Obama Blasts Giuliani's Remarks

(AP)  Democrat Barack Obama rebuked Republican White House rival Rudy Giuliani Wednesday for suggesting the United States could face another major terrorist attack if a Democrat is elected in 2008.

Obama, an Illinois senator, said the man who served as New York's mayor during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks should not be making the serious threat that faces the country into "the punch line of another political attack."

"Rudy Giuliani today has taken the politics of fear to a new low, and I believe Americans are ready to reject those kind of politics," Obama said in a statement. "America's mayor should know that when it comes to 9/11 and fighting terrorists, America is united. We know we can win this war based on shared purpose, not the same divisive politics that question your patriotism if you dare to question failed policies that have made us less secure."

Giuliani's comment Tuesday in New Hampshire echoed sentiments expressed by other Republicans in election time. The former mayor said if a Democrat is elected, "it sounds to me like we're going on defense. We're going to wave the white flag there."

But, he said, if a Republican wins, "we will remain on offense" trying to anticipate what the terrorists are going to do and "trying to stop them before they do it."

In 2004, President Bush was re-elected after claiming that Democratic Sen. John Kerry would waver in the face of terrorist threats. Vice President Dick Cheney suggested a vote for Kerry would risk another terrorist attack.

In the 2006 election, Bush political strategist Karl Rove accused Democrats of clinging to a pre-Sept. 11 mind-set, but Democrats came out on top in the majority of midterm races.

[hhkeller]

Guilani and Bush presided over 911.
Why would you want more of that samo samo.
Just a couple of Chickenhawk repubs.

[realpatriot1]

Since Rudi knows that any Republican will do more than any Democrat to combat terrorism he should explain what that strategy is. We're supposed to believe that he can do better just because he's Rudi?

After WTC was attacked the first time, what changes did he make? What contingency plans were made by his administration. We should not judge his handling of terrorism just on that day. Since he's sat the standard,what actions did he take between attacks that prepared for that day?

Sounds like Giuliani is hoping for another terrorist attack on US soil just to prove a point.

Those Republicans who screamed "treason!" when Reid claimed the US had lost the war should be screaming "treason!" over Giuliani's comments.

[victoriarum]

Any person that attempts to place fear into other is only fighting their own demons of darkness. By luring others to believe in their philosophy will only conjure up hate, anger and fear in these individuals; this is another form of mind control.

Each of us need to rise about this nonsense, remove themselves from their sinful ways, and walk a righteous path, and then you will see the light, not feeding off this propaganda.

God Bless

[pakaal]

"We did not cause 9/11 with our policies and our current policies are no more likely to draw an attack than if we followed a different course. Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah types do not care about our policies..."
Posted by fredgrad2000 at 08:09 PM : Apr 25, 2007

If American intervention in the Middle East for the past 50 years didn't cause 9/11, I guess we're left with the theory that it was planned by folks with no other reason than they don't like us, which to me is a much larger stretch of the imagination. I assume you recognize that the "East/West idealogical struggle" and the once-British-now-American Manifest Destiny ideology has for long been a point of irritance in developing countries; the idea of "superior Western values" etc.

While extremists may fervently hope for their efforts to result in their goals being realized (e.g. the Religious Right in this country seeding the legal system with people driven by religion before law in order to turn the U.S. into some form of Theocracy, or at least a Christianity-driven system), it's always the vast majority in the center who will ultimately decide which way a country is moved. The vast majority of Iraqis just want a stable system in place. In my opinion, as well as the opinion of Iraqis themselves, we are creating more problems by remaining there than we are solving. Every civilian killed is touted by the extremists as more murders committed by US troops, and every Iraqi killed becomes a martyr.

[fredgrad2000]

...I also disagree with many on the left on our enemy's motivation. We did not cause 9/11 with our policies and our current policies are no more likely to draw an attack than if we followed a different course. Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah types do not care about our policies, our policies are only propaganda to use to them, our policies have no impact on those extremists ideology or motivation. They will attack us because our presence in the mideast and support for existing regimes prevents them from accomplishing their goals of expanding dar al Islam in the 8th century sense and imposting a Taliban-style Caliphate across their ever expanding dar al Islam. Period. No Arab/Palestinian-Israeli peace treaty or discussions with Syria will change their motivation or intent. They will attack as long as they see us as a bulwark against their totalitarian vision; which I hope we always are and will always be. So to follow a policy that believes we can motivate them to "stand down" and puts us in a reactionary mode where we don't view it as INEVITABLE that they WILL try to attack us again and again, IS in my mind dangerous and does subject us to a greater danger of being hit 9/11-style again. NOT because someone is a Democrat or less patriotic, but because in my view, they don't understand the enemy.

[kansas1946]

Rudy, like most of the current Republican bunch, is a fear monger. Joe McCarthey used it in the fifties to attack American citizens. He used the communism boogey-man. Civil liberties were shredded at that time also, but McCarthey was finally shown for the rabid dog that he was. Now it is the "islamo-fascist" boogey-man that is being used to trample the constitution. The constitution will stand and history will view this administration as another ugly blot on our record. Barack Obama has more class than the president and all of the current Republicans running for that office, and for that matter, so does John Edwards.

[fredgrad2000]

...That in my mind is why I believe Guiliani may be right, not because the Dem candidates are less patriotic or less committed or less intelligent, but rather because their whole view of our enemy is wrong (completely different from what I view to be reality). I believe their policies will be driven by RESPONDING to another terrorist action rather than pre-emptively preventing it through elimination of any premptive policy of attack (not that all pre-emptive attacks are good - See Iraq - or that they should be first choice) and eliminating other key wartime tools such as the Patriot Act, the NSA program, and other data collection tools that civil liberties advocates are always screaming about.

[fredgrad2000]

ckcool192000 - I respect your opinion as you did Notblues, nice to see a thoughtful post rather than just namecalling. But you have hit the nail on the head as far a I can see it between the liberal Democrats who control congress now and myself and the mainstream GOP (please don't lump me in with Cheney and Rumsfeld). You, like the Dems in Congress do not view this as a "war" - it appears that you all share the belief this is like the war on drugs - a law enforcement operation against criminals, not a war to be fought by the military. Due to who supports the radical Islamofascist ideology and where these terrorists conduct their planning and training, this war MUST have a largely military and intelligence (not law enforcement) component. We must be on offense against them (not perpetually and not in misadventures) BEFORE they strike and we must use all of our weapons (things like the NSA program and Patriot Act that we know from their own words the Dem Congress would like to significantly curtail and/or end). I believe this is a real war against an ideology as dangerous as Communism or Naziism and that we must use all our tools.

[fredgrad2000]

gkc99 - are you even from NYC!? No native New Yorker would ever say something so stupid. NYC is 20x better, safer, and more prosperous today than it was when Dumb-a$$ Dinkins left office. "Can't protect a Columbia student from rape"? That's ridiculous, no one can protect everyone...but crime of all types and vagrancy decreased monumentally under Guiliani's watch.