Live blogging Cheney's speech

Very low key. Must be intentional. Don't want to appear rabid while he is slicing up Kerry. And it shows that he isn't out for 2008 and carving his own place.

He is tearing Sen. Kerry limb from limb... a Senator can be wrong for 20 years without consequence... OUCH!

UPDATE: Instapundit is live blogging and agrees Cheney is quiet. He liked Zell Miller. Unfortunately, I missed that speech!

UPDATE: David Brooks on Newshour is saying Cheney's speech comes across like how he talks in person in an interview. As Brooks puts it, he doesn't do showmanship.

UPDATE: Professor Bainbridge is live blogging and here is what Bainbridge thinks of Zell Miller's speech and there is more and still more.

UPDATE: Here are Cheney's remarks on USAToday.

Excerpts:

People tell me that Senator Edwards got picked for his good looks, his sex appeal, and his great hair. I say to them — how do you think I got the job?
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Since I last spoke to our national convention, Lynne and I have had the joy of seeing our family grow. We now have a grandson to go along with our three wonderful granddaughters, and the deepest wish of my heart and the object of all my determination is that they, and all of America's children, will have lives filled with opportunity ... and that they will inherit a world in which they can live in freedom, in safety, and in peace.
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The President's opponent is an experienced senator. He speaks often of his service in Vietnam, and we honor him for it. But there is also a record of more than three decades since. And on the question of America's role in the world, the differences between Senator Kerry and President Bush are the sharpest, and the stakes for the country are the highest. History has shown that a strong and purposeful America is vital to preserving freedom and keeping us safe — yet time and again Senator Kerry has made the wrong call on national security.
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In his years in Washington, John Kerry has been one of a hundred votes in the United States Senate — and very fortunately on matters of national security, his views rarely prevailed. But the presidency is an entirely different proposition. A senator can be wrong for 20 years, without consequence to the nation. But a president — a president — always casts the deciding vote. And in this time of challenge, America needs — and America has — a president we can count on to get it right.
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Senator Kerry says he sees two Americas. It makes the whole thing mutual — America sees two John Kerrys.
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The other candidate in this race is a man our nation has come to know, and one I've come to admire very much. I watch him at work every day. I have seen him face some of the hardest decisions that can come to the Oval Office — and make those decisions with the wisdom and humility Americans expect in their president. George W. Bush is a man who speaks plainly and means what he says. He is a person of loyalty and kindness — and he brings out these qualities in those around him. He is a man of great personal strength — and more than that, a man with a heart for the weak, and the vulnerable, and the afflicted.
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George W. Bush saw this country through grief and tragedy ... he has acted with patience, and calm, and a moral seriousness that calls evil by its name. In the great divide of our time, he has put this nation where America always belongs: against the tyrants of this world, and on the side of every soul on earth who yearns to live in freedom.

Zell Miller transcript.

Excerpts:

And I know that's how you feel about your family also.

Like you, I think of their future, the promises and the perils they will face.

Like you, I believe that the next four years will determine what kind of world they will grow up in.

And like you, I ask which leader is it today that has the vision, the willpower and, yes, the backbone to best protect my family?

The clear answer to that question has placed me in this hall with you tonight. For my family is more important than my party.

There is but one man to whom I am willing to entrust their future and that man's name is George Bush.
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What has happened to the party I've spent my life working in? I can remember when Democrats believed that it was the duty of America to fight for freedom over tyranny.

It was Democratic President Harry Truman who pushed the Red Army out of Iran, who came to the aid of Greece when Communists threatened to overthrow it, who stared down the Soviet blockade of West Berlin by flying in supplies and saving the city.

Time after time in our history, in the face of great danger, Democrats and Republicans worked together to ensure that freedom would not falter. But not today.
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Never in the history of the world has any soldier sacrificed more for the freedom and liberty of total strangers than the American soldier. And, our soldiers don't just give freedom abroad, they preserve it for us here at home.

For it has been said so truthfully that it is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press.

It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest.

It is the soldier who salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag who gives that protester the freedom to abuse and burn that flag.
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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.
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Listing all the weapon systems that Senator Kerry tried his best to shut down sounds like an auctioneer selling off our national security but Americans need to know the facts.
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This is the man who wants to be the Commander in Chief of our U.S. Armed Forces? U.S. forces armed with what? Spitballs?
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George Bush wants to grab terrorists by the throat and not let them go to get a better grip. From John Kerry, they get a "yes-no-maybe" bowl of mush that can only encourage our enemies and confuse our friends.

I first got to know George Bush when we served as governors together. I admire this man. I am moved by the respect he shows the First Lady, his unabashed love for his parents and his daughters, and the fact that he is unashamed of his belief that God is not indifferent to America.

I can identify with someone who has lived that line in "Amazing Grace," "Was blind, but now I see," and I like the fact that he's the same man on Saturday night that he is on Sunday morning.

He is not a slick talker but he is a straight shooter and, where I come from, deeds mean a lot more than words.

I have knocked on the door of this man's soul and found someone home, a God-fearing man with a good heart and a spine of tempered steel.

The man I trust to protect my most precious possession: my family.

Wow! This is a Democrat praising Bush!

Whoa!! What a thrashing he is giving Sen. Kerry!!