This week that most vile of creatures slithering through American politics, Rudy “a noun, a verb and 9/11” Giuliani, emerged from his hole once again to strike with invective at President Barack Obama. It would be easy to bash Giuliani for the sad, pathetic creature that he is.
Wayne Barrett of the New York Daily News, who used his reporter’s files on Giuliani to write the definitive book, “Rudy: An Investigative Biography,” has already written the most thorough takedown of this modern-day Joe McCarthy wannabe for his despicable antics. Wayne Barrett: What Rudy Giuliani knows about love — a response to his ‘doesn’t love America’ critique of Obama.
Giuliani crawled out of his hole at a campaign event for “Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage their Midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin,” as Charles Pierce aptly describes him.
The Washington Post, which earlier this month was heralding “the Scott Walker surge” after a campaign event in Iowa, today calls the candidate from Koch “spineless” for not disassociating himself from Giuliani’s scurrilous comments, Scott Walker’s spineless silence, and the Post’s Dana Milbank flat-out says Scott Walker’s cowardice should disqualify him from the presidency:
What Rudy Giuliani did this week was stupid.
What Scott Walker did ought to disqualify him as a serious presidential contender.
Walker, just a few seats away, said . . . nothing. Asked the next morning on CNBC about Giuliani’s words, the Republican presidential aspirant was spineless: “The mayor can speak for himself. I’m not going to comment on what the president thinks or not. He can speak for himself as well. I’ll tell you, I love America, and I think there are plenty of people — Democrat, Republican, independent, everyone in between — who love this country.”
But did he agree with Giuliani? “I’m in New York,” Walker demurred. “I’m used to people saying things that are aggressive out there.”
This is what’s alarming about the Giuliani affair. There will always be people on the fringe who say outrageous things (and Giuliani, once a respected public servant, has sadly joined the nutters as he questioned the president’s patriotism even while claiming he was doing no such thing). But to have a civilized debate, it’s necessary for public officials to disown such beyond-the-pale rhetoric. And Walker failed that fundamental test of leadership.
Say what you want about John McCain — and I regularly do — when he ran for president in 2008 and some nutty woman suggested Barack Obama “is an Arab” (because FAUX News had convinced her that Obama was a secret Muslim Marxist born in Kenya), John McCain did the one and only semi-decent thing he has ever done in his political career and told this nutty woman “”No ma’am, he’s a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues.” McCain Responds to “Arab” Epithet at Rally: “Obama a Decent Family Man”. Some in the audience booed him.
Of course, “McCain failed to address the woman’s unabashed bigotry or the incidents of anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and anti-African American bigotry that had become an increasingly regular feature of GOP rallies” in the 2008 election. It has only grown worse since.
Islamophobic hatred of Muslims — real or imagined — from the Ground Zero Mosque Controversy, to Bill O’Rielly calling for a a ‘Holy War’ with ISIS has become a regular feature on FAUX News and within the GOP. Bigotry, racism and hatred define Rudy Giuliani and the modern-day GOP.
Vietnam war draft dodger rudy giuliani sez President Obama doesn’t love america because he was raised “different” then rudy was raised. This is true! Young Obama was raised by his grand father who was a normandy veteran of world war 2 as was his uncle. Rudy’s father was a convicted felon with organized crime and pointed this out to his draft board to avoid serving in world war 2 as rudy’s 5 uncles avoided service too! Rudy giuliani loves ameriKKKa the way adolf hitler loved nazi germany!
“…Midwest [Koch] subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin…”
Don’t you lefties get tired of using the same old phrase over and over again? Surely you are creative enough to mix it up up a little rather than always using the “subsidiary formerly known as” phrase over and over and over. I realize you are trying to comfort yourselves over the GOP controlling those states, but just for the sake of readability, try some new phrases.
As to the article itself: I have noticed for years that the left has no end of advice for the GOP on how it should run it’s affairs. The advice is always humorous because it is couched in terms of dire warnings about what will happen if that advice is not followed. This time, it is different. The suggested disqualification is only a lead-in to AZBlueMeanie having an opportunity to accuse the GOP of being filled with “Bigotry, racism and hatred”. I find that ironic because I find more bigotry and hatred in the writings of some of the authors on this blog than I have ever seen, heard or read from either Party. I hate having to say that, but sometimes the levels of vitriol, anger and profanity found here are off the scale.
Too bad…it’s a good blog otherwise.
….” I find that ironic because I find more bigotry and hatred in the writings of some of the authors on this blog than I have ever seen, heard or read from either Party. I hate having to say that, but sometimes the levels of vitriol, anger and profanity found here are off the scale.”
Is not the river of irony thick here Steve? And it gently flows right over their heads.
I find myself laughing aloud at many of the posts. That is one of the reason I read this blog. And this screed is a good example. First it was about Walker not having gone to college. Now they want him to step in to someone else’s mud puddle so they can cry “dirty”! Such substance! Hilarious! He must truly scare them.