The Iowa caucuses are just days away, and Giuliani has decided to formulate his closing argument around his favorite subject: 9/11.
Today’s New York Times reported:
"Mr. Giuliani’s retooled stump speech compares the Sept. 11 generation to the generation that won World War II. He is running a new television advertisement that shows firefighters atop the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center site. And this week, Mr. Giuliani, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, seized on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the suicide bombing in Pakistan to warn audiences that it "reminds us of the kind of world that we live in."
"For me this is a particularly personal experience," Mr. Giuliani said in Florida as he discussed the assassination of Ms. Bhutto on Thursday, "because I lived through Sept. 11, 2001, and then I lived through the attacks in London a few years later." (NY Times)
The assassination of a former Prime Minister is a personal experience for Rudy? Rudy Giuliani, who, to my knowledge, was not targeted for assassination by anti-Democracy extremists for the entire duration of his political career, as Benazir Bhutto’s was? Rudy Giuliani who has never served in politics on a national level? Rudy Giuliani who, as John McCain pointed out, claims to be the best man to comand our army in the global War on Terror but has never set foot in Iraq to see for himself the actions he’s been so supportive of?
When Giuliani, who has zero foreign policy experience (I have a number of friends who were also in New York on September 11, and none of them claim to be foreign policy experts as a result... in fact, they just thank God that they’re alive), wants to prove he’s tough on terror, 9/11 is the first thing he reaches for. He incessantly reminds us how scared we were that terrible day, that there are still terrorists on the loose, and had the cahones to say in April 2007:
"America will be safer with a Republican president."
He actually said that. And, as if that weren’t enough:
"The Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us."
Oh boy.
I wasn’t the only one rubbed the wrong way by that comment. On April 25, 2007, Keith Olbermann of MSNBC’s "Countdown" tore Giuliani a new one (kudos to CrooksandLiars.com for the transcript). That episode was re-aired last night, and I think K.O. best summarizes the former Mayor’s complete ignorance. He said:
"Which party held the presidency on September 11th, 2001, Mr. Giuliani?
Which party held the mayoralty of New York on that date, Mr. Giuliani?
Which party assured New Yorkers that the air was safe, and the remains of the dead, recovered - and not being used to fill pot-holes, Mr. Giuliani?
Which party wanted what the terrorists wanted - the postponement of elections - and to whose personal advantage would that have redounded, Mr. Giuliani?
Which mayor of New York was elected eight months after the first attack on the World Trade Center, yet did not emphasize counter-terror in the same city for the next eight years, Mr. Giuliani?
Which party had proposed to turn over the Department of Homeland Security to Bernard Kerik, Mr. Giuliani?
Who wanted to ignore and hide Kerik’s Organized Crime allegations, Mr. Giuliani?
Who personally argued to the White House that Kerik need not be vetted, Mr. Giuliani?
Which party rode roughshod over Americans’ rights while braying that it was actually protecting them, Mr. Giuliani?
Which party took this country into the most utterly backwards, utterly counter-productive, utterly ruinous war in our history, Mr. Giuliani?
Which party has been in office as more Americans were killed in the pointless fields of Iraq, than were killed in the consuming nightmare of 9/11, Mr. Giuliani?
Drop this argument, sir. You will lose it."
This morning, grasping at straws as the clock ticks down towards the Iowa Caucuses, Giuliani was at it again:
"I had the responsibility, more than the other candidates, of having the safety and security of people on my shoulders," he said, in a feeble attempt to garner support in Iowa today. If not for photographic evidence of brave firefighters and the NYPD, one might be led to believe that Giuliani was solely responsible for any and every action that took place in New York City from the moment the first tower was hit.
GOP voters, Rudy Giuliani wants you to cast a vote for him in the primaries out of fear of what will happen if you don’t. But I’d like to remind you that the safety of our nation is in the hands of more than one man. Besides the people working in our intelligence agencies, military, and State Dept., our next President will surround him or herself with a team of advisors who will have influence over that President’s every decision. Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld helped construct the Iraq War from the rubble of 9/11, and they were in that position because George W. Bush put them there.
Can you imagine the team Giuliani would assemble, when his own administrations and campaigns have been staffed with corrupt officials? Giuliani has surrounded himself with self-interested, self-serving people who operate outside even the loosest definition of the word "ethical." His judgement is abysmal. Are these the people we want controlling our military?
Giuliani talks a scary game, but a vote for Giuliani does not guarantee you better safety over the next eight years than a vote for any of the other candidates. I want a President whose words fill me with hope for the future of our country, a President who doesn’t just repeatedly remind me that terrorists are out there, but someone who tells me specifically how we’ll get the bad guys.
Americans don’t need a constant reminder of how much we’ve suffered over the past seven years. We do need a reminder of what our country stands for. Fear is not one of those things.