Mika accuses Giuliani of 'baseless lies' about Obama handling of spill.

I have to take my hat off to Mika Brzezinski for this spirited defence of her questioning Giuliani's claim that the Obama administration had not consulted oil industry experts over the leak in the Gulf.

Scarborough huffs and puffs as she complains that all she did what "ask questions" and she tells him that she feels as if she and Scarborough are becoming "cartoon characters".

Speaking about Giuliani she states:

"I'm glad that there is someone on the set asking questions when people come and vomit out complete baseless lies on our set," she quipped.

Giuliani is vomiting out baseless lies? What's new there then? Well, she pulled him up on it so that's a very good start. Ten out of ten to Mika for this outburst.

Tags: axe, BP oil spill, Dylan Ratigan, exxon, Jim Cramer, Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, MSNBC, Robert Gibbs, Rudy Giuliani

Giuliani falsely claims "[w]e had no domestic attacks under Bush".

Rudy Giuliani reveals a staggering memory loss regarding terrorist attacks which took place under the presidency of George W Bush:

Giuliani: What he (Obama) should be doing is following the right things that Bush did -- one of the right things he did was treat this as a war on terror. We had no domestic attacks under Bush. We've had one under Obama.

No domestic attacks under Bush? Let's leave aside the most glaring one of all, which was 9-11, and have a look at some of the others which slipped Rudy's memory:

2001 anthrax attacks. A March 2004 State Department report on "Significant Terrorist Incidents, 1961-2003" quotes then-Attorney General John Ashcroft saying of the letters containing anthrax mailed to various targets: "When people send anthrax through the mail to hurt people and invoke terror, it's a terrorist act." Five people were killed as a result of those letters in the autumn of 2001.

2001 shoe bomber attempted attack. In June 2008, then-Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff described Reid's December 2001 attempt "to blow up a trans-Atlantic plane with a shoe bomb" as an attempt to "carry out terrorist operations for Al-Qaeda."

2006 UNC SUV attack. In March 2006, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill graduate Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar drove an SUV into an area of campus, striking nine pedestrians. According to reports, Taheri-azar said he acted because he wanted to "avenge the deaths or murders of Muslims around the world." Taheri-azar also reportedly stated in a letter: "I was aiming to follow in the footsteps of one of my role models, Mohammad Atta, one of the 9/11/01 hijackers, who obtained a doctorate degree."

The Republicans repeat this lie so often that one could be forgiven for thinking that they actually believe this nonsense.



Giuliani has since stated that he was talking about the attack at Ford Hood when he inferred there had been an attack under Obama's presidency:

BLITZER: And then you said this, though, and it needs some clarification. "We've had one under Obama," meaning a terrorist attack.

What -- what specific -- which specifically are you...

GIULIANI: I would...

BLITZER: ...which attack are you referring to?

GIULIANI: I would consider the one -- well, I mean the -- the -- the attack on Christmas Day was an attempted attack. I was talking about Fort Hood. Fort Hood was clearly an Islamic terrorist attack. The man who was shooting off the guns and killing those people was yelling out ara -- Islamic phrases when he was doing it -- Allah Akbar and things like that. He was clearly under the influence of Islamic terrorism.

I wondered at first if Media Matters were being picky when they listed what they regarded as "terrorist attacks", but if Rudy is talking about Ford Hood then they are completely valid examples.

How can Fort Hood be a "terrorist attack" and the actions of Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar be deemed not to be the same? After all Reza Taheri-azar was clearly, as Rudi would put it, "under the influence of Islamic terrorism."

Tags: Giuliani, 9-11, Obama, Bush, terrorist attacks

Giuliani gives the true believers some red meat.

I'm sorry but this didn't wash with me. Sure there was plenty of red meat for the Republican supporters but the speech was built on a false premise.

He asked that we imagine looking at the job applications of both candidates with their names and their party affiliation excluded. He didn't mention whether or not the job applications mentioned the age of the potential employee. Because we all know that, in most business', John McCain would be considered well past retirement age and would be excluded even from an interview. That's not pleasant, but it's a fact.

He then wandered round tried and tested Republican talking points - giving quite good lines - but distorting like crazy in order to make his points. This was not a speech to bring around floating voters, this was for the true believers.

On Iraq he stated:

The Democratic leader in the Senate said so: "America has lost." Well, if America lost, who won? Al Qaida? Bin Laden?

Most people realise that al Qaeda represent a tiny fraction of the forces that the US face in Iraq so it's simply a cheap point put together to excite the already converted.

He then, astonishingly in my opinion, brought up Georgia which hardly represented McCain's finest moment.

Within hours, he established a very strong, informed position that let the world know exactly how he'll respond as President. At exactly the right time, John McCain said, "We're all Georgians."

And that's all he did, in fact it's all that's ever going to be done. Talk tough in Washington whilst doing bugger all. We are not going to start WWIII for Georgia and we have made that abundantly clear. The fact that McCain proposes weakening Nato by inviting in a country that we have already shown we are not willing to go to war for, strikes me as a negative on McCain's scorecard, not the positive that Giuliani appears to be selling it as.

By the time he got to the end he was utterly off the rails claiming that Sarah Palin "has more executive experience than the entire Democratic ticket" and referencing the UN so that the Republicans could give it their customary boo.

It was great fun, but it was an awful pile of nonsense.

Tags: Giuliani, Republican National Convention, McCain, Palin

McCain releases secret weapon. It's Giuliani!

God, things must be desperate if Rudy is all you've got in the can.

Tags: Olbermann, Giuliani, McCain, Obama, 9-11, US election 2008

US: We DID Torture

Having listened for what seems like years to right wingers arguing that there is no proof whatsoever that the US has engaged in torture, a definitive answer is finally delivered with Michael Hayden coming clean and stating that the US have engaged in it's use:

The director of the CIA said Tuesday the agency used waterboarding to interrogate three high level al-Qaeda detainees, including the suspected mastermind of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Michael Hayden told the Senate intelligence panel that waterboarding was used to glean information from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri at a 'critical time' because of worries more attacks were planned against the United States.

'We used it against these three high-value detainees because of the circumstances of the time,' Hayden said. 'Very critical to those circumstances was the belief that additional catastrophic attacks against the homeland were imminent."

Hayden's comments marked the first time a US official has identified detainees who were subjected to the technique that simulates drowning. He said the three men were the only ones who were waterboarded, and that the CIA has not used the practice in five years.

We know, of course, that on two of these occasions the torturing of these men was taped and that the tapes have been subsequently erased. The reason given:

'Were they ever to leak, they would permit identification of your CIA colleagues who had served in the programme, exposing them and their families to retaliation from al-Qaeda and its sympathizers,' Hayden said in a memo to employees.

Of course, they were not destroyed because the officers involved might be open to prosecution, and in any case, most Republicans are terribly confused over whether or not drowning someone even constitutes torture. Unless it's done to them, of course, at which point they instantly recognise that they are being tortured.

No doubt we'll start to hear the tired argument that this torture is not systemic, which ignores the fact that torture is a bit like pregnancy: you can't be a little bit pregnant, just as you either use torture or you don't.

Under George Bush, the US became a country that did engage in torture. That's a shameful admission from a nation that, until his election, led the world in the fight for human rights.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Michael Hayden, Torture, US, al Qaeda

Humiliated Giuliani readies to endorse McCain

It's a funny old game politics. This time last year we were all talking about how McCain had blown it and how Giuliani was lining up to take the prize. Today it's a question of when, not if, Giuliani stands down and whether or not he will endorse McCain. (It's 90% certain that he will.)

McCain surely now steps into Super Tuesday as the Republican front runner and, for the first time since this battle for the Republican nomination started, as the favourite to take the prize.

With most of the the state's precincts reporting, Mr McCain pushed aside Mr Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, by 35 per cent to 31 per cent. He thus also bagged all 57 delegates that were up for grabs in the Sunshine State and can now expect a surge money into his campaign coffers.

His victory will thus provide a huge lift ahead of next week’s Super-Tuesday primaries in more than 20 states. It will surely also spur speculation of one more impossible endorsement in the days ahead – from California Governor, Arnold Schwarzengger.

Gathered in a Miami airport hotel, Mr McCain's supporters roared in delight as news of their candidate's narrow but vitally important victory was broadcast on giant television screens. Even until the last moments, most polling organisations had seen the state as too close to call.

"Our victory may not have reached landslide proportions but it was sweet nonetheless," Mr McCain told the cheering crowd, before paying tribute to all of his rivals – Mr Giuliani especially generously as the "exceptional American hero that he truly is".

I'm pleased to see Giuliani go, some of the things he has been saying on this campaign have been truly worrying; echoing, and sometimes even surpassing, the Bush regimes desire for violent intervention wherever they choose. Like Bush, he promised to "take whatever action is necessary" regarding Iran and, also like Bush - after the NIE reported that Iran had stopped attempting to build a nuclear weapon in 2003 - Giuliani was quick to tell us all that this made no difference to his opinion that Iran remained a threat. Facts were never going to get in the way of Giuliani's hate fest.

And the team he had built around him - which included Norman Podhoretz, the man who called for the bombing of Iran and who gleefully admitted that this would “unleash a wave of anti-Americanism all over the world that will make the anti-Americanism we’ve experienced so far look like a lovefest" - was certainly one of the most hawkish of any of the Republican candidates. So we can breath a slight sigh of relief as this particular Republican bampot leaves the stage.

However, as Johann Hari pointed out recently in the Independent, the myth of McCain as the Republican liberals can live with is just that: a myth.

He brags he would be happy for US troops to remain in Iraq for 100 years, and declares: "I'm not at all embarrassed of my friendship with Henry Kissinger; I'm proud of it." His most thorough biographer – and recent supporter – Matt Welch concludes: "McCain's programme for fighting foreign wars would be the most openly militaristic and interventionist platform in the White House since Teddy Roosevelt... [it] is considerably more hawkish than anything George Bush has ever practised." With him as president, we could expect much more aggressive destabilisation of Venezuela and Bolivia – and more.

Up until now the Republican battle has been a messy affair and one can only hope that, as the field narrows, more attention will be paid to just who John McCain actually is.

The fact that he doesn't hate immigrants and is genuinely opposed to torture is to be welcomed, but to be honest I would expect to find those sentiments in any rational human being. However, it is a huge mistake to look at those aspects of McCain and to imagine that, by doing so, one is seeing an accurate reflection of the whole man.

The fact that McCain is seen as the liberal Republican candidate is merely a sign of how far to the right the Republican party have slid. So goodbye Giuliani, but lets not celebrate a McCain victory. He's not so different from what we have now in terms of supporting military interventionism.

UPDATE:

It's interesting to see Michelle Malkin's reaction to a possible McCain nomination, based mainly on his stance on immigration.

But questions like this remain: How can McCain honestly reach out to conservatives when he defends his extremist campaign Hispanic outreach director who doesn’t believe in borders and when he boasts a national campaign finance chair and soft-money mogul who poured millions of dollars into the fight against English-language instruction in California, Planned Parenthood, and radical environmental fear-mongering groups?

And her readership are promising not to vote for McCain:

Carol…

I cannot in good conscience vote for John McCain.. If the country is going to hell, I’d rather Hillary, Barack, or the Dems can take credit for the destruction of the country than the Republicans.

Eric…

As a lifelong, politically active Conservative I’ve decided to vote Dem if McCain is the nominee. Why? Because I think that McCain will perform almost exactly like a Democrat and it is better to have the real thing in office rather than a Dem in GOP clothing. If McCain is elected and then performs poorly, because he acts like a Dem, he virtually guarantees a Dem win in 2012. However, if a Dem wins and runs things as they are dying to do then the GOP has a strong shot at 2012 and beyond.

What I find most interesting here is that even though Malkin complains that 20% of the people who took part in the Florida election were Independents or Democrats, that still mean that 80% of those who voted were actually Republicans.

So, does this mean that Malkin and the views of her readership are actually out of touch with the Republican base? I do find that intriguing.

I note a similar state of despondency over at Little Green Footballs. Perhaps these rather extreme hate sites are simply talking to themselves at times...

For example, I notice that over at the very right wing National Review Online they are taking a much more balanced view of the whole thing:

Someone who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is not your enemy, Ronald Reagan reminded us. McCain’s voting record is considerably better than that. Before Barry Goldwater said “go to work,” he first advised conservatives to “grow up.” The moment is at hand for Senator McCain and conservatives to acknowledge what conservative voters had repeatedly made clear: That they need each other.

Such common sense reveals the hate filled bile of the Malkins for just what it is.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Florida, McCain, Romney, Giuliani, Republican nomination, 2008 US election

Giuliani ends Florida campaign before dwindled crowds

It appears that Giuliani's bid for the White House is effectively over:

The former New York mayor invested all his hopes on winning Florida. He virtually ignored the early states, Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, and spent more than 60 days campaigning in Florida.

Polls suggest that strategy is going to fail and that, when the votes are counted on Tuesday night, Giuliani's hopes of the White House will be effectively over.

Only about 100 supporters turned out at the airport for a campaign stop billed as a "rally". They were noisy, drowning out his short speech with chants of "Rudy, Rudy", but the poor numbers suggest much of the energy has gone out of his campaign.

Rudy is insisting that the polls are wrong and that he is going to win Florida. He bases this claim on some 500,000 Republican votes which were cast via the state's early voting system before his campaign went into freefall, which he insists will be votes for him.

That may be wishful thinking, but for hyperbole to rally the troops, he really did reach out and hit the stars yesterday:

"We will win in Florida. We will win on February 5. We will win the Republican nomination and we will win the White House," the former Republican favourite claimed.

The extraordinary thing about Rudy's Floridian campaign has been that the longer he has remained in Florida, the more money he has spent there and the more they actually got to know him, the less popular he has become.

The sign on the side of his bus claims that "Florida is Rudy Country". We'll know soon enough...

Click title for full article.

Tags: Rudy Giuliani, Florida, US elections 2008, Republican nominations

Tom Ridge: Waterboarding Is Torture

Tom Ridge, the first ever secretary of the Homeland Security Department, has said what is obvious to the rest of the world - even if some Republicans find it hard to get their head around it - waterboarding is torture.

It's hard to think of anything that has done more to damage the US's standing in the world in recent years - even including horrors like Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib - than the sight of some Republicans indulging in immoral semantic discussions about whether drowning someone might or might not be considered torture.

So it's very welcome to hear a former member of this corrupt administration speak in such clear terms against a practice that few us, before the Bush government, could ever have imagined Americans not only practicing, but in some cases publicly defending.

"There's just no doubt in my mind - under any set of rules - waterboarding is torture," Tom Ridge said Friday in an interview with the Associated Press.

"And I believe, unlike others in the administration, that waterboarding was, is - and will always be - torture. That's a simple statement."

What's astonishes me here isn't that he actually said it, but that so few Republicans have found it in themselves to condemn such a foul practice.

In fairness McCain and a few others have also spoken out against this barbaric practice, especially when confronting Giuliani over his ludicrous claims that it would depend on how waterboarding was done and by whom before he could state whether or not this constituted torture:

“All I can say is that it was used in the Spanish Inquisition, it was used in Pol Pot’s genocide in Cambodia, and there are reports that it is being used against Buddhist monks today,” Mr. McCain, who spent more than five years in a North Vietnamese prison camp, said in a telephone interview.

Of presidential candidates like Mr. Giuliani, who say that they are unsure whether waterboarding is torture, Mr. McCain said: “They should know what it is. It is not a complicated procedure. It is torture.”

However, the few willing to publicly decry this practice remain the exception that proves the rule.

Most Republicans seem to have fallen behind the party line that the US must be willing to engage in any action in order to fight terrorists, apparently believing that when one's civilisation is under threat that one must immediately abandon the beliefs that previously defined that civilisation.

Indeed, Republican supporters like Bill O'Reilly have gone much further than expressing confusion over whether or not waterboarding is torture and have started arguing that it should be used because it works.

O'Reilly then characterized waterboarding as " putting a little water on their face". He challenged Bogart with, " You'd rather have people die than give the President the latitude.."

So you see, for some Republicans like O'Reilly, those who oppose waterboarding are actually aiding in the deaths of innocents.

When they are swept from power at the next election they will be puzzled as to why they are viewed with such revulsion. They really don't get it.

So Ridge's condemnation is to welcomed, especially as it seems to highlight the silence from so many others who ought to know better.

“Qui tacet consentire vidétur.” Silence equals consent.

Click title for full article.

Kristol seeks to rally the troops.

Here in Europe, press coverage of the Republican party's fight to choose a presidential candidate has never really got anyone excited. Perhaps it's the feeling that whoever wins the Democratic nomination is almost guaranteed - after eight failed years of neo-conservatism - to walk into the White House.

There's certainly no-one in the race who gets my blood boiling, with even Giuliani - the only candidate with the chance of doing so - simply promising more of the same failed policies and stances which have led the US into her current dead end street, which leads me to suppose that - even if he wins the nomination - the stances he will have to adopt in order to do so almost guarantee that he will lose in any national poll.

It is with this in mind, and with Conservative commentators criticism of the candidates ringing in his ears, that William Kristol has decided to issue his rallying call to the Conservative troops in an article entitled, "Waiting for Reagan".

The Conservative love affair with Ronald Reagan has always puzzled me, but lets leave that aside.

The dearth of candidates to genuinely excite the Conservative base is something that Kristol seeks to gloss over, reminding his readers that many great Presidents did not always appear to have greatness within them before they entered high office:

So the conservative commentariat should take a deep breath, be a bit less judgmental about these individuals--and realize that there is not likely to be a second Reagan. They could also learn from liberalism's history. Liberalism was the most successful American political movement of the first two-thirds of the 20th century. Its three iconic presidents were Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and John Kennedy. All advanced the liberal cause while in office. None was a standard-bearer for liberalism before becoming president--though each was inclined in a more or less progressive direction.

What it means to be a serious, successful, and mature political movement is to take men like these--one might say to take advantage of men like these--in order to advance one's principles and cause.

So conservatives might think of John McCain as our potential TR, Mike Huckabee as our potential FDR, and Mitt Romney as our potential JFK. Support the one you prefer. But don't work yourself into a frenzy against the others.

It really says something about the quality of the candidates on offer that Kristol is reduced to making such ludicrous comparisons, however, he saves the very best till last with his offer of what to do should the Republicans be unable to choose which of these turkeys it would like to enjoy at Christmas.

Let the best man emerge from a challenging primary process. And if there is no clear-cut winner, then the delegates at the GOP convention can turn on the fifth ballot to an obvious fallback compromise candidate, one who would be just fine with conservatives--Dick Cheney!

Dear God, they really are scraping the barrel when their fallback compromise candidate - and the one that Kristol assures us would be "just fine with conservatives" - is a man with a popularity rating of 18%.

They are in even more trouble than I thought they were.

Click title for Kristol's article.

Tags: William Kristol, Republicans, presidential nomination, US election 2008, Romney, Giuliani, Huckabee, McCain

Countdown: Giuliani Making Millions From Data Mining Company

Hat Tip to Crooks and Liars.

Poll Finds Americans Pessimistic, Want Change

I find the stance taken by people like Giuliani simply baffling. I mean, I know he's having to play to the Republican base, or rather to the blind 30%'s for whom Bush can do no wrong, but surely Giuliani and the other Republican candidates realise that one day they will have to face the entire American public as opposed to this dwindling band of lunatics who actually think Bush is doing a good job?

A recent poll confirms my feelings about this:

Concern about the economy, the war in Iraq and growing dissatisfaction with the political environment in Washington all contribute to the lowest public assessment of the direction of the country in more than a decade. Just 24 percent think the nation is on the right track, and three-quarters said they want the next president to chart a course that is different than that pursued by Bush.

Nor is this dissatisfaction limited to Democrats:

Overwhelmingly, Democrats want a new direction, but so do three-quarters of independents and even half of Republicans. Sixty percent of all Americans said they feel strongly that such a change is needed after two terms of the Bush presidency.

So just what does Giuliani think he is achieving by promising more of the same? Most Americans are very clear that the last thing they want is more of the same.

So, having won the Republican nomination, does Giuliani then try and pretend that he hasn't meant what he said to secure the nomination? Because if he goes before the American electorate promising to continue on Bush's erratic path then he is certain not to be elected.

As I say, I find Giuliani's campaign simply baffling...

Click title for full article.

Tags: Bush, polls, Republicans, need for change, Giuliani, election 2008

Giuliani: Trust me, I will torture

Rudy thinks waterboarding is only torture depending on who does it. Here he boasts:

I do know a lot about intensive questioning and intensive questioning techniques. … Now, intensive questioning works. If I didn’t use intensive questioning, there would be a lot of mafia guys running around New York right now and crime would be a lot higher in New York than it is. Intensive question has to be used.

"Intensive questioning?" Lovely euphemism. Yet again, Giuliani plays to the base...

Tags: Giuliani, Torture, 2008 elections

Joe Biden on Rudy: Every sentence of his is “a noun, verb and 9/11″

Tags: Joe Biden, Rudy Giuliani, 9-11

Ban on leaded petrol 'has cut crime rates around the world'

I wonder if this startling piece of research will have any impact on Giuliani's campaign.

Remember this is a Republican candidate who loves to remind us that: "I reduced homicides by 67 per cent; I reduced overall crime by 57 per cent."

Well, recent research appears to suggest that Giuliani, although thinking he is telling the truth, is actually greatly overstating his own achievement and that there is a greater link between banning lead in petrol and a reduction in the crime rate than any law and order action taken by any politician.

Published in the peer-reviewed journal, Environmental Research, the study reports a "very strong association" over more than 50 years between the exposure of young children to the toxic metal and crime rates 20 years later when they are young adults.

And it says the association holds true for a wide variety of countries with differing social conditions, law and order policies.

Rates of violent and other crimes began falling sharply in the US in the early 1990s, and have continued to do so, followed by similar tends elsewhere.

Yet evidence is growing that the banning of lead should take much more of the credit for reducing crime rates. The toxic metal has long been known to damage brains and to lead to criminal and aggressive behaviour.

Research at Pittsburgh University found that adolescents arrested for crime in the city had lead levels four times higher than their law-abiding contemporaries, and a study of 3,000 possible causes of criminality in 1,000 young people by Fordham University, New York, found that high lead levels were the best predictor of delinquent and violent behaviour.

Two studies by leading criminologists, Professor Richard Rosenfeld of the University of Missouri-St Louis and Professor Steven F Messner of the University of Albany, have concluded that Giuliani's zero tolerance policy was actually only responsible for a tenth of the reduction in crime rates that Giuliani is claiming.

The metal was first added to petrol in the 1920s to boost engine power and its use grew rapidly: levels in blood rose in parallel. It was phased out first in the US, starting in 1974, to be followed by other countries.

Britain – one of the last to get rid of the toxic metal – is one of the latest to enjoy a decline in crime.

So it appears that, twenty years after phasing out lead in petrol, this kind of reduction in crime is commonplace across the world wherever this is done.

Giuliani, the man famous for being New York's Mayor on the worst day in it's history, now finds his crime fighting record - of which he is so proud - might have had very little to do with him after all.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Rudy Giuliani, lead in petrol, New York crime rates

Giuliani hits Democrats on Iran

Giuliani has said that Iranians need to understand that "America will not allow them to become a nuclear power" and criticised Democrats for opposing President George W. Bush's tough stance on Iran.

Nor does he concede that Democrats might have genuine concerns and differences over Bush's inflammatory policies towards another Middle Eastern country, he simply sees it that, "no matter what the president says they would criticise it."

Giuliani said he hoped sanctions would work "but the military option is not off the table and the Iranians should understand that, that America will not allow them to become a nuclear power."

"Their regime is too irresponsible. The world would be in too much danger," he said.

There have been some who have argued that the US is not planning to attack Iran and yet it is noticeable that it is Iran - and any future action against it - that is dominating the positioning of the rivals for the Republican Presidential nomination rather than any stance towards the Iraq war.

Giuliani fears that he might be perceived as being too "liberal" for the Republican base which has led him to make a series of increasingly bizarre claims in order to placate them, the most recent of which was his astonishing assertion that an act of torture isn't defined by the act itself but, rather, by who is doing that act.

And, even amongst the Democrats, it is the subject of Iran which is causing fault lines which define the candidates much better than the Iraq war.

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards again skewered Clinton for having voted for a Senate resolution that recommended the State Department declare Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, a vote that preceded Bush's move by several weeks.

"When Senator Clinton voted to declare Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, she only aided and abetted George Bush and Dick Cheney's march to war," Edwards said.

Another Democratic candidate, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, has made similar charges against Clinton. Clinton says her vote was aimed at encouraging diplomacy in dealing with Iran, not war, and in a memo sent to reporters, the New York senator's campaign took aim at Obama.

"Stagnant in the polls and struggling to revive his once-buoyant campaign, Sen. Obama has abandoned the politics of hope and embarked on a journey in search of a campaign issue to use against Sen. Clinton," the memo said.

So, again it is Iran that even the Democrats are fighting about.

Giuliani is seeking to make the Democrats appear weak by hardening his stance towards Iran to make it more in keeping with the hardliners of the Bush administration.

However, as I've talked about before, the majority of Americans are vehemently opposed to any US military action against Iran:

This desire for diplomacy is particularly apparent in public attitudes on the spread of nuclear weapons. As far as the vast majority of Americans are concerned, military force is "off the table" in dealing with Iran's nuclear program and its possible meddling in Iraq. There's also been a sharp drop in public confidence in military force as a tool for dealing with other countries developing weapons of mass destruction—even though controlling the spread of nuclear weapons is the public's top policy priority and one of its major fears.

So, despite the American public having tired of Bush's militarism, Giuliani has obviously decided that he has to promise more of the same in order to convince the Republican base that he is actually one of them. To this end, he continues to bang the war against Iran drum.

At least when the Democrats argue about Iran it is merely to accuse each other of aiding and abetting Bush and Cheney's "march to war". They certainly don't sound like Giuliani who appears to be positively salivating at the thought of an attack on the Iranians.

This may excite the Republican base but I have a feeling that the American people are much nearer to the Democrats position on this than they are to Giuliani's.

UPDATE:

Here are the lengths Hillary is going to to explain why she voted for the Lieberman amendment.



Click title for full article.

Tags: Giuliani, Republican Presidential nominees, Clinton, Edwards, Obama, Iran

Mukasey's Nomination Runs Into Trouble

Mukasey's nomination has run into trouble over his refusal to say on the record whether or not he considers waterboarding to constitute torture.

Two top Senate Democrats said their votes hinge on whether he will say on the record that an interrogation technique that simulates drowning is torture.

"It's fair to say my vote would depend on him answering that question," Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., told reporters Thursday.

"This to me is the seminal issue," said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, another member of Leahy's panel. Asked if his vote depends on whether Mukasey equates waterboarding with torture, Durbin answered: "It does."

Leahy has refused to set a date for a vote on Mukasey's nomination until he clarifies his answer to that question.

Here's hoping that the Democrats grow a spine and refuse confirmation until Mukasey complies.

Or perhaps Mukasey can rely on the Giuliani definition of torture and simply claim it can't be torture because it's us doing it.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Mukasey, Attorney General, Giuliani

In His Own Words: Giuliani on Torture

So Giuliani is attending a town meeting and is asked questions about torture:

“I wanted to ask you two questions,’’ she said. “One, do you think waterboarding is torture? And two, do you think the president can order something like waterboarding even though it’s against U.S. and international law?’’

He then goes on and gives an answer that is surely the best impression of a crazy person one is likely to witness in the entire campaign:

Mr. Giuliani responded: “O.K. First of all, I don’t believe the attorney general designate in any way was unclear on torture. I think Democrats said that; I don’t think he was.’’

Ms. Gustitus said: “He said he didn’t know if waterboarding is torture.”

Mr. Giuliani said: “Well, I’m not sure it is either. I’m not sure it is either. It depends on how it’s done. It depends on the circumstances. It depends on who does it."

He then goes on to attack the "liberal media" for falsely describing this delightful practice.

“Sometimes they describe it accurately. Sometimes they exaggerate it. So I’d have to see what they really are doing, not the way some of these liberal newspapers have exaggerated it.”

So, a practice that is condemned by the rest of the world - and every US administration before this one - is now okay depending "the circumstances" and "who does it".

Of course, Giuliani is actually describing the official position of the Bush administration: "It's not torture if we do it".

What the fuck has happened to the Republican Party? They now have candidates openly supporting torture and being applauded for doing so....

Click title for full article.

Tags: Giuliani, torture, waterboarding, Geneva Conventions, Republican party

Religious Right Divides Its Vote

Christian conservatives have ended a two day summit in Washington still undecided over which Republican candidate to back in the forthcoming Republican nomination for President.

But there's certainly no hiding the fact that, amongst these particular conservatives, Rudi Giuliani is far from their favourite.

“I don’t think the question is anywhere close to settled,” said Gary L. Bauer, an influential Christian conservative leader and former Republican candidate himself in 2000. “I think it’s going to play out over the next several months.”

Out of 5,775 votes cast, Mr. Romney won 27.6 percent; Mr. Huckabee, 27.1 percent; Ron Paul, 15 percent; Fred D. Thompson, 9.8 percent. Mr. Giuliani finished second to last, with less than 2 percent of the vote, and Senator John McCain of Arizona finished last among the nine candidates.

And this poor showing was despite the fact that his speech to the delegates had actually gone down rather well:

Mr. Giuliani spoke for about 40 minutes, twice his allotted time. The response was gracious and even warm, despite his own acknowledgment that members of the audience probably had serious differences with him. Nevertheless, he highlighted his willingness to be forthright and cast himself as more principled than his primary opponents, insisting he would not bend and sway to the political winds.

Mr. Giuliani took a thinly veiled shot at his rival, Mr. Romney, whose campaign has been vigorously courting social conservatives but has battled skepticism about his authenticity.

“Isn’t it better that I tell you what I really believe, instead of pretending to change all of my positions to fit the prevailing winds?” Mr. Giuliani asked, drawing murmurs of approval and applause from the audience.

Mr. Giuliani talked about his Roman Catholic upbringing, attendance of parochial schools and even how he flirted with entering the seminary. (“I know that’s hard to believe,” he joked.) He admitted to being private about his faith because of the way he was raised but said his reliance on God for guidance was at the “core of who I am.” He did not mention that he does not regularly attend church anymore.

Mr. Giuliani spoke with a tone of humility, saying, “I come to you today as I would if I were your president, with an open mind and an open heart, and all I ask is that you do the same.

“Please know this,” he added. “You have absolutely nothing to fear from me.”

Giuliani's personal life and his support for abortion and gay rights were always going to make him winning over this particular crowd next to impossible and there is some indication that, fine as his speech was, there are some who are never going to warm to him.

But Rick Scarborough, an influential conservative leader who heads the group Vision America, said Mr. Giuliani may have succeeded in defusing that possibility with his strong performance Saturday. “He might have derailed the effort to a third party today,” Mr. Scarborough said. But he added that he would still do all he could to “prevent him from getting the nomination.”

Perhaps, derailing a third party - which would almost certainly split the conservative vote and ensure Hillary Clinton's victory - is the best that Giuliani could hope to take from the proceedings.

I can only say that, watching this from across the pond, it strikes me as astonishing that any political party would tie itself to a religious movement in this way. It might guarantee a certain share of the vote, but it is certainly extremely limiting in the kind of candidates that one is allowed to put before the electorate as a potential president.

It really does highlight the profound differences between Britain and the United States. In this country Blair was always encouraged to play down his religious beliefs with Alastair Campbell famously refusing to allow Blair to finish his address to the nation at the start of the Iraq war with the message: "God bless you."

Indeed, Campbell went as far as to interrupt Blair during an interview which strayed onto religion:

The magazine's writer, David Margolick, asked the Prime Minister about his religion and the extent that it bonded him to President George W. Bush. At that point Mr Campbell, who was present throughout but had until then not been involved in the conversation, asked Mr Blair: "Is he [Mr Margolick] on God?"

According to Mr Margolick's account, when it became clear that the subject had indeed turned to religion, Mr Campbell intervened again. "We don't do God," he stated. "I'm sorry. We don't do God."

Britain and the United States may share a language, but we remain very different country's. As Giuliani's present difficulties amply illustrate.

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Tags: Rudi Giuliani, Christian conservatives, Republican nomination, 2008 election

Would You Buy a Used Hawk From This Man?

Most of the Republican Presidential candidates have realised that neo-cons are like Kryptonite and are best avoided at all costs. Indeed, many distance themselves from the entire movement by claiming that Bush isn't really a Conservative as they understand Conservatism.

Not Rudi Giuliani. He's appointed Norman Podhoretz, a founding father of the neocon movement as one of his top foreign-policy consultants. Norman Podhoretz! A man who says this kind of nonsense:

Podhoretz is in favor of bombing Iran because of the country's unwillingness to suspend its uranium-enrichment program. He also believes America is engaged in a "world war" with "Islamofascism" and that Giuliani is the only man who can win it. "I decided to join Giuliani's team because his view of the war—what I call World War IV—is very close to my own," Podhoretz tells NEWSWEEK. (World War III, in his view, was the cold war.) "And also because he has the qualities of a wartime leader, including a fighting spirit and a determination to win."

So, if Giuliani succeeds in winning his party's nomination then he is actually going to campaign on a ticket of more of the same.

Nor is Podhoretz the only extremist Giuliani has on board:

"He's positioning himself as the neo-neocon," jokes Richard Holbrooke, a top foreign-policy adviser to Hillary Clinton.

Among the core consultants surrounding Giuliani: Martin Kramer, who has led an attack on U.S. Middle Eastern scholars since 9/11 for being soft on terrorism; Stephen Rosen, a hawkish professor at Harvard who advocates major new spending on defense and is close to prominent neoconservative Bill Kristol; former Wisconsin senator Bob Kasten, who often sided with the neocons during the Reagan era and was an untiring supporter of aid to Israel, and Daniel Pipes, who has advocated for the racial profiling of Muslim Americans. (He's argued that the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II was not the moral offense it's been portrayed as, though he doesn't say Muslims should suffer the same.)

Bizarrely, Giuliani appears to think that running to the right of Bush is a clever place to be.

"Clearly it is a rather one-sided group of people," says Dimitri Simes of the Nixon Center, a Washington think tank. "Their foreign-policy manifesto seems to be 'We're right, we're powerful, and just make my day.' He's out-Bushing Bush."

It's extraordinary. Not only is Giuliani promising more of the interventionist nonsense that has led Bush into the Iraqi quagmire that he can currently see no way out of, but - of all the Republican candidates - Giuliani is currently favourite to take the nomination which means that the Republican Party itself fancies more of the same.

The party apparently still favours people who hire Podhoretz, the man who "hopes and prays" that Bush bombs Iran. And then there's Daniel Pipes who proposes "razing [Palestinian] villages from which attacks are launched."

The Republican Party really have become the party of loons. And Giuliani is their saviour. At a time when many see the need for the US to find ways to stop al Qaeda's recruitment of Muslims, Giuliani steps up to say that "it is not in the interest of the United States, at a time when it is being threatened by Islamist terrorists, to assist in the creation of another state that will support terrorism."

Meaning, if I become President a state of Palestine is off the table.

Palestine remains the number one issue on the Arab street. If Giuliani gets the nomination, and then the Presidency, there will queues all the way to the doors of al Qaeda's recruiting offices.

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Tags: Rudy Giuliani, Norman Podhoretz, Daniel Pipes, 2008 Presidential election, Republican candidates

Headzup: Rudy Tackles Guantanamo

Tags: Rudy Giuliani, Guantanamo Bay, war on terror, unlawful combatents