight into a much-in-demand TV guest who can be expected to pop up often on screens in coming weeks.

Former President Carter is accusing fellow Georgia Democrat Zell Miller of "unprecedented disloyalty" because of the senator's speech at the Republican National Convention. In a letter sent over the weekend, Carter called Miller's speech "rabid and mean-spirited."

Zell Miller, who is retiring as a U.S. senator at the beginning of 2005, is headed to Fox News Channel as a contributor. A Georgia Democrat, Miller made headlines in September for his fiery keynote speech at the Republican National Convention and a subsequent interview with MSNBC's Chris Matthews, in which the lawmaker, upset with Matthews' aggressive questioning, said he wished he lived in an era when he could challenge someone to a duel.