I haven't blogged anything about Rudy Giuliani since I used his campaign commercial in 2008 to exemplify the word (fear)"monger". I had thought about reviewing the controversy that erupted when he acknowledged to Peter Jennings [at 1:50 of the video] that he was told the World Trade Center was going to collapse ("we were told that the World Trade Center was going to collapse. And it did collapse...) at a time when no steel-framed building had ever collapsed from fire. But I gave that a pass and won't bring it up again.
But now he has thrust himself back into the limelight with a remarkable gaffe - claiming in an interview with George Stephanopoulos that there were no domestic terror attacks when President Bush was in office:
“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.The Mayor of New York seems to forget 9/11. He later apparently clarified that he meant "after 9/11", conveniently forgetting a few others during the Bush administration:
- July 27, 2008 - Jim David Adkisson shoots two persons in a Unitarian Church
- May 5, 2008 - Pipe Bomb detonated outside Federal Courthouse in San Diego
- March 7th, 2008 - Bomb detonated at Times Square Recruiting center in NY.
- December 6, 2007: Chad Altman and Sergio Baca were arrested for the arson of Dr. Curtis Boyd's clinic in Albuquerque.
- May 9, 2007: Unidentified person deliberately set fire to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
- April 25, 2007: A package left at a women's health clinic in Austin, Texas contained an explosive device capable of inflicting serious injury or death.
- April 16, 2007 - Terrorism? Virginia Tech Shootings.
- September 13, 2006 David McMenemy crashed his car into the Edgerton Women's Care Center in Davenport, Iowa. He then doused the lobby in gasoline and then started a fire. McMenemy committed these acts in the belief that the center was performing abortions, however Edgerton is not an abortion clinc.
- March 2006 - Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, an Iranian-born graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, drives an SUV onto a crowded part of campus, injuring nine.
- December 12, 2005: Patricia Hughes and Jeremy Dunahoe threw a Molotov cocktail at a clinic in Shreveport, Louisiana.
- July 4, 2005: A clinic Palm Beach, Florida was the target of an arson.
- October 1, 2005 - Joel Henry Hinrichs III detonated a bomb near the packed football stadium at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma killing himself in the process.
- October 2002 - John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo conduct the Beltway Sniper Attacks
- July 4, 2002 - An Egyptian gunman opens fire at an El Al ticket counter in Los Angeles International Airport, killing two Israelis before being killed himself.
- May 2002: Luke Helder injures 6 by placing pipebombs in mailboxes in the Midwest.
- January 5, 2002 - 15yo Charles Bishop, expressing sympathy for bin Laden, crashes his Cessna into a Tampa Florida Skyscraper
- June 11, 2001: Tacoma, Washington bombing destroys a Clinic Wall
- December 12, 2001 - Jewish Defense League plot by Chairman Irv Rubin and follower Earl Krugel to blow up the King Fahd Mosque in Culver City, California, and the office of Lebanese-American Rep. Darrell Issa, foiled.
- December 22, 2001 - Richard Reid attempts to bomb flight 63
- November 2001 - Clayton Waagner mails powder-laden envelopes to 550+ Clinics, is convicted on 51 counts in 2003.
- September 2001 - 5 People Killed, 17 Infected by Anthrax laden letters, $250million spent cleaning up postal facilities.
- Christmas Underpants Bomber
- November 5, 2009 - Ft. Hood Gunman killed 13, injured 30.
- June 11, 2009 - White Supremacist Von Brunn kills woman at Holocaust Museum
- May 31, 2009 - Dr. George Tiller Murdered
- February 4th, 2009 - West Memphis, Arkansas, United States. Trent P. Pierce Chairman of the Arkansas State Medical Board was critically injured in a car bombing that occurred in his drive way.
- January 22, 2009 (2 days into office) - Matthew Derosia drives his SUV into a Planned Parenthood facility
Your argument is preaching to the choir. Cretans like Giuliani and Chaney have no need for facts or data. They have their mission and no amount of distortion or outright lying is forbidden in the service of their cause.
ReplyDeleteThat list left off the Arkansas Democratic Party chairmen who was shot dead at party headquarters by a right wing-nut.
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely correct to point out that Giuliani is not correct.
ReplyDeleteBut here's the problem. With Obama, we were assured that things would get better. The world "hungered" for a change in Washington and all we had to do was elect Obama and there would be an improvement in international relations.
Just him being who he is offered the possibility, "curing the harm they would say we have done to ourselves through our indifference to the views of others and through the insularity of a president who seems so incurious about the world."
We were told that electing Obama would make terrorists "less eager to strike."
And it wasn't just electing him that would make us safer but actual things he did that would make us safer - like closing Guantanamo Bay - yeah. That was supposed to reduce terrorism.
Look - these took 2 seconds to find. There were hundreds of articles written up to and after the election that suggested quite strongly that things were going to get better, the days of Bush's "shoot first and ask questions later" were over. We were moving on to a much more sophisticated, er, "smart" diplomacy that would regain our standing in the world and reduce terrorism.
The result? Not so hot. In less than a year, we've had some serious attacks.
AND, a new joint study from Duke and UNC shows that since 09/11, "139 American Muslims had been publicly accused of planning or carrying out violence motivated by extremism." TYWKIWDBI - 41 OF THOSE HAPPENED IN 2009.
That means that about 30% of those happened in just one year out of the last nine.
Sooooooooo, what was different about 2009???
Here are the cites:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/magazine/04obama-t.html?pagewanted=all
http://blogs.usatoday.com/sciencefair/2009/09/obama-may-discourage-terrorism.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/us/politics/22obama.html
http://www.newsobserver.com/356/story/270526.html
Deana, it is all well and good to demand that Obama cure all of Bush's screw-ups instantly, but it doesn't work that way. It took 8 years to get into this mess and it might take more than 11 months to get out. Cut him the same slack everyone wanted to cut Bush while he was reading about pet goats.
ReplyDeleteThank goodness for Rachel Maddow. At least one journalist has the guts to confront these guys for the liars they are. But as long as the other socalled journalists continue to let them get away with their rewriting of history, it is hard to feel very hopeful about the future of our country.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with Deana's response, apart from it's apologetic partisanship is that Obama has done little different from Bush with regard to foreign policy, lip service and nice speeches aside. For one thing she's mistaken about Guantanamo Bay, which is still fully open and operational, as for the rest, none of the unjust foreign policies that 'the turrrrists' cite as objectionable have changed or been addressed either. Whether it's both wars plodding on with no end in sight, continued meddling in Eastern affairs, or letting Israel constantly oppress with impunity. I never expected much from Obama though, which is why I couldn't vote for him in good conscience, and Bush was so ridiculous that he doesn't even deserve a comment.
ReplyDeleteLike true Orwellians, the Neo-Cons always want to re-write history. They seem to think that if they keep saying the same lies over and over, supported by phony information, that people will accept it. Giuliani, Cheney, Coulter, Limbaugh have been spouting this same line, hoping beyond hope that somebody somewhere will believe that Bush defeated the terrorists.
ReplyDeleteAnd Ronald Reagan single-handedly destroyed the Soviet Union. Didn't he?
I think I see the confusion here. Attacks on abortion clinics aren't terrorism, they're righteous acts which will ultimately *save* lives.
ReplyDeleteSo, there ya go.
Artful Dodger - Excellent and apparently an appropriate name.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I am NOT demanding that Obama cure all of "Bush's screw-ups."
I and many others knew way, way, way before Obama was elected that he was not going to live up to the elaborate hype he was happy to receive from his fawning fans here in the U.S. and around the world - not because he is flawed (he most certainly is) but because it is HUMANLY IMPOSSIBLE TO DO SO. He is just a man and even though he is president, he has limited powers and capabilities. I would say it is not fair to place such enormous expectations on him but I seem to recall that he was always willing to receive the accolades and simply unbelievable (and unwarranted) comparisons to people who truly WERE extraordinary historical figures.
He brought a lot of this on himself.
Also, read my post: it is patently clear that I was not the one who was claiming ad nauseum before and after the election that things were going to get better - you guys were. And what has happened? Well, things have gotten significantly worse. (Again, please reference the Duke/UNC study that I already cited.)
Steve -
I am not mistaken about Guantanamo Bay. I KNOW it is not closed. Everyone in the world knows it is not closed. But that fact doesn't matter with Obama's supporters.
You see, what matters are intentions, good feelings, and the ability to project to others that you care, care so very deeply.
Obama told us way before the election that he was going to close Guantanamo. And we were told that closing it would make us safer. And he promised he would close it in a year.
Sooooo, why do these Muslims keep trying to set off bombs and kill Americans and any other unfortunate who happens to be around? It was advertised far and wide way back last spring that we were going to close Guantanamo.
Do you think they somehow missed the message that Guantanamo is going to be closed? Maybe they just don't know how much Obama cares? Perhaps they do not know that Obama spent part of his formative years in a Muslim country and sympathizes with their plight? Maybe they don't know how much he has apologized for America's poor behavior in the past and how hard he is working to right eight (hell, let's make it all 234) years of wrong???
I guess the REAL question is: Why aren't the Muslim extremists cutting him some slack?
Also left off the list was the shooting at the Seattle Jewish Federation on July 28, 2006. Naveed Afzal Haq shot six women, one fatally.
ReplyDeleteWell said, Deana!
ReplyDelete"Sooooo, why do these Muslims keep trying to set off bombs and kill Americans and any other unfortunate who happens to be around?"
ReplyDeleteProbably because Christians keep invading their countries and dropping bombs on them so that some Western multinationals can rake it in. Anyway, it's not a hard question to answer, I already did in my post and the turrists themselves have stated what motivates them.
America's foreign policy has been wretched and abominable, and there's much to apologize for, but Obama continues Bush's foreign policy nightmare regardless.
BTW, way to try to create some kind of association with Obama and "Muslims". What charming xenophobia.
Deana-That is a lot of verbiage for two facile post. Why do Muslim extremist still hate us? Seriously, you need to ask that one? Nobody ever argued that committed Islamic extremist were going to start loving America. The point that some people have been making is that by pursuing less self destructive policies the US could avoid encouraging further radicalization of Muslim populations.
ReplyDeleteWhether Obama is actually doing this or not is debatable, but even if he was pursuing an rational foreign policy, the threat from Islamic terrorism is not just going to evaporate overnight or really any time in the near future and he and those that supported him certainly never promised anything remotely like that.