Topic: Presidential Campaign 2008
Rudy Giuliani: The Next George W. Bush A profile of the leading pre-primary Republican candidate for the White House in 2008. This is the first of a series of pre-primary articles on the Republican and Democratic candidates for President in 2008.by Walt Thiessen
(Libertarian)
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Rudy Giuliani is attempting to become the first (and only) candidate to gain a nomination for high office based primarily on the horrid events of 9/11. At every campaign event where he speaks he pounds the 9/11 drum, because he knows that every time he does it, he'll get a standing ovation for it.
It's unclear how far Giuliani can take his campaign by repeatedly emphasizing 9/11 to remind everyone of the role he played on TV that unhappy day, but so far he's been successful in playing that card. He leads virtually every poll in the country among candidates for the Republican nomination. After him, there's little agreement about who is where on the list.
Giuliani has an uphill battle when it comes to winning over the right wing of the Republican Party given his stands on gun control, abortion, and gay marriage. So far, whenever he get into a tight spot with that crowd, he jumps back to 9/11 and wins the applause again. It remains to be seen how long that approach will continue to be effective.
So let's get to our focus issues.
Iraq
At the 2004 Republican Convention, Aug 30, 2004, Rudy Giuliani said:
"Saddam, who supported global terrorism, slaughtered hundreds of thousands of his own people, permitted horrific atrocities against women, and used weapons of mass destruction, was himself a weapon of mass destruction. But the reasons for removing Saddam were based on issues even broader than just the presence of weapons of mass destruction. To liberate people, give them a chance for accountable, decent government & rid the world of a pillar of support for global terrorism is something for which all those involved from Bush to the brave men and women of our armed forces should be proud. Bush has also focused on the correct long-term answer for the violence and hatred emerging from the Middle East. The hatred and anger in the Middle East arises from the lack of accountable governments. Rather than trying to grant more freedom, create more income, improve education and basic health care, these governments deflect their own failures by pointing to America and Israel and other external scapegoats."
Giuliani has repeatedly shown that he is unwilling to hold George W. Bush responsible for making mistakes (actually lying) about why we went to war with Iraq. Instead, he insists on parroting a line that is losing credibility more and more very day, as it has continued to lose credibility since the truth about Bush's war has come out.
He has also never addressed the tremendous cost of his glorification of "liberation" and "nation building" that is being dumped on the American taxpayer and on the American soldier both today and in the years to come.
We already know that the Bush approach to Iraq has been and will continue to be a disaster that gets worse every year. Why would we want another eight years of the same thing?
Grade: F
Terrorism (and Foreign Policy)
Rival candidate Ron Paul said in the South Carolina Republican Party debate on May 15, 2007, "They attack us because we've been over there; we've been bombing Iraq for 10 years." Giuliani immediately jumped into the fray out of turn and famously retorted:
"That's an extraordinary statement, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don't think I've heard that before, and I've heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11th. And I would ask the congressman to withdraw that comment and tell us that he didn't really mean that."
It was at this point that Giuliani demonstrated his own disconnect from reality. Surely he has heard this argument before. Every intelligent American has heard it. The reality is that this and similar statements have been made repeatedly by many people. We need a president who understands reality, not one who denies its existence and then tries to turn it into spin.
Terence Neilan, (NY Times, Oct 1, 2001) reported that Giuliani said, "Let those who say we must understand the reasons for terrorism come with me to the thousands of funerals we're having in New York City-thousands-and explain those insane, maniacal reasons to the children who will grow up without fathers and mothers, and to the parents who have had their children ripped from them for no reason at all. Instead, I ask each of you to allow me to say at those funerals that your nation stands with America in making a solemn promise and pledge that we will achieve unconditional victory over terrorism and terrorists."
Giuliani made his big stand on and after 9/11 by playing the emotion card, and he continues to play that card to this day in the 2008 campaign. The power of that emotion continues to resonate throughout the country. But Presidents need to be able to think beyond emotion. By declaring that any possible reason for terrorism is automatically insane and maniacal and therefore outside the realm of discussion, and following up with his declaration that we must have unconditional victory over terrorism and terrorists, Giuliani gave his total backing to an endless state of war with maniacs that can't be won. Force alone can't stop terrorism. Terrorism isn't going to end simply because Giuliani is committed to defeating it at all costs.
We need a balanced, level-headed, even-tempered President who knows how to outthink terrorists, not one who goes ballistic whenever the discussion of their motives arises. Giuliani as President would be in a position beyond his abilities where terrorism is concerned. His instability on this point is a major concern.
Grade: F
Health Care
Giuliani speaking at 2007 GOP debate at Saint Anselm College, Jun 3, 2007:
"I would change the whole model that we have for health insurance in this country. The problem with our health insurance is it's government- and employer-dominated. People don't make individual choices. It's your health; you should own your health insurance. We need 100 million Americans making different decisions that will bring down the cost of health insurance; it will bring down the cost of prescription medicines. Free-market principles are the only things that reduce cost and improve quality."
"We should be giving you a major tax deduction--$15,000 for a family--so you can buy your own health insurance. Then we should have a health savings account in which you can put some money aside to pay for your ordinary medical expenses."
The reason that I can't give Giuliani an A on this issue is that so far he has had nothing to say about the FDA or about prescription drugs. He also didn't say anything specific about the negative effects of government regulation and Medicare, although he did make a vague reference. He has offered no solution for the coming Medicare and Medicaid funding crisis that U.S. Comptroller General David Walker is trying to warn us about (to mostly deaf ears in Washington). Indeed, he hasn't even acknowledged that issue as yet. So like a figure skating judge, I'm leaving room in my score for a better performance from him further down the line on this issue.
Grade: B-
Social Security
Rudy has mostly avoided this issue so far. His most complete comment on the topic is this:
"Social Security is something we can straighten out if I get elected. We should put together 5 Democratic & 5 Republican senators and tell them, Give me 2 or 3 options, and then we'll negotiate it out.'"
Rudy is clearly positioning himself as a guy who can work with both parties on the issue. But he is just as clearly demonstrating that he has no intention of saying anything specific about Social Security. This isn't surprising, given the conventional wisdom that it's the third rail of electoral politics; touch it, and your campaign dies.
Unfortunately, Social Security is completely underrated in its importance by even the most skeptical pundits in both major parties. There is no willingness to acknowledge that Social Security is permanently broken, and Giuliani is no exception to this rule. For this reason, we need candidates who are unafraid to touch that third rail. Lacking that, we can be certain that nothing will be done about Social Security in the next eight years other than to give it cosmetic touch-ups. Unfortunately, that's not good enough because when the next eight years are done, Social Security will be one year away from insolvency while no provision is being made to allow Americans to opt out of it.
The only reason I didn't give Giuliani an F is that at least he indicated that he considers the issue important enough to talk about solving.
Grade: D
Economy/Budget
A terrific guest editorial in the New York Daily News on August 6, 2007 by E.J. McMahon of the Manhattan Institute gave some very useful insight into what we can expect from a President Giuliani in terms of taxes and spending. Giuliani has been repeating in his statements and his ads that he cut taxes 23 times while he was mayor of NYC.
It turns out that he was exaggerating at best. Taxes were indeed lower when he left office than when he came into office. But many of the 23 tax cuts were not of his doing, and at least one he opposed vigorously. One was actually proposed and spearheaded by the state Governor. Another tax he worked to partly remove, but then he took the rest of it to bid on the building of a sports stadium. But the largest and most vigorous tax cut, a 12.5% income tax surcharge, was the one he vigorously opposed, even though he claims it as one of his own today.
When he took office, he inherited a $2.3 billion deficit. He left office with a $2.8 billion deficit. In between, he kept spending increases stopped for his first term but increased spending 23% in his second term.
This kind of track record is exactly what we cannot afford at the Federal level. He doesn't get an F because he did apparently gain some tax cuts in NYC. But he gets no higher than a D because the rest of his budgetary record was dismal.
Grade: D
Liberty Issues
On December 17, 2005, the New York Times published a guest editorial by Giuliani entitled, "Taking Liberties With The Nation's Security." The editorial was a strong endorsement for reauthorizing the Patriot Act saying, "Concerns have been raised about the so-called library records provision; the bill adds safeguards [emphasis mine]. The same is true for roving wiretaps, 'sneak and peek' searches and access to counsel and courts, as well as many others concerns raised by groups like the American Library Association and the American Civil Liberties Union."
In late September, U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled that using the act to authorize secret searches and wiretapping to gather criminal evidence instead of intelligence gathering violates the constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. Her ruling was based on the reauthorized version of the Patriot Act that Giuliani had so fervently supported.
This is typical Giuliani. He claims to be a strict constructionist of the Constitution, but the lesson we can draw from this is that Giuliani has a very poor understanding of what strict constructionism is. We can be sure that if it suits Giuliani to take a fast-and-loose approach on a Constitutional issue, he will do just that.
Grade: F
Rudy Giuliani as President would be another major disaster for America, similar to the disaster that George W. Bush has been. We definitely do not need another eight more years of Bush-league leadership.
Total Grade Overall: D-
This is the first in a series of articles I'm writing about the candidates for President on the Republican and Democratic sides of the 2008 election leading up to the primary season. It's impossible to discuss everything about every candidate, so I've decided to focus on the top five issues of the upcoming campaign. These issues are: Iraq, Terrorism (and foreign policy), Health Care, Social Security, and the Economy/Budget. I'll also touch briefly on issues related to liberty. For each of these issues, I'll research what the candidate has said and how well he has addressed the issue and come up with a winning solution. I'll use the traditional public school grading system A-F to judge each candidate on these issues. For quotes unless otherwise specified, I'm relying on the database of candidate answers at www.ontheissues.org.
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The views expressed in this
article are those of Walt Thiessen only and do not represent
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I would have thought Mr. Giuliani knew about the U.S. bombing the Iraqi people in the 1990s. I guess because I saw it first hand, I thought everyone knew. Walt, will you please see that our next president, if we're really stupid, doesn't take it for granted that he can lie to us like the guy he's hoping to replace, and get away with it. The US bombing of Iraq in January of 1991 made things worse as it did not spare civilian targets and smashed a large section of the infrastructure including power and communications. What once was a highly urbanized society was brought back to a pre-industrial age. The truth is the U.S. government feels the same about Iraq as they do about any country that doesn't bow when told to do so. However, being cowards at heart they don't invade countries like North Korea, Israel or Indian, they give them money. But every once in a while a really brave idiot like Rumsfeld will worm himself into position to threaten one of these fight, not flee country as he did North Korea. But when the little North Korean told Rumsfeld, "Don't rattle your saber at me." That ended that. I had the un-pleasure to meet Mr. Rumsfeld at the Pensacola Naval Air Station. I gave him the standard greeting that junior officers give senior officers when they'd like to express their opinion of them, and not go directly to the brig, "Please Understand Nature's King." He snarled back something knowing that regardless of how much I wanted to separate him from his liver, I'd not try.
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