Wednesday 25 April 2007

Olbermann: Rudy Giuliani exploiting fear
for power and personal gain.

    A special comment about Rudolph Giuliani's remarks at
a Lincoln Day dinner in New Hampshire:

    Finally tonight, a Special Comment about Rudolf
Giuliani's remarks at a Lincoln Day Dinner in New Hampshire last night.

    Since some indeterminable hour between the final
dousing of the pyre at The World Trade Center, and the breaking of what Senator
Obama has aptly termed "9/11 Fever," it has been profoundly and disturbingly
evident that we are at the center of one of history's great ironies.

    Only in this America of the early 21st Century could
it be true, that the man who was president during the worst attack on our
nation, and the man who was the mayor of the city in which that attack
principally unfolded, would not only be absolved of any and all blame for the
unreadiness of their own governments, but, more over, would thereafter be
branded heroes of those attacks.

    And now, that Mayor - whose most profound municipal
act in the wake of that nightmare was to suggest the postponement of the
election to select his own successor - has gone even a step beyond these M.C.
Escher constructions of history.

    "If any Republican is elected president - and I think
obviously I would be best at this - we will remain on offense and will
anticipate what (the terrorists) will do and try to stop them before they do it.
"

    Insisting that the election of any Democrat would
mean the country was "back... on defense," Mr. Giuliani continued:

    "But the question is how long will it take and how
many casualties will we have. If we are on defense, we will have more losses and
it will go on longer."

    He said this with no sense of irony, no sense of any
personal shortcomings, no sense whatsoever.

    And if you somehow missed what he was really saying,
somehow didn't hear the none-too-subtle subtext of 'vote Democratic and die,'
Mr. Giuliani then stripped away any barrier of courtesy, telling Roger Simon of
Politico.Com, quote....

    "America will be safer with a Republican
president."

    At least that Republican President under which we
have not been safer ... has, even at his worst, maintained some microscopic
distance between himself, and a campaign platform that blithely threatened the
American people with "casualties" if they, next year, elect a Democratic
president - or, inferring from Mr. Giuliani's flights of grandeur in New
Hampshire - even if they elect a different Republican.

    How dare you, sir?

    "How many casualties will we have?" - this is the
language of Bin Laden.

    Yours, Mr. Giuliani, is the same chilling nonchalance
of the madman, of the proselytizer who has moved even from some crude framework
of politics and society, into a virtual Roman Colosseum of carnage, and a
conceit over your own ability - and worthiness - to decide, who lives and who
dies.

    Rather than a reasoned discussion - rather than a
political campaign advocating your own causes and extolling your own
qualifications - you have bypassed all the intermediate steps, and moved
directly to trying to terrorize the electorate into viewing a vote for a
Democrat, not as a reasonable alternative and an inalienable right ... but as an
act of suicide.

    This is not the mere politicizing of Iraq, nor the
vague mumbled epithets about Democratic 'softness' from a delusional Vice
President.

    This is casualties on a partisan basis - of the naked
assertion that Mr. Giuliani's party knows all and will save those who have voted
for it - and to hell with everybody else.

    And that he, with no foreign policy experience
whatsoever, is somehow the Messiah-of-the-moment.

    Even to grant that that formula - whether posed by
Republican or Democrat - is somehow not the most base, the most indefensible,
the most Un-American electioneering in our history - even if it is somehow
acceptable to assign "casualties" to one party and 'safety' to the other - even
if we have become so profane in our thinking that it is part of our political
vocabulary to view counter-terror as one party's property and the other's
liability... on what imaginary track record does Mr. Giuliani base his
boast?

    Which party held the presidency on September 11th,
2001, Mr. Giuliani?

    Which party held the mayoralty of New York on that
date, Mr. Giuliani?

    Which party assured New Yorkers that the air was
safe, and the remains of the dead, recovered - and not being used to fill
pot-holes, Mr. Giuliani?

    Which party wanted what the terrorists wanted - the
postponement elections - and to whose personal advantage would that have
redounded, Mr. Giuliani?

    Which mayor of New York was elected eight months
after the first attack on the World Trade Center, yet did not emphasize
counter-terror in the same city for the next eight years, Mr. Giuliani?

    Which party had proposed to turn over the Department
of Homeland Security to Bernard Kerik, Mr. Giuliani?

    Who wanted to ignore and hide Kerik's Organized Crime
allegations, Mr. Giuliani?

    Who personally argued to the White House that Kerik
need not be vetted, Mr. Giuliani?

    Which party rode roughshod over Americans' rights
while braying that it was actually protecting them, Mr. Giuliani?

    Which party took this country into the most utterly
backwards, utterly counter-productive, utterly ruinous war in our history, Mr.
Giuliani?

    Which party has been in office as more Americans were
killed in the pointless fields of Iraq, than were killed in the consuming
nightmare of 9/11, Mr. Giuliani?

    Drop this argument, sir. You will lose it.

    "The Democrats do not understand the full nature and
scope of the terrorist war against us," Mr. Giuliani continued to the Rockingham
County Lincoln Day Dinner last night. "Never, ever again will this country be on
defense waiting for (terrorists) to attack us, if I have anything to say about
it. And make no mistake, the Democrats want to put us back on defense."

    There is no room for this.

    This is terrorism itself, dressed up as
counter-terrorism.

    It is not warning, but bullying - substituted for the
political discourse now absolutely essential to this country's survival and the
freedom of its people.

    No Democrat has said words like these. None has ever
campaigned on the Republicans' flat-footedness of September 11th, 2001. None has
the requisite, irresponsible, all-consuming, ambition. None is willing to say "I
Accuse," rather than recognize that, to some degree, all of us share
responsibility for our collective stupor.

    And if it is somehow insufficient, that this is
morally, spiritually, and politically wrong, to screech as Mr. Giuliani has
screeched ... there is also this: that gaping hole in Mr. Giuliani's argument of
'Republicans equal life; Democrats equal death.'

    Not only have the Republicans not lived up to their
babbling on this subject, but last fall the electorate called them on it.

    As doubtless they would call you on it, Mr.
Giuliani.

    Repeat, go beyond Mr. Bush's rhetorical calamities of
2006.

    Call attention to the casualties on your watch, and
your long, waking slumber in the years between the two attacks on the World
Trade Center.

    Become the candidate who runs on the
Vote-For-Me-Or-Die platform.

    Do a Joe McCarthy, a Lyndon Johnson, a
Robespierre.

    Only, if you choose so to do, do not come back
surprised nor remorseful if the voters remind you that "terror" is not just a
matter of "casualties." It is, just as surely, a matter of the promulgation of
fear.

    Claim a difference between the parties on the voters'
chances of survival - and you do Osama Bin Laden's work for him.

    And we - Democrats and Republicans alike, and every
variation in between - We - Americans! - are sick to death, of you and the other
terror-mongers, trying to frighten us into submission, into the surrender of our
rights and our reason, into this betrayal of that for which this country has
always stood.

    Franklin Roosevelt's words ring true again
tonight.

    And, clarified and amplified, they are just as
current now, as they were when first he spoke them, 74 years ago.

    "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" - and those
who would exploit our fear, for power, and for their own personal, selfish,
cynical, gain.

    Good night, and good
luck.