Rudy Giuliani

Bernie Kerik, former NY police commissioner and BFF of Rudy 9ul1an1 has been sentenced to four years for lying and tax fraud. Let’s not forget that Kerik was also appointed by Bush to head up Homeland Security. Yup – another Republican hero.

George Stephanopoulos has “corrected” Rudy Giuliani’s statement that ‘no domestic terrorist attacks happened under Bush’.

The two key changes are as follows. First the title:

• Then:
  Rudy Giuliani: 'No Domestic Attacks Under Bush.... One Under Obama'
• Now:
  Rudy Giuliani Wrong in Saying ‘No Domestic Attacks Under Bush’

And then George added in a new paragraph.

Then:

“What he [Obama] should be doing is following the right things that Bush did -- one of the right things he did was treat this as a war on terror. We had no domestic attacks under Bush. We’ve had one under Obama,” Giuliani said. “Number two, he should correct the things that Bush didn’t do right. Sending people to Yemen was wrong, not getting this whole intelligence thing corrected.”

The former Republican presidential candidate is specifically taking issue with the fact that the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is being tried in a civil court instead of a military tribunal.

Now:

“What he [Obama] should be doing is following the right things that Bush did -- one of the right things he did was treat this as a war on terror. We had no domestic attacks under Bush. We’ve had one under Obama,” Giuliani said. “Number two, he should correct the things that Bush didn’t do right. Sending people to Yemen was wrong, not getting this whole intelligence thing corrected.”

Giuliani seems to have forgotten about the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and shoe bomber Richard Reid.

The former Republican presidential candidate specifically took issue with the fact that the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is being tried in a civil court instead of a military tribunal.

(emphasis added to show the additional paragraph)

From reading the comments on the ABC post, I can only assume George noticed he really screwed up:

It looks like George was more than happy to repeat Giuliani’s talking point without correcting the record. This happened how many hours after the interview? It took readers to point out that George had really screwed up before he decided to “correct the record”.

UPDATE:

(see how I put update so my readers know I changed the story? I’m just some hill billly from Ohio, yet I engage in much more journalistic ethics than a key person in the MSM does!)

Thinking about this more, something really gets to me. Look at this screen shot from Rudy on GMA this morning:

It was at 7:09 am. Stephanopoulos did his post at 8:55 am (after getting off the air). Going by the comments he didn’t correct it until around 10:30 am. It’s amazing that a key person in the mainstream media was so quick to just play stenographer to to some GOP lie than to correct the record.

Perhaps instead of just editing the post, George should issue a statement of why something so obvious as forgetting about 9/11, a date we all know to well, occurred. Really – just read the original title, “Rudy Giuliani: 'No Domestic Attacks Under Bush.... One Under Obama'”. Are you telling me that when George was typing that in this morning it didn’t pop into his mind at all, you know – ‘duh….9/11’? Is he really that incompetent, or is he to quick to echo rightwing lies? I think George and ABC owes America an answer.

UPDATE 2:

I just saw where George did issue a somewhat apology:

Through his spokesman, Rudy Giuliani has clarified the remarks he made this morning on GMA regarding terrorist attacks on the United States under Presidents Bush and Obama.

The Mayor’s spokesman says that the remark “didn't come across as it was intended” and that Giuliani was “clearly talking post-9/11 with regards to Islamic terrorist attacks on our soil.”

Whatever the Mayor meant, it’s not what he said.  All of you who have pointed out that I should have pressed him on that misstatement in the moment are right.  My mistake, my responsibility.   

Good job, but it would have been much more dominate if you actually attached it to the original post.

This has got me absolutely speechless:

Mr. 9/11 himself, the man who was the mayor of the town that took the biggest hit on 9/11, is now denying it ever happened?

"What [Obama] should be doing is following the right things Bush did. One of the right things he did was treat this as a war on terror. We had no domestic attacks under Bush. We've had one under Obama," Giuliani said.

I hope people start asking him why he is denying that 9/11 actually happened. Again we have another example of Republicans who care nothing about terrorism, except as a political tool.

UPDATE:

George Stephanopoulos, who interviewed Giuliani when he made this absurd claim, posts the following on his blog:

“What he [Obama] should be doing is following the right things that Bush did -- one of the right things he did was treat this as a war on terror. We had no domestic attacks under Bush. We’ve had one under Obama,” Giuliani said. “Number two, he should correct the things that Bush didn’t do right. Sending people to Yemen was wrong, not getting this whole intelligence thing corrected.”

The former Republican presidential candidate is specifically taking issue with the fact that the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is being tried in a civil court instead of a military tribunal.

Some how George claims to be a journalist, but didn’t even bother himself to correct Rudy’s totally false claim.

This is interesting. Polls had Rudy doing good against Gillibrand:

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani is expected to announce Tuesday he is not running for U.S. Senate or anything else in 2010, effectively ending his storied - and often stormy - electoral career, The Daily News has learned.

The announcement, at which he'll also endorse Republican Rick Lazio for governor, marks the end of a year-long political dance by Giuliani, who mulled bids for governor and then Senate before backing away from both.

I can only suspect that Rudy isn’t doing this so he can get all his 9/11 references in order for another run at the big show in 2012.

Greg Sargent has found out something very interesting:

The House GOP leadership hopes to force Dems into an awkward vote on the plan to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in New York, a leadership aide tells me. The idea: If the House Dem leadership brings a big scheduled appropriations bill up for a vote this week, Republicans will likely offer a motion calling for a ban on using any Federal funds to transfer KSM and co-conspirators to New York.

“Now that the White House has announced it is ignoring the will of the American people and going ahead with this, the stakes are a lot higher,” the aide says. “Will House Democratic Leadership bring this bill up for a vote this week?”

It’s amazing how much America has changed. Just a year ago if you questioned a decision our Commander in Chief made about the “war on terror”, you got called all kinds of names like: traitor, terrorist sympathizer, America hater, or weak. Of course those were Republicans shouting those names at Democrats. Now that a Democrat is in the White House, the Republicans feel it perfectly fine to question every single decision made by the Commander in Chief.

Something else I have been thinking about with this is how other countries handle terrorists. Take the U.K., who has had their fair share of convictions of terrorists. The U.K. didn’t set up military tribunals or war courts, instead they tried them in their public courts of law and did so successfully. So why can other countries do this but America can’t? It sure seems like there is a lack of confidence in our system of law.

Then we have another question that comes up. Take someone like Rudy Giuliani, who is out blasting this decision. Funny how all of the sudden our courts can’t handle prosecuting terrorists, yet he had no problem with the first World Trade Center bombers got tried and convicted here in the United States. Does Rudy have no confidence in our legal system, a system he spent years working in? Maybe Rudy is putting politics ahead of national security now.

Finally there is a very important question that has been missing from the argument – why didn’t Bush do anything? Bush had years of making decisions, but instead of making them he decided to ignore the detainees at Gitmo. He could have tried and convicted these people by the time he had left office but didn’t. Instead Bush chose to leave the problem for the next President and the Republicans had no problem with that. Of course now that the next President is actually making the “hard” decisions, the Republicans chose to play armchair general. Again – the Republicans don’t care about national security, only playing politics.

So long Rudy. Thanks for giving us the biggest fall in U.S. political history.

The rumor throughout the pundit world is that Rudy could be dropping out tomorrow if he doesn't do well in Florida today. It will be interesting to see what happens. I'll have the election tracker up a little later.

Also

There are reports that a large number of Democrats are even heading to the polls, despite Florida being stripped of delegates. It will be interesting to see those results also.

Following up on a post last week about Rudy defending his decision to move the emergency operations center into WTC 7, we now have more proof of people warning him it would be a bad idea:

The New York Police Department produced a detailed analysis in 1998 opposing plans by the city to locate its emergency command center at the World Trade Center, but the Giuliani administration overrode those objections. The command center later collapsed from damage in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack.

“Seven World Trade Center is a poor choice for the site of a crucial command center for the top leadership of the City of New York,” a panel of police experts, which was aided by the Secret Service, concluded in a confidential Police Department memorandum.

These are becoming ridiculous

Josh has a nice summary of the ad

Okay, we've got another Rudy ad out and it's reaching the point of true pathos as Rudy tries to extend his 9/11 brand to anything else that is actually relevant to voters' lives. In his latest attempt, which you can see below, Rudy explains how among the Republican candidate only he's brave enough and tough enough to come out for a national catastrophe fund ...

There is something else I noticed in this new ad. A possible subliminal message:

I'm glad we don't have to worry about this asshole becoming President:

Rudolph W. Giuliani likens himself to a boxer who never takes a punch without swinging back. As mayor, he made the vengeful roundhouse an instrument of government, clipping anyone who crossed him.

In August 1997, James Schillaci, a rough-hewn chauffeur from the Bronx, dialed Mayor Giuliani’s radio program on WABC-AM to complain about a red-light sting run by the police near the Bronx Zoo. When the call yielded no results, Mr. Schillaci turned to The Daily News, which then ran a photo of the red light and this front page headline: “GOTCHA!”

That morning, police officers appeared on Mr. Schillaci’s doorstep. What are you going to do, Mr. Schillaci asked, arrest me? He was joking, but the officers were not.

While we here the media try to make up new news, let us not forget the real news. Rudy Giuliani is trailing Ron Paul by 6-1 in delegates - or 8-0 by the MyDD delegate counter on the right. This is the big news of the election - the previous front runner of the GOP is getting owned by the guy he calls crazy!

OUCH! Pretty bad when Rudy is trailing McCain by 12 points. in his home state.

This is a sign of how bad things are in the GOP

Under pressure from fundraisers and friends, Sen. Mel Martinez has decided not to endorse presidential candidate John McCain, who was planning to campaign Monday in Miami with the popular Florida Republican to help win crucial votes in South Florida's Hispanic community.

A big factor in Martinez's decision: He feels badly for McCain's opponent, Rudy Giuliani. After all, the former New York mayor was a Martinez supporter, and thought he had a shot at Martinez's support.

[SNIP]

''Mel's a tower of Jell-O,'' said Republican operative Roger Stone, a McCain backer. ``He was committed to McCain, and given McCain's role in the fight over immigration and given the fact he's going to win South Carolina tonight, Mel Martinez should have done what he said and gone with the guy who will be president.''

Ouch - sounds like some people are upset with old Mel. I love watching a good cat fight.

Rudy is making up excuses for his failures on 9/11. First up is the radio system:

But there's one key detail he won't clearly explain: Why firefighters on 9/11 had the same faulty radios that failed them in 1993, when the World Trade Center was first attacked.

When asked about the issue Thursday at an Associated Press appearance, Giuliani suggested it was an insurmountable technological hurdle that couldn't be cleared in his eight years in office that began Jan. 1, 1994, and ended just after 9/11.

A technology hurdle? I was on a fire department in a city of 24,000 people. We had the upgraded radio systems in 1988 and a lower frequency back up. That was 13 years before 9/11. It wasn't technology - that was there.

But that's not the only excuse Rudy is making. I really like this one:

The firefighter union and Riches also take Giuliani to task for insisting on placing an emergency response headquarters in the World Trade Center, even though he had been warned not to do so because it was a terrorism target.

A reader writes in to TPM and highlights how Rudy was the front runner one year ago amongst Republicans and majority of the Democratic field. Today he is struggling to survive, placing it all on Florida. This is something the media doesn't really seem to be talking about.