When former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani entered the presidential race last year, he was immediately hailed as the Hero of 9/11 who would lead the GOP to victory. But that was before people actually got a look at the man behind the mask - at the cronyism, the authoritarianism, the petty vengeance and the multiple messy divorces, not to mention his complete inability to form a sentence without throwing in a 9/11 reference or three. With voters turning away in droves, his campaign performed a swan dive of biblical proportions, spending some $50 million without picking up a single delegate.
So he has naturally been tapped to shill for John McCain on national-security issues.
The irony is just too delicious. Giuliani's claim of anything at all to do with national security is based only on the many photos of him striding manfully through the ashes on 9/11. After the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, he located the city's emergency command center at 7 WTC, ignoring all his advisers who urged him to put it someplace less of a target.
This morning, Giuliani bashed Barack Obama in a media conference call, saying the presumptive Democratic nominee's emphasis on going after accused terrorists with laws (as we did after the 1993 WTC attack) rather than bombs is somehow weak. "For Senator Obama to suggest '93 is the best example of how to deal with this is a good example of him wanting to go on defense," he said.
The Obama campaign wasted no time striking back, unearthing a quote supporting the candidate's position. Back in 1994, when the plotters of the first Trade Center attack were convicted and sent to prison, someone said that the verdict "demonstrates that New Yorkers won't meet violence with violence, but with a far greater weapon - the law."
The person who said that? None other than Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Ouch. And so every time Giuliani opens his mouth in McCain's service, people will remember just why he crashed and burned in the Republican primaries. Hopefully, they will also wonder how good a candidate McCain can possibly be if this is the guy who fronts for him.
No comments:
Post a Comment