Yesterday I discussed Rudy Giuliani’s decision to bag on the Iraq Study Group to free up time to give paid speeches that netted him more than $11 million dollars over the last year and a half. But we found something funny when we started doing more research on Rudy and Iraq for today’s episode of TPMtv. We figured we’d find a lot of examples of Rudy’s huffing and puffing about Iraq and contrast those statements with the fact that he couldn’t be bothered to show up for the meetings of the ISG. But it turns out flaking on the ISG is actually pretty consistent with Rudy’s positioning on Iraq.
Remarkably enough, and I’m surprised more hasn’t been made of this, Rudy has very consistently been ducking the issue for months. He’s toed the party line opposing Democratic plans for a pull out. But he ignores the entire issue of Iraq whenever possible. And when he’s forced to address he deals with it as quickly as possible as just one part of the war on terror, says he really doesn’t know how it’s going to turn out, and then moves on to something else.
A week ago, Greg Sargent flagged Rudy’s eye-raising line that “We may be successful in Iraq; we may not be. I donât know the answer to that. Thatâs in the hands of other people.”
Pretty blase, if you ask me.
But again, that wasn’t just one revealing remark. It fits together with a pattern that’s — I’ll say it again — remarkable when you figure that Iraq is the number one issue in the country right now and that he’s running as a national security candidate.
Will have more later in today’s episode of TPMtv.
Late Update: Here’s the episode:
For a transcript of today’s episode, click here.
Is this how it works? The latest front in the voter fraud battle is North Carolina, where the Republican state auditor, following on the heels of the Justice Department, raised alarms about possible fraud just as Democrats were bringing a bill to expand voter registration up for a vote.
Uh oh. Polls show Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) slipping below 50%. Rep. Don Young (R-AK), no stranger to muck himself, is also in the danger zone.
Andrew Sullivan linked to this video of neocon godfather Norman Podhoretz casually explaining how ‘bombing’ Iran is the only sensible policy.
Then one of his readers wrote in this noting one of the points Podhoretz makes at about exactly 4:00 minutes in …
About halfway in he’s asked what the correct British response should have been to the kidnapping of their sailors. Podhoretz responds that “they should have threatened to bomb the Iranians to smithereens.” This comment in itself is unremarkable. Pretty much par for the course for Podhoretz these days. It’s what follows that’s illuminating.
He follows up his original comment with the caveat, “Whether they would have had to carry out threat, I doubt. Maybe they would have.” He accompanies this last sentence with the most minimal of shrugs. And the shrug tells you everything you need to know about the current state of neo-conservativism.
The shrug, an incredibly casual gesture, suggests that in the end, such indelicacies as bombing a country “to smithereens,” don’t really matter. What is important is that the United States’ will is enforced throughout the world. By any means necessary. The shrug suggests that posturing and diplomacy and military strikes are all (morally neutral) aspects of United States’ foreign policy. And, finally, the ultimate neoconservative falsehood, the shrug suggests that the democracy of the sword is just as effective and lasting and precious as the democracy of the popular will and the ballot box.
Gets to the heart of the whole thing.
Compare and contrast. Convicted administration official Steven Griles argues that his crime was not nearly as “egregious” as other convicted officials, Scooter Libby and David Safavian.
Remember “Slick Willy”?
Well, the Associated Press would like to share the new nickname it has now bestowed on his wife: “Slick Hillary.”
Angels on the head of a pin update: Tommy Thompson says he’d make Colin Powell his Secretary of State.
Mark Kleiman points out that while the feds indicted Giuliani South Carolina campaign chairman Thomas Ravenel with conspiracy to distribute cocaine, it was probably more like he was buyer — though buying for what was probably going to be a pretty big bash.
Maybe he’ll get a pardon after Scooter.
Mike Bloomberg’s my mayor. And I like him. But what’s his appeal nationally exactly? Seems to me that his electoral success was heavily based on the unique partisan dynamics of recent New York City history in which a relatively normal Republican (in this case, someone like Mike, who was actually a Democrat but became a Republican to run for mayor) can run and win by playing off the entrenched interests controlling the Democratic party. In other words, as the Democrat he actually was New Yorkers might have voted for Bloomberg for various offices. But the only way he was going to get on the ballot, for various reasons, was as a Republican.
I’m not sure how those dynamics play nationally, though a billion dollars, admittedly, buys a lot of traction.
This Pew poll shows his nationwide appeal is quite modest.
There’s plenty more, you can bet on that. House Judiciary Committee launches effort to reach out to potential Justice Department whistleblowers.