Miller likens Obama's ways to Paris Hilton

By Aaron Gould Sheinin

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Decrying a federal government he says is out of control, former Georgia governor and U.S. senator Zell Miller said Thursday that America is "spending like we're Paris Hilton."

But acting like the blond socialite might not be the worst offense, in Miller's litany of all that's wrong with the country.

Speaking to more than 1,000 conservative lawmakers from across the country, Miller said, "Today, we're spending like we're Paris Hilton, regulating like we're Ralph Nader, nationalizing like we're Hugo Chavez, printing money like we're the Weimar Republic and taxing like we're, well, the Democratic Congress."

Miller spoke at Thursday's luncheon at the annual gathering of the American Legislative Exchange Council, which ostensibly is a bipartisan or nonpartisan group of legislators. In practice, however, ALEC is overwhelmingly Republican, as evidenced by the speakers Thursday who bashed President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress.

At breakfast Thursday it was economist Stephen Moore. At lunch it was WSB radio host Herman Cain, a former Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, and then Miller, who served as a Democrat but famously rejected the party near the end of his time in Washington.

Miller said Obama's decision to try to close the Guantanamo Bay prison where suspected terrorists and enemy combatants are held is "nuts."

"This strange Obama sense of justice penalizes our civilians with their loss of freedom while rewarding the terrorists with new rights they never had before," Miller said.

Obama, "our globe-trotting president," Miller said, "needs to stop and take a break and quit gallivanting all around. I think (chief of staff) Rahm Emanuel ought to get some Gorilla Glue and put it in that chair in the Oval Office and say, 'Sit here awhile.' "

Earlier, over breakfast, Moore, who writes a column in The Wall Street Journal, said Obama's economic policies are going to ruin America and represent "the greatest threat to freedom and liberty in our lifetime."

Moore, a supply-side advocate, said, "I believe everything we have done in Washington in the last six months, virtually every single policy move and maneuver that has been made to deal with this recession, everything that's been done has been the wrong thing to do."

Also Thursday, ALEC awarded Georgia House Rep. Earl Ehrhart (R-Powder Springs) one of its annual awards for leadership. State Rep. Tom Graves (R-Ranger) will receive a similar award today.

Today's speakers include former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).