As much as I hate to refer to or promote cable “news”, these Special Comments from Keith Olbermann’s show are as patriotic and historically poignant as anything I’ve ever witnessed in the public speaking arena. It’s a slice of Howard Beale without the dementia. Download this installment at Crooks and Liars.
Rudi Giuliani: America will be safer with a Republican president…the Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us…never, ever again will this country be on defense, waiting for terrorists to attack us, if I have anything to say about it. And make no mistake, the Democrats want to put us back on defense. (Campaign Speech)
Keith Olbermann: There is no room for this. This is terrorism itself, dressed up as counterterrorism. It is not warning, but bullying, substituted for the political discourse now absolutely essential to this country‘s survival and the freedom of its people. No Democrat has said words like these. None has ever campaigned on the Republicans‘ flat-footedness of September 11, 2001. None has the requisite irresponsible, all-consuming ambition. None is willing to say, “I accuse,” rather than recognize that, to some degree, all of us share responsibility for our collective stupor.
And if it is somehow insufficient that it is morally, spiritually, and politically wrong to screech as Mr. Giuliani has screeched, there is also this: that gaping hole in Mr. Giuliani‘s argument of “Republicans equal life, Democrats equal death.” Not only have the Republicans not lived up to their babbling on this subject, but, last fall, the electorate called them on it, as doubtless they would call you on it, Mr. Giuliani. Repeat: Go beyond Mr. Bush‘s rhetorical calamities of 2006. Become the candidate who runs on the “Vote for me or die” platform. Do a Joe McCarthy. Do a Lyndon Johnson. Do a Robespierre. Only, if you choose so to do, do not come back surprised, nor remorseful, if the voters remind you that terror is not just a matter of casualties. It is just as certainly a matter of the promulgation of fear.
Claim a difference between the parties on the voters‘ chances of survival and you do Osama bin Laden‘s work for him. (Transcript)
Sad to say, but I think Giuliani’s comments are just the start. Hell, the Newtster also blamed the Va Tech massacre on liberalism, and Big Dick Cheney is blaming our woes on Iraq on the undercutting words of the dems in congress.
“No Democrat has said words like these.” Really? What about Howard Dean suggesting that George W. Bush knew about 9-11 ahead of time? Was there any room for that?
What was Howard Dean in charge of when he said it? Anything at the federal level? This is the Senate Majority Leader we’re talking about here, with a Democratic caucus that is rock solid on the issue.
Are you just lumping anyone and everyone into the mix here? I wonder if Jimmy Carter can be quoted also…
Ron – I think the game right now, at least every top GOP candidate at the moment thinks so, is to spread out the chum line as thick as possible…lock up the “everyone’s a pussy but me”-redneck voters early, then focus on the evangelicals.
Rudy and McCain are attempting to one-up each other with the rah-rah this week.
I really hate that 2008 is already being exploited to fill up programming hours…it really sucks. I know about every candidate on both sides, and I’m sick of hearing about every single one of them. Unless Obama rescues a baby from a burning house anytime soon, I’m keeping my eyes focused on Iraq and Congress. Canceling my subscription to the NYTimes (whoring too much space each day on the campaigns IMHO)…Olbermann just has those moments every so often that cannot be ignored, and this was one of them!
Howard Dean was not in charge of any more or less than Rudy Giuliani is. Both were/are simply presidential candidates. The point is, Democrats have been bashing Republicans on the war for years, yet they get upset when the Republicans counter-punch. Both sides need to grow up and stop being cry-babies.
The war is a clusterfuck and has been from the beginning. That’s not on Democrats to apologize for, nor is it their job to hold back criticism of GOP POLICY…which is the key difference here.
When Democrats criticize Republicans on the war, they are attacking the policy. Harry Reid isn’t standing up and saying Bush is stupid or Cheney isn’t playing with a full deck. He criticizes the policy.
What Rudy does here is not about criticism of policy (Dems haven’t had any post-9/11 power to even enact one on homeland security), it’s just the standard brand of fear mongering that is used by all the terrorists out there, hoping to get people afraid enough do what they’re told.
Big difference between, “If you vote for the other guy, you’re voting in approval of (insert anything here, a war, abortion, less money for schools, etc)” -and- “If you vote for the other guy, you might end up dead”
If you vote for Republicans, aren’t you voting for tax cuts, gun-rights, tougher policy on crime, and more illegal immigration? If you vote for Democrats, aren’t you voting for abortion, tax hikes, and more illegal immigration? Saying so is not being mean, it’s just the way it is.
If you vote for Democrats, you are voting for retreating from Iraq. If you vote for retreating from Iraq, you are voting for al-Qaeda victory. If you vote for al-Qaeda victory, you may end up dead. You can disagree with these points if you want, but there’s no difference between saying these things and saying the other things I mentioned previously.
You’re talking about policies in #7. A Democratic policy isn’t “Make sure our people die in terrorist attacks”.
The market isn’t cornered on that skill set. Just like people of all political persuasions can tune a piano, build software programs and fire a rifle in combat…it is a fact that this whole fantasy the right-wing has promoted about Republicans somehow are better at the job of making sure we’re not attacked on our homeland…
Even with the GOP’s bullshit on “responsibility for 9/11” (tell me that if it happened on a Democratic President’s time, Rush Limbaugh wouldn’t be saying the exact opposite of what he says about it now…you know he would)…we’ve been pissing off a LOT of people these past few years.
“If you vote for an al-Qaeda victory”…that’s pretty funny. The shelf life on it expired late in 2005, but…what else can the GOP run on?
I don’t agree with the way the Republicans are conducting the war on terror either, but neither do I agree with the way the Democrats are/would conduct it. Both sides want to open the borders to terrorists and everybody else, and neither side is willing to fight the war to win it. Instead, all they want to do is gain political capital from it.
If voting Democrats = retreating from Iraq = al-Qaeda victory = you may end up dead, then if you vote for Democrats you may end up dead. In that sense, ending up dead is a Democrat policy 😉
Guilaini’s argument that only a Republican can keep te US safe from terrorists seems pretty silly when you consider that the worst terrorist attack in US history occurred on Bus’s watch. Even if you don’t blame Bush for letting the attack happen, the fact that he was president at the time proves that Republicans do not have some magic potion to stop all terrorist attacks.
Plus, the fiasco in the aftermath of Katrina shows that Republicans are not very good at dealing with natural dissasters, why would anyone expect them to do a better job with a man made dissaster.
At this point you also have to wonder if the Republicans can even effectively wage a war in the event that the US is attacked and needs to retaliate, the results in Iraq lead me to beleive that they cannot.
If your issues are gay flag burners who want abortions while married, then the Republican party is for you, as for me I would rather have a party that can govern effectively, and right now that seems to be the Democratic party.
Well said karl – – – I’m reading ‘Ghost Wars’ right now, and learning a lot about the history of all this…al-Qaeda, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the CIA…I don’t think that the right-wing really cares about this history at all. They dumb everything down. Now they’re backing President Bush, like he has the slightest clue of what he’s doing, done…talk about going down with the ship! The wingnuts are those musicians who were still playing as the Titanic continued to sink. They’ll be clutching their instruments in the water pretty soon…no doubt, will still try to get some sound out of them…20 years from now, a couple will survive and dry out, and we’ll have more ‘Swift Boat’ types.
The bold portion is prejudicial, as you nor I have even been privy to what this would actually entail and result in. Basically you’re saying that regardless of what a Democrat does, you’re inclined to disagree solely on the basis of political affiliation.
If the strongest military in the world cannot subdue Iraq, then it’s rather foolish to assume that al-Qaeda could do any better with our country, which is the size of Iraq times…(?)maybe 75?
It’s the fear mongering all the time that even makes something like that seem possible. Typical of our country as well to get scared like this…in the 80s, there were a dozen or so Americans killed in hijackings, while thousands died outside the country of natural causes, illness, etc…that ratio aside, the hijackings were what cut our spending for vacation travel outside the country in half.
We’re a nation that accepts rather easily as truth, that when a terrorist from abroad states as a goal that he wants us to be afraid, our job is to give him what he wants. In the case of Iraq, Osama bin Laden wanted precisely what we’ve done…to get stuck in a war similar in some ways to what the Soviets had to deal with in Afghanistan in the 80s. Unwinable, draining in many ways, and only continued because of national pride.