Rudy can fail
With his poll numbers sinking, Giuliani is blaming Bill Clinton for doing nothing about Islamic terrorists. But what did the former mayor do?
By Joe Conason
June 29, 2007 Rudolph Giuliani probably possesses many fine attributes, but originality isn't one of them. Stung by the revelation that James Baker III had essentially booted him off the Iraq Study Group because the New York mayor was too busy giving lucrative speeches to bother attending the group's sessions, he deployed a familiar Republican diversion.
He blamed Bill Clinton for 9/11.
With Giuliani's poll numbers declining and his front-runner status threatened by former Sen. Fred Thompson, he can't be blamed for wanting to change the subject, and his preferred topic is always 9/11, which allows him to remind everyone of his finest hour and to pose as the nation's potential savior in 2008. Speaking at Pat Robertson's Regent University June 26 -- where he also continued his servile pandering to the religious right -- Giuliani accused the former president of failing to confront the threat from Islamist terrorism, dating all the way back to the first bombing of the World Trade Center in February 1993.
"Islamic terrorists killed more than 500 Americans before Sept. 11," he intoned. "Many people think the first attack on America was on Sept. 11, 2001. It was not. It was in 1993 ... The United States government, then President Clinton, did not respond. Bin Laden declared war on us, [but] we didn't hear it." He went on to accuse all of the Democratic presidential candidates of being "in denial" about terrorism and wanting to "put the country in reverse to the 1990s." Democrats, he warned, "can't face this threat. They couldn't in the 1990s."
Now that belligerently partisan speech struck some reporters as a big contrast with remarks Giuliani made last September, when he piously urged everyone to refrain from blaming either Bill Clinton or George W. Bush for the 9/11 attacks. But as close observers of the former mayor can attest, what he really meant was that nobody else should place blame for 9/11 on Clinton. He reserved that privilege for himself, since he is, according to his own description, the man who knows more about the threat of terrorism than anyone else.
But let's forget Giuliani's hypocrisy and arrogance for a moment and simply dissect this specimen of demagogy lie by lie. It's a useful exercise, because we are sure to hear much more of the same from him before this campaign is over.
What does Giuliani mean when he says that President Clinton "did not respond" to the first bombing of the World Trade Center? At the time, there was no evidence linking Osama bin Laden, then still a fairly obscure Saudi millionaire, and al-Qaida scarcely existed. Former CIA director James Woolsey has said that the earliest inkling of any connection between bin Laden and the 1993 bombing came two years later. Until the FBI investigation resulted in the indictments of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and his network, nobody knew for certain whether a terrorist group or a foreign state was responsible for the '93 attack.
So Clinton didn't "respond" by launching missiles or sending special forces because there was no proven target for that kind of military action. As a leading authority on terrorism, Giuliani ought to be aware of those very basic historical realities. But by saying that the Democrats couldn't face the threat of terrorism in the 1990s, he is suggesting that Clinton did nothing as president to confront Islamist violence. Not only is that implication false, but it turns a decade's history backward. Whenever Clinton behaved resolutely abroad, it was the Republicans who sought to weaken him -- and the United States -- with partisan assaults on his foreign and security policies.
When Clinton tried to sustain the U.S. mission in Somalia, for instance, Senate Republicans (including John McCain) cut off funding and demanded retreat. When Clinton struck al-Qaida installations in Sudan and Afghanistan in 1998, those same Republicans and their media allies complained that his actions were merely a "wag the dog" distraction from impeachment -- and later whined that he hadn't done enough to get bin Laden. Later still, they stopped worrying about bin Laden when the Bush administration decided to essentially give up on apprehending or killing the al-Qaida leader. That includes Giuliani, incidentally, who has never demanded that his friend Bush live up to the promise to get the terrorist chief "dead or alive."
The list of Clinton's actions against terrorism and specifically against al-Qaida is long; the list of his efforts to prepare domestically against a terrorist attack is even longer. He and his aides tried to warn the incoming Bush administration about al-Qaida's plans to attack the United States, but they were brushed aside, as were the study group led by former Sens. Gary Hart and Warren Rudman; Bush's own counterterrorism director, Richard Clarke; and CIA chief George Tenet.
As for Giuliani, what did he do after the '93 bombing? In their reporting for "Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11," journalists Wayne Barrett and Dan Collins went to great lengths to find out. The answer, they discovered, was that he did nothing. And he said nothing. After he was elected mayor later that year, he still did and said nothing about terrorism, a pattern of inaction and inattention that continued for years, even as the trials of the bombing perpetrators went on in his city -- and even as federal investigators uncovered terrorist plots to blow up the Hudson River tunnels and other major New York City targets.
Eventually, as Barrett and Collins reveal in their stunning book, Giuliani made a series of foolish, self-serving mayoral decisions that exacerbated the damage and deaths caused by the terrorists on 9/11. More recently, his stupidity and vanity almost led to the appointment of an unqualified felon named Bernard Kerik as America's secretary of homeland security.
It is Giuliani, not Clinton, who has the most to fear from an honest examination of what happened in 1993 and its aftermath. His presidential candidacy will implode on the day that Americans finally grasp the full truth about his performance as mayor.

Now I know where all my critics get their pathetic information. Check out the "Red State Update" It is exactly the same propaganda that they try to push off on the public. It all makes sense now. These red-necks crack me up.

Check these out:

http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/

http://mainstreambaptist.blogspot.com/

http://www.au.org/site/PageServer

Calling yourself an American doesn’t make you an American any more than being born to Christian parents and claiming to be Christian. Biblical fundamentalists who place Old Testament law over Christ’s teachings aren’t necessarily Christian. They are frauds. If a person claims to be an American just because they were born in this country yet doesn’t believe in the Constitution and the spirit of our founder’s intent then they shouldn’t be called American; much less a patriot. Those who advocate torture, needless war, domestic spying, anti-immigration discrimination, unlimited weapons possession, the abolition of habeous corpus, and theocratic rule are the antithesis of a Constitutional American Patriot. Where do right-wingers stand relative to these issues? Do they deserve to be called Americans? What would our founders say? We need to reassess what is truly patriotic in this country. In today’s right-wing Fox America those who advocate taking Constitutional rights away from citizens are the ones who claim to be the patriots. They even have the nerve to suggest that those in the ACLU who represent and adhere to the Constitution are un-American. This country was founded on the Constitution and laws, not demagogic politicians and radio talk-show frauds. Those who claim otherwise are not true Americans. Don’t let right-wingers threaten and intimidate you into believing the Constitution is not relevant today. It is still as fundamental to our democracy as it was the day it was signed. Recent Federal court rulings nullifying most Bush unconstitutional actions confirm just how contemptuous this administration is of our Constitution. The public is starting to see through their web of lies about so-called unlimited executive powers. The military and all political officials swear to uphold the Constitution. Is it too much to ask for this administration to do the same? When right-wingers in this administration reject the Constitution they reject what America was founded on and they mock the soldiers that died defending it. Fireworks, car decals and flag waving are no substitute for Constitutional allegiance.

To my local right-wing tag team critics I say, "Can't we all just get along?" I didn't address any comments in my recent letter to them but they seem to feel as though they are the defenders of the Fox propaganda machine so they respond like Pavlov's dog. Here is an idea I think we can all agree on regardless of political affiliation. In order to fulfill my bleeding-heart do-gooder liberal instincts to make the world a better place for all, I propose that we require all bathroom doors be installed swinging out so that you don't have to touch the bacterial laden handle as you leave. This one simple action will improve world-wide hygiene and very likely cut down on viruses passed on from one conservative to the next. I know the impact of this one simple change won't be as great as global warming science but at least it may help cut down on noxious green house gases eminating from right-wingers at their fair and balanced "stink tanks." Now how could a "fair and balanced" American find any fault in that?

As usual my right-wing sycophant friends ignore facts and seem to be full of hot green-house gases. They rail about how "liberals" such as myself don't give any credit to this administration. Well that is exactly what I did. I gave them credit for creating the largest deficit in history just like Reagan did and for destroying the surplus and excellent financial condition the country was in when "w" came into office. I gave them credit for starting an unprovoked war against a nation that did nothing to us and for not directing their military efforts at finding Bin Laden. I gave them credit for ignoring the energy problem and for not responding to the disaster of Katrina. I blame "w" and the republicans for doing nothing to help alleviate the energy crisis. They wouldn't even demand an improvement of gas mileage standards on new vehicles or seriously encourage alternative technologies for cars and trucks. Going to war to take over an oil rich giant is this administrations answer to the energy problem. The oil industry whines about no new refineries but there is nothing keeping them from building as many as they want in Mexico or the tax sheltered Halliburton corporation's Cayman Islands just like all the rest of U.S. corporations do with their industries. They want high demand and low supply in order to maximize profits. It is basic economics but when commodities are manipulated this way it is the government's responsibility to respond to mediate the problem. When your leadership is bought and paid for by the oil industry what do you expect? Industry writes all the laws under this administration. They have proven themselves incompetent in all areas of governance. There is no disputing these facts.

My point was that the Gleaner published a piece which virtually plagiarized the spin put out by the Republican National Committee under the guise of journalism. It was not objective, factual or accurate. For local gullible Fox News / O'Rielly / Dittohead propaganda sponges who swallow every word and lie told to them by the right-wing media I guess it was too much to expect they could accept facts as reality. Such is the way of the modern day right-wing conservative. Being intellectually honest is not one of their strong points.
Some naive right-wingers even believe this administration hasn't politicized every department's staff of career administrators. Just ask Bush's own "Monica" Goodling, of the Justice department, about how partisan the federal prosecutors positions were. Monica's dress is stained with the fluid of careers of many good and honest prosecutors as a result of what "w's" obscene carnal actions did to them. Their crime was that they weren't aggressive enough at falsely prosecuting democrats right before elections. When 80% of the population, including republicans, say our country is going in the wrong direction and we need a change you know it isn't just partisan politics. It's reality. Right-wingers need to face it.

Is God an Evildoer? James Dobson, Robertson and Falwel think so. Jerry and Pat both said God caused 911 and now Dobson has said that God will destroy a U.S. city because of lesbians. Wow, I wonder if "w" is going to torture God and all his terrorizing preacher followers in order to put an end to his wrath inspired evildoing? Is God with us or with the terrorists? Should "w" preemptively invade our Church's and steal the tithes and offerings in order to bankrupt the cult of evildoers that support his endless terrorism foisted upon the sinful world? God is ready to vaporize your children and America's evangelical ministers agree that He has every right to do so. Guilty! Will he wiretap our prayers? Hosanna Bin Godden - wanted Dead or Alive!

There’s nothing ‘bipartisan’ about it
In light of Rep. William Jefferson’s (D-La.) indictment, we’ve been hearing quite a bit, particularly from far-right bloggers and Fox News personalities, about the culture of corruption now having infected both parties equally. The Washington Post’s Jeffrey Birnbaum, a quality journalist for many years, really ought to know better.
On the June 4 edition of Fox News’ Special Report with Brit Hume, Washington Post staff writer Jeffrey Birnbaum asserted that the June 4 bribery indictment of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) “makes the allegations of corruption bipartisan.” In just the past three years, however, at least nine Republican members of Congress and Bush administration officials — including the former House majority leader, Tom DeLay (TX) — have been indicted or pleaded guilty to criminal charges. Birnbaum did not explain how one indicted Democratic congressman who was not in the congressional leadership (and another who is under investigation) is equivalent to the wide swath of Republicans who have been convicted, indicted, or are under investigation. […]
Hume had previously asked Roll Call editor Morton M. Kondracke whether the indictment “change[s] … the political equation” on the issue of corruption and whether it “deprive[s] the Democrats of [the] issue” and “help[s] the Republicans in their efforts to try to say, ‘Look, you know, they’re no different than we were?’ “
Hume’s ridiculous framing of the corruption as applying to both sides equally is to be expected — he is, after all, Fox News’ Brit Hume — but Birnbaum has to realize that one indicted Dem does not a “bipartisan” scandal make.
We’re talking about one guy here. One. Media Matters listed Republican members of Congress and Bush administration officials who have either pleaded guilty, been convicted, or been indicted, and came up with nine guys (Cunningham, Ney, DeLay, Safavian, Libby, Griles, Foggo, Crawford, and Korsmo), which doesn’t even include some low-ranking Republicans, such as Claude Allen, who was busted for shoplifting, or Mark Foley, whose interest in congressional pages is well documented.
For that matter, if we expand the circle a bit to include GOP lawmakers facing criminal investigations right now, the list finds six more (Doolittle, Lewis, Miller, Renzi, Burns, and Weldon), which doesn’t even include Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who appears to be of interest to FBI investigators right now.
“Bipartisan”? Please.And let’s also not forget how the competing parties reacted to corruption scandals in their midst.
Even before the indictment against Jefferson was issued, congressional Democrats spoke out against him, distanced themselves from him, and removed him from power committee assignments. The Democratic leadership made clear they had no tolerance for Jefferson’s alleged crimes, and pivoted off his indictment to introduce a massive new ethics reform measure.
And then there’s the GOP. When Cunningham was exposed, House Republicans defended him. When DeLay was about to be indicted, they considered changing their own rules to let him stay in the leadership. When Ney was investigated, they stood by him. Indeed, the standard Republican strategy was to blame prosecutors, blame the media, make excuses, and defend the accused.
Even now, none of the current lawmakers facing criminal investigations have been ostracized for what appears to be a series of scandalous decisions, while most of the party wants a pardon (amnesty?) for a convicted felon caught lying and obstructing justice in the Plame leak scandal.
Looking at the two parties, there’s simply no comparison. For Birnbaum to suggest that Jefferson “makes the allegations of corruption bipartisan” is absurd but typical for right-winger way of thinking.

Supposedly we are in a sustained economic recovery and have been since 2002.
Part of this is Bush hot air and the Republican Noise Machine, which the media quotes verbatim.
By a certain measure, however, it's real.
The economy has grown. Corporate profits are at an all-time high. Average income is up. There's lots of money around.But the recovery has some really strange features. Oddities never before seen in a recovery.
-- Jobs: During Bush's first term the US actually lost private-sector jobs.
It finally improved in 2005, and now job creation is almost keeping pace with the increase in population. Still, over all, it's the worst record since Hoover, the fellow who presided over the onset of the Great Depression.
How do you have a recovery without creating jobs?
-- Income: Yes, average income is up during the tenure of the current administration.
The joke about average income is: Bill Gates walks into a bar. The average income of every person in the room immediately goes up 10,000 percent.
But median income, the amount that people in the middle of the group earn, barely budges. So let's look at that figure. Median income is down. The average person makes less now than when Bush came into office.
Not only that, the downward pressure on wages is no longer just a blue-collar issue, it's moved up to white-collar workers, the educated classes, even doctors.
How do you have a recovery when people are making less than before the recovery?
-- Cost of living: Key factors of the cost of living are much higher than they were six years ago.
In particular, fuel is up 100 percent, higher education costs are up about 44 percent, health care premiums are up 80 percent, and affordable housing is scarce.
Normally, when the cost of living goes up, we have inflation. But we've had low inflation during the Bush years.
How can the cost of living go up while the cost of money stays low?
-- Here's the most peculiar statistic of all: the Dow Jones index
You may have been hearing that the Dow Jones Index is at an all-time high. It's true. However, it is only 16 percent higher than the day George Bush came into office. By comparison, when Clinton left office the Dow was 320 percent higher than when he came into office.
It's a very rough measure of course, and there are many others. But by that measure, during the Clinton years investment in America's leading business had grown more than three times over. Under Bush it's only grown 16 percent in six years. Since the consumer price index is up 18 percent over the same period, when the new all-time high is adjusted for inflation, growth is effectively below zero.
How can there be a "recovery" in which not even businesses grow?When a government wants an economy to grow, it throws money at it.
The administration did that with spending on pharmaceuticals, homeland security, and a couple of wars. But their most important weapon of choice was tax cuts for the rich, especially on unearned income, capital gains, inheritance, dividends, and interest.
This was sold, and accepted, on the myth that the rich--the investing class--are the most creative and daring members of our society. Just unleash them and they will march off into the wilderness -- actual, urban, or cyber -- with sacks of cash over their shoulders and they will build things!
Factories! Airlines! Housing! Toys! Computers! Undreamed wonders! Entire new civilizations! With jobs! jobs! jobs! Like an Ayn Rand novel!
But that's not what happened.
Because a shortage of cash was not the problem. The country, the world, is awash with cash.
The good, old, risk for rewards version of capitalism -- the burghers invest in a daring sea captain sailing to the Indies -- still exists. In recent years, it's given us FedEx, Wal-Mart, Apple, Microsoft, and Google.
But alongside it, over the last 50 years, the economy of credit has grown up.In vastly oversimplified terms the credit economy works like this:
You own a house. It's worth $100,000.
Someone buys the house, no money down. They borrow that money. Let's say it's a straight-line 8 percent, 30-year mortgage. Forget closing costs, points, and any other complications--that's a $220,000 debt. It goes on the bank's books as an asset.
Now you have $100,000. The bank has $220,000 (on paper). The buyer has a house worth $100,000. The bank has a lien on it, but the buyer will be gaining equity, plus he can get a second mortgage and home-improvement and other loans on it.
Again, this is a vast oversimplification, but that transaction has "created" something like $420,000 that is now "in play," as part of the economy.
No "thing" has been created -- no new business, no product, no jobs, no idea, no intellectual property, no entertainment.
But money has been created.
If you buy a dress on your Visa card or organize a consortium to buy a company, the same thing happens -- debt creates money. In every transaction, there's profit to be taken off the top.
A perfect example of the transformation of our society into a credit economy is the change in the way we finance higher education. States, and even cities, used to be in the business of building universities that were free, or nearly so. These were financed, up front, with tax money as an investment in our human infrastructure. Then, in 1965, the student loan program was invented. This changed the higher education business into a debt creation business and created a whole new creditor class, college graduates, who, were handed, along with their diploma, debts of ten to fifty thousand dollars or more.
The number one industry in America today is the money business -- debt swapping. In a closed economy, that might have a positive effect, as people look for something to do with their money.Not, perhaps, as a general rule, but in an economy like ours, handing out money to rich people is the least effective way to make a healthier, stronger economy that benefits society as a whole.There are two reasons.
The first is that the Ayn Rand fantasy is a fantasy. For the most part, when people with millions of dollars get an extra hundred thousand, or several hundreds of thousands, or even millions, they invest it passively, in financial instruments and real estate.So we get, for example, a real estate bubble. Which is worse that a dot.com bubble because a dot.com bubble is symptomatic of the excitement of investing in new, high risk, but high reward enterprises that are producing new things. A housing bubble is symptomatic of lots of money floating around with nowhere productive to go.The other reason is that insofar as investment does go into business, in terms of our society,m there's a hole in the bucket. The hole is called globalization.
I'm writing this on a Mac. When I bought it, the money went through American Express (which took a few points) to Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California, where Steve Jobs dipped in his ladle, then the rest poured out though the hole in the bottom to China, where it was actually made.
That's the economy that the statistics describe.
Lots of money is moving. As it passes through the company, the company profits. The company isn't going to build anything, so profits are spent on executive compensation. The actual work is outsourced (the money flows out), and no jobs are created. Nor does the actual business grow very much either, except as a middle man, taking American money and passing it on to foreign businesses (and oil producers).At the same time, this creates downward pressure on normal working people.
Remember those old movies, with 200 men at the factory gate? A foreman inside with three jobs to give out, saying, "You. You. And you. The rest of you, go home." Those three lucky stiffs didn't demand health insurance, pensions, or job security.
Now it's India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, the Philippines, Mexico, Honduras, China, Korea, and many others at the gate. American companies tell their workers they have to be competitive. Not only do wages go down, but benefits begin to disappear.
This is combined strong anti-union and anti-worker efforts by government, supporting the anti-union and anti-worker efforts of major corporations.
This may be bad for America as a society, but the people in the money business love it.Indeed, it is the trick that makes Bushenomics work for people in the money business. That includes anyone who invests in financial instruments.
The problem with pumping out money -- printing money -- is that it can create inflation.
Money lenders hate inflation. If I loan out money at 8% and by the time the creditor pays it back, inflation is up 8%, then my profit is zero. The profit margin in lending is - in a significant part -- the difference between the rate of the loan and the rate of inflation.
Really high inflation, and worse, runaway inflation, is, of course, a threat to everyone. But moderate inflation, with rising wages, favors debtors and hurts creditors.
So how can you pump out money while keeping inflation down?
In Bushenomics you do it by keeping a lid on earned income. Even driving it down. Millions upon millions of people earning a little bit less take away from the pressure of a few people earning millions upon millions more.
That, along with, the flood of low cost goods from low wage countries, helps balance out the inflationary pressure of rising costs in certain particular industries, like oil, health care and higher education. It's not a question of conservatism vs. liberalism. Of government vs. free markets. All economies are, of necessity, mixed. All governments are concerned with the wealth of their nation. Government decisions will always effect how business operates. The question is, does the way government spends and invests create a sounder and healthier society? Or does it merely make certain sectors and classes rich, while hollowing out our economy?
If we are to invest public funds -- through government borrowing or spending or through simply spending tax revenues -- we have to be aware that rich people running around with bags of money won't necessarily do what is good for the wealth of our nation. They may run us into bankruptcy, the way the smartest guys in the room ran Enron into bankruptcy.
Larry Beinhart is the author of Wag the Dog, The Librarian, and Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin. All available at nationbooks.org