The popular meme among right bloggers who haven’t, like, actually fact-checked Zell Miller’s speech is that people are focusing on the batshit tone of it because they can’t answer the substance. (Maybe that’s why he went with the batshit tone…) Those who have fact checked it realize that the substance is mostly bollocks, so Michael Novak deftly tries to keep the focus on the tone:

To quibble over whether Zell was right on this or that point, or as fair and balanced as the reporters of the Associated Press, or as evenhanded as Joe Klein, is to miss the point when listening to a Baptist sermon, rendered by a Southern populist who relishes his heritage. He has the obligation of fitting into a literary form, as demanding in its way as a sonnet. His task is to penetrate through the details, fire like a laser straight into the heart, spear the essential sin and betrayal thriving there, and explode the grip of their tentacles. His task is to lead the sinner, with the light of that explosion, to mend his ways.

Pesky details; let’s pierce right through them and watch the explosions. Like one of Arnold’s movies, I guess.