Another reason to support Rudy

Anyone that the Angry Left hates this much must be worth voting for...

Hating Rudy
The Angry Left finds a new target
Opinion Journal

"Rudy Giuliani [is] probably the most underqualified man since George Bush to seek the presidency," Sen. Joe Biden declared during Tuesday's Democratic debate in Philadelphia. "There's only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun and a verb and 9/11."

The crowd roared with laughter, and liberal blogger John Marshall wrote, "Okay, I may have to endorse Biden after this tear against Rudy."

With the end of the dreaded Bush era approaching, Rudy Giuliani has slowly begun to supplant the president as the leading hate figure among liberals, a reality that will only help Mr. Giuliani in his efforts to overcome his differences with conservatives and win the Republican nomination.

Within the past month, The New Republic, The Nation, and The Washington Monthly have all run anti-Giuliani cover stories, with the last one declaring that, "as president, Giuliani would grab even more executive power than Bush and Cheney."

Quote of the Day

"In the debate Tuesday, [Rudy Giuliani ] turned an attack from Mitt Romney on his opposition to the line-item veto into an attack on Romney's honesty, an attack on the Clintons, and a chance to boast about his strict constructionist approach to the Constitution. In the cramped, sound-bite-only debate context, the only way he could have achieved more is if he'd done all of this while making an omelet."

- John Dickerson, writing for Slate.com

Rudy's Debating Secret
Why Giuliani Keeps Trouncing His Opponents When They Go Head To Head
Politics for Slate

The Republican presidential candidates held seven debates, and Rudy Giuliani has dominated almost every one. He does so, in part, by showing an awesome command of detail, citing facts about everything from bridge reconstruction in New York to the to the percentage decline n tax revenues when capital-gains tax rates have changed. He boasts about having studied Senate bills that the senators running in either party haven't even read. When he is asked to comment about Supreme Court rulings, his staff has to wait until he's read the opinions. He's also shown in the debates that he can take advantage of an opportune moment, making quick-witted jokes about the lightening that interrupted one of his answers or pouncing on Ron Paul when he suggested Osama Bin Laden initiated his attacks on America because of our presence in the Middle East.

Debates are artificial and phony, yet Giuliani has used them well because his stage performance reinforces his strengths. He comes off as a guy in control, bursting with snappy competence. Rudy wants you to know that he has read the brief, knows the facts, and could organize an orderly evacuation of the building if someone yelled "fire." When voters see him in command on stage, it's probable that they are reminded of his calm public face after 9/11 attacks. The strong performance also help Giuliani's argument that he can beat Hillary Clinton. She's a polished and effective debater too. He's showing he can match her.

But one secret to Giuliani's debate success is that he doesn't mind fudging all of those facts he cites. In the Tuesday debate, Giuliani asserted once again that he had passed 23 new tax cuts as New York mayor. This is an exaggeration. According to FactCheck.org and Politifact.com, he can rightly claim credit for about 14 of those cuts. One of the largest cuts for which he claims credit he initially opposed for five months before changing his position. He also claims to have added more cops in New York than he actually did and cherry-picks data to support inflated claims about the number of adoptions during his tenure. After the Tuesday debate, FactCheck.org found a host of new faulty claims.

Giuliani was also wrong, or at least oversimplifying matters, in one of his most dramatic debate moments. When Ron Paul suggested that the United States' actions in the Middle East might have motivated Bin Laden and the 9/11 attackers, Giuliani jumped on him, demanding that he withdraw such an outrageous claim. It was great theater but Paul was right, according to Bin Laden's own writings.

Giuliani doesn't need to exagerate

What's up with this? His actual record is pretty impressive. Why is he taking credit for things he didn't do when, frankly, increasing the police force by 10% while consolidating the three agencies to improve costs is impressive enough?

Cop-Counting Cop-Out
Giuliani's wrong when he claims to have added 12,000 new NYC cops while he was major.
Fact Check.org

On his Web site, Rudy Giuliani claims that he grew New York City's police force by 12,000 officers between his inauguration as mayor in January 1994 and mid-2000. That's just not true. Most of the cops he's counting - 7,100 to be exact - were already housing or transit police who were simply folded into the New York Police Department. The merger of the departments didn't decrease the number of police in the city at all.

The actual increase in the size of the force was about 3,600, or about 10 percent, during the period Giuliani pinpoints. And Giuliani doesn't mention that the cost of hiring about 3,500 of the officers was partially covered by the federal government under President Bill Clinton.

On another matter, we question Giuliani's claim that on Sept. 11, 2001, he had a new command center "up and running within half an hour" of being forced to evacuate his primary center near the World Trade Center. In his 2002 book, "Leadership," he says that "we arrived about noon" at the backup site, which was two-and-a-half hours after the evacuation.

No way...

Not going to happen. As much as they may hate Rudy, they hate Hillary even worse. They know that doing this will only ensure her victory and if there's something worse to them than a Republican who's moderately pro-choice it's a Democrat who's radically pro-choice.

Christian Conservatives Consider Third-Party Effort
The Caucus for The New York Times

Alarmed at the chance that the Republican party might pick Rudolph Giuliani as its presidential nominee despite his support for abortion rights, a coalition to back a third-party candidate in an attempt to stop him.

The group making the threat, which came together Saturday in Salt Lake City during a break-away gathering during a meeting of the secretive Council for National Policy, includes Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family, who is perhaps the most influential of the group, as well as Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, the direct mail pioneer Richard Viguerie and dozens of other politically-oriented conservative Christians, participants said. Almost everyone present expressed support for a written resolution that "if the Republican Party nominates a pro-abortion candidate we will consider running a third party candidate."

The participants spoke on condition of anonymity because the both the Council for National Policy and the smaller meeting were secret, but they said members of the intend to publicize its resolution. These participants said the group chose the qualified term "consider" because they have not yet identified an alternative third party candidate, but the group was largely united in its plans to bolt the party if Mr. Giuliani became the candidate.

A revolt of Christian conservative leaders could be a significant setback to the Giuliani campaign because white evangelical Protestants make up a major portion of the Republican primary voters. But the threat is risky for the credibility of the Christian conservative movement as well. Some of its usual grass-roots supporters could still choose to support even a pro-choice Republican like Mr. Giuliani, either because they are worried about war, terrorism, or other issues.

Is he kidding?

"Is there any major presidential candidate who has espoused a view anywhere near this radical or controversial?"

Did this guy really just ask that? How about Barack Obama's stance that if the U.S. knew that genocide would result from a withdrawal of troops from Iraq, he'd still go ahead and pull them out anywhere? Or how about Dodd's stance that the solution in Iraq is U.S. sanctioned ethnic cleansing? Perhaps Obama's view that the U.S. should invade an ally? Just asking...

Giuliani's proposal for endless Middle East wars on behalf on Israel
Unclaimed Territory - Salon

In London this week, Rudy Giuliani proposed what is probably the single most extremist policy of any major presidential candidate, certainly this year and perhaps in many years:

Rudy Giuliani talked tough on Iran yesterday, proposed to expand to NATO to include Israel and warned that if Iran's leaders go ahead with their goal to be a nuclear power "we will prevent it, or we will set them back five or 10 years."...

While Giuliani did not explicitly addresses the implications for Iran of adding Israel to NATO in his speech, his aides later highlighted a 2006 Heritage Foundation paper by Nile Gardiner, a former Thatcher aide who was announced as a new Giuliani adviser yesterday.

That step would "leave the mullahs with no illusions about the West's determination to respond to Iran's strategic threat to the region," Gardiner wrote. "Any nuclear or conventional attack on Israel, be it direct or through proxies such as Hezbollah or other terrorist groups, would be met by a cataclysmic response from the West."

Adding Israel to NATO has been opposed by France and some other European nations in the past, largely because it would entangle the alliance in the Middle East.

Hillary's campaign "engaged in the politics of personal destruction"

Hillary Clinton has fired off some hypocrisy. A senior advisor took aim at Rudy Giuliani's personal life - namely his previous failed marriages and the stained relationships he has with his children. Despite a pledge to run a clean campaign and neither engage in personal attacks nor condone them among allies, Senator Clinton is refusing to condemn Tom Vilsack's personal attacks against Mayor Giuliani. Is there anyone, anywhere who's surprised?

Getting Personal: Clinton Ally Rips Giuliani
ABC News

Despite Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton's longtime state opposition to "the politics of personal destruction," one of her top advisers has attacked the personal life of Republican presidential front-runner Rudy Giuliani.

Though this may be the first such high-profile attack on the personal life of a presidential hopeful launched in this highly competitive election season, the New York senator notably refused to distance herself from the comments.

The attack come in an interview on NY1, when former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, a top Clinton presidential campaign advisor, laughed when an interviewer discussed the prospect of Giuliani as the GOP presidential nominee.

Asked what was so funny, Vilsack replied, "There's a lot that the rest of the country's going to get to know about Mayor Giuliani that the folks in New York City know, but the rest of the nation doesn't know."

Daniel Gross continues the insurance claim denial myth

Daniel Gross, writing over at Slate, continues the myth that insurance companies routinely deny legitimate claims. This came to a head most clearly in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when many individuals who had chosen not to buy flood insurance were surprised that they had no insurance to cover their loss when a flood destroyed their homes.

Insurance is a contract and it's a clearly legally enforceable contract. Whatever Mr. Gross might thing, all the lawmakers in the world won't let you get out of having to make a payment when it's legally required. Also, most lawyers who do insurance claims work do not charge hourly rates; they receive a percentage of the end settlement which usually is about triple what the company originally would have to pay out.

This, then, brings about a balance to what Mr. Gross describes as an insurance company's "powerful motivations not to pay legitimate claims" - the court system. Failing to pay a legitimate claim is a very easy case to bring to court and is a very easy case to win. An insurance company stands to lose, on average, about triple what they would normally pay out - not including their own legal fees - when a claim is incorrectly denied. As powerful as Mr. Gross's "powerful motivation" may be for insurance companies to act unethically and immorally, the compulsion of the government is much stronger still.

Besides, a huge number of health insurance companies - particularly in Michigan - are non-profits. If someone is really concerned about the profit motive and they're in Michigan, just go to Blue Cross or M-Care as both are non-profit companies.

I Can Get It for You Retail
Rudy Giuliani's health-care plan is great for insurance companies
Slate

Last week, Rudy Giuliani tried to add some domestic policy substance to his campaign by unveiling a health-care reform plan. His proposal, as Harvard economist Greg Mankiw noted, "sounds remarkable similar to the Bush health plan." In this year's State of the Union, President George W. Bush proposed a $15,000 standard deduction for health insurance, claiming a family of four making $60,000 would receive a $4,500 tax break to buy health insurance on its own. Giuliani would similarly offer a deduction of up to $15,000, which can be claimed by families that buy their own insurance. And, the New York Times credulously noted, "the money left over, he said, could be put into a 'health savings account' to be used to pay for deductibles or other uncovered medical expenses."

The time has long passed to be shocked by the ignorance that the press, many professional economists, and politicians show about the market for health insurance. After all, virtually all of them have their insurance paid for by a university, the government, or a Fortune 500 company. It never seems to have crossed the mind of President Bush, or Rudy Giuliani, or the Times reporters who uncritically noted his comments, how much insurance actually costs. (Or, in Giuliani's case, precisely which insurance companies are salivating over the prospect of insuring a 63-year-old, thrice-married cancer survivor.) The Kaiser Foundation found that in 2006, the average family premium was $11,480. (I've been buying my own - and my family's - health insurance for most of the last 14 years and claiming the tax deduction already available to self-employed people for the premiums. The policy I gave up when I joined Newsweek last month costs about $8,300 a year.)

Blogger Ezra Klein and my Slate colleague Timothy Noah have already weighed in on the various deficiencies of the Giuliani plan, and, by analogy, of the Bush plan. But I'd like to focus on another angle. For these proposals, which are championed by many who claim to have a natural sympathy for business, involve an understanding of business customer-supplier relationships doesn't seem realistic.

What Southeastern Asian Communists? Oh, these!

Fred Kaplan wrote up a hack-job piece in Slate attacking Rudy Guiliani's new foreign policy missive. Most of Kaplan's stuff is simple rubbish, a little of it has a couple good points but is predominantly a "there's no detail here." The following exchange, though, is most striking:

"America must remember one of the lessons of the Vietnam War...Many historians today believe that by about 1972 we and our South Vietnamese partners had succeeded in defeating the Vietcong insurgency and in setting South Vietnam on a path to political self-sufficiency. But America then withdrew its support, allowing the communist North to conquer the South. The consequences were dire, and not only in Vietnam: numerous deaths in places such as the killing fields of Cambodia, a newly energized and expansionist Soviet Union, and a weaker America."

Does he really believe this? What books have his advisers been giving him? The "South Vietnamese partners" were as corrupt and illegitimate as they come. The Khmer Rouge came to power amid a political vacuum that was spawned as much by Nixon's secret bombing of Cambodia as by anything else. As for the "expansionist" Soviet Union, things didn't end very well for the Moscow Politburo. America, it is now widely agreed, was weakened by the Vietnam War, not by its termination. And, by the way, how about that "domino theory"? You'd think from his description that Southeast Asia has subsequently all gone Communist.

The idea that the primary reason for the ascendancy of the Khmer Rouge was due to a power vacuum is self-evident; however, the power vacuum existed when the U.S. removed several hundred thousand troops. That was the real cause of the vacuum, not the bombing of Cambodia.

More importantly, though: I hate to break it to Fred Kaplan, but Southeast Asia pretty much did go entirely Communist. Vietnam became Communist, which meant Communists in Laos and Cambodia. Malaysia and Burma were already Communist at the time and Thailand spent the 70's and the early 80's fighting off Communist rebels. Obviously, China was already Communist. What part of mainland Southeast Asia is he talking about? That pretty much covers it. I must be missing this liberal democratic paradise which flourished in Southeast Asia after we abandoned it.

He goes on for four long pages of further drivel which really isn't worth the space to critique it but, be assured, it's more of the same.

Good thing the UFOA was there to comment

In an article from the AP, Libby Quaid does a great job digging up quotes about Rudy Giuliani. A quick phone call to the UFOA - a union group which has a long-standing pro-Democrat and anti-Republican stances - and she got the two quotes she needed for her article. Nice work!

Giuliani: I Misspoke About Ground Zero
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani said Friday that he misspoke when he said he spent as much time, if not more, at ground zero exposed to the same health risks as workers combing the site after the Sept. 11 attacks.

"I think I could have said it better," he told nationally syndicated radio host Mike Gallagher. "You know, what I was saying was, 'I'm there with you.'"

The former New York mayor struck a nerve with firefighters and police officers when he said Thursday in Cincinnati that he was at ground zero "as often, if not more, than most of the workers."

"I was there working with them. I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense, I'm one of them," he told reporters at a Los Angeles Dodgers-Cincinnati Reds baseball game.

Fire and police officials responded angrily, saying Giuliani did not do the same work as those involved in the rescue, recovery and cleanup from the 2001 terrorist attacks, which left many workers sick and injured.

"I have a real problem with that statement," said Battalion Chief John McDonnell, head of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association in New York. "I think he's really grasping and trying to justify his previous attempts to portray himself as the hero of 9/11."

This isn't required

It's sad to see Rudy Giuliani betray his moderate roots while trying to, apparently, imitate Mitt Romney. I’m just hoping that this is a bit of political posturing, which I was really hoping Mayor Giuliani would be above. We’ll see how it goes. He’s still the most pro-choice of the group but these sorts of statements are troublesome.

Giuliani continues his conservative shift
Boston Globe

Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani continues to discard the moderate and liberal positions of his past. The latest is civil unions for same-sex couples, which the Republican presidential candidate has been backing away from in recent months.

A campaign aide told the Globe this weekend that Giuliani favors a much more modest set of rights for gay partners than civil union laws in effect in four states offer.

Giuliani has described himself as a backer of civil unions and is frequently described that way in news reports. But he began distancing himself from civil unions in late April, when his campaign told The New York Sun that New Hampshire's new law goes too far because it is "the equivalent of marriage," which he has always opposed for gays.

Giuliani's aides offered little explanation of what specific rights he would support for same-sex couples.