Fearmongering Rudy gets it very wrong on Saddam Hussein and Iraq

[flpoljunkie]

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani had no truck with that sort of fancy footwork. He confronted the Iraq question with his trademark bulldozer bluntness -- and a seeming inability to draw important distinctions.

"It's unthinkable that you would leave Saddam Hussein in charge of Iraq and be able to fight the war on terror," he said. No matter that Iraq wasn't part of the 9/11 attacks and didn't have operatives ties with Al Qaeda. Giuliani, again, rolled it all into one ball.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/06/06/essential_qualities/

Good for the Boston Globe's Scot Lehigh for pointing out the idiocy of Giuliani's statement, but where is the rest of the liberal media on this obvious Giuliani blooper*?

* blooper-embarrassing error (In this case, one which Bush and Cheney have repeated ad nauseum, and with the cowed liberal media's blessing)

[watercolors]

1. He is also a mental case

not much better than the idiot in charge now. I can't imagine anyone backing him!

[flpoljunkie]

2. Someone also needs to tell Romney Saddam did not deny inspectors or refuse to disclose sites

Conason feels the "public is no longer fooled" but one is tempted to wonder why the Washington pundits continue to let Republicans get away with this lie.

Saddam Chose to Deny Inspectors"

Bush repeated this bald-faced lie recently. The cowering press still lets him get away with it, but the public is no longer fooled.

by Joe Conason

And when Thomas reminded him that she had asked about Iraq, he (Bush) said, "I also saw a threat in Iraq. I was hoping to solve this problem diplomatically. That's why I went to the Security Council; that's why it was important to pass 1441, which was unanimously passed. And the world said, disarm, disclose, or face serious consequences -- and therefore, we worked with the world, we worked to make sure that Saddam Hussein heard the message of the world. And when he chose to deny inspectors, when he chose not to disclose , then I had the difficult decision to make to remove him. And we did, and the world is safer for it."

The official transcript notes "laughter" at that moment.

What was so funny? Were her colleagues laughing at Thomas, whose monopoly on testicular fortitude has shamed them all for so long? In the days that followed, the bully boys of the right-wing media enthusiastically abused Thomas, which was predictable enough. But have the rest of the reporters in the press room become so accustomed to presidential prevarication that they literally cannot hear a stunning falsehood that is repeated over and over again?

For the third time since the war began three years ago, Bush had falsely claimed that Saddam refused the U.N. weapons inspections mandated by the Security Council. For the third time, he had denied a reality witnessed by the entire world during the four months when those inspectors, under the direction of Hans Blix, traveled Iraq searching fruitlessly for weapons of mass destruction that, as we now know for certain, were not there.

But forget about whether the weapons were there for a moment. The inspectors definitely went to Iraq. They left only because the United States warned them to get out before the bombs started to fall on March 19, 2003. But for some reason the president of the United States keeps saying -- in public and on the record -- that the inspectors weren't there.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2006/03/31/bush_li... /

Romney last night:

Governor Romney, I wanted to start by asking you a question on which every American has formed an opinion. We’ve lost 3,400 troops; civilian casualties are even higher, and the Iraqi government does not appear ready to provide for the security of its own country. Knowing everything you know right now, was it a mistake for us to invade Iraq?

MR. ROMNEY: Well, the question is kind of a non sequitur, if you will, and what I mean by that — or a null set. And that is that if you’re saying let’s turn back the clock, and Saddam Hussein had opened up his country to IAEA inspectors, and they’d come in and they’d found that there were no weapons of mass destruction, had Saddam Hussein, therefore, not violated United Nations resolutions, we wouldn’t be in the conflict we’re in./i] But he didn’t do those things, and we knew what we knew at the point we made the decision to get in. I supported the president’s decision based on what we knew at that time. I think we were underprepared and underplanned for what came after we knocked down Saddam Hussein.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/05/us/politics/05cnd-transcript.html?pagewanted=all

[okoboji]

4. last night after the debate on CNN

Paul Begala, brought up this very issue. He told them how there were 250 inspectors in the country lead by Hans all the way up to March 17 when Bush called them and told them to get out, so his war could start. I thought Paul was going to strangle the other two conservatives because they kept saying the opposite. He even looked to Anderson Cooper, to jump in and help him, but he didn't.

[flpoljunkie]

6. Yes, I posted about this last night before I heard Begala, and I was thrilled he brought it up.

The conservatives were so shocked and upset that Begala brought it up, they tried to drown him out. Anderson Cooper sat there, clueless--uttering not a word in response to Begala's truth talking.

[okoboji]

3. the "mental case" issue

should worry us all, because those crazy bastards seem to like that and may elect him in a heart beat.

Question is, who's crazier? Giuliani or McCain

[JoePhilly]

5. Rudy's approach is to try to SOUND presidential ...

If you listen, he rarely says anything real ... but the candence in his voice is intended to sound as if whatever he just said was really important. When you examine what he says, its junk.

[flpoljunkie]

7. He's selling fear and "unfettered free enterprise," and could be dangerous, if he gets the nod.

However, he has a big hurdle from the Richard Lands, Catholic bishops, James Dobsons, and their ilk who are determined to take him down.