Zell Miller distorted facts in speech

To the editor:

In response to the letter "Terrorism, safety are main issues": So Tom McCanless thinks Zell Miller made the greatest speech he has ever heard? It's too bad that the pastor didn't take the time to do a reality check on what Miller said. He would have found that Miller intentionally distorted facts.

John Kerry did vote against the weapons systems that Miller mentioned in his speech, but so did many other senators, including Miller and Republicans like John McCain. These votes against the weapons were cast when omnibus bills filled with pork-barrel projects were included in them. When the pork was trimmed, Kerry voted for them.

What was really deceptive about Miller's speech is that he has to know that when Dick Cheney was a congressman and later the secretary of defense during the first President Bush's administration, he voted against or cut all of the very programs that Miller ranted about.

If McCanless and others will just take the time to check official records, they will find just how much Miller distorted the facts in this best speech that McCanless ever heard.

I live in central Illinois, but I was born in and grew up in the Bootheel, where I will be going each weekend from now till the election to work on behalf of Kerry's campaign. As I pass by the Kewanee exit on I-55, I will be hoping that not everyone there is as misinformed as McCanless.

FARRELL TILL, Canton, Ill.