Rudy Giuliani visited Megyn Kelly’s show but it wasn’t quite the dose of Republican Rehab for his accusations about Obama you might have expected.
What Giuliani said that started a firestorm of criticism:
I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America. He doesn’t love you and he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up, through love of this country.
The fact that Giuliani was booked on The Kelly File, rather than, say, Hannity suggested that this was not going to be the palsy chat Giuliani might have expected. “Mr. Mayor, do you want to apologize for your comment?” Kelly asked at the start.
“Not at all, I want to repeat it,” Giuliani replied. “The reality is, from all that I can see of this president, all that I’ve heard of him, he apologizes for America, he criticizes America… I don’t hear from him what I heard from Harry Truman, what I heard from Bill Clinton, what I heard from Jimmy Carter which is these wonderful words about what a great country we are, what an exceptional country we are.”
How hard did Giuliani listen? In 2008, Obama said, “(F)or as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.” In October, he said about improvements in the Ebola outbreak, “That’s what’s happening because of American leadership, and it is not abstract: it is people who are willing to go there at significant sacrifice to make a difference. That’s American exceptionalism. That’s what we should be proud of. That’s who we are.” According to U.S. News & World Report, Obama is the only president other than Ronald Reagan to say “American exceptionalism” in more than 80 years.
It speaks volumes that Kelly didn’t have at hand any clips of Obama talking up the U.S.
However, she did do a pretty decent job of challenging Giuliani. She argued, “(Obama) was raised in part by his grandparents. His grandfather served in World War II, his grandmother worked in a munitions factory to help the nation during World War II. I mean, to suggest he was raised by people who don’t love America or didn’t help him learn to love America... It’s a political world view, it’s not a hatred for the country.”
Giuliani even brought up Rev. Wright. “How about being in a church for 17 years with a minister of a church who says it’s not ‘God loves America,’ but ‘God damn America?’” he asked.
Well, whatever you think of Wright, he gave up his student deferment to serve this country while Giuliani got half a dozen deferments to avoid doing so.
Not that Kelly mentioned that but I do give her props for refusing to wade into Wright territory. She also confronted Giuliani with a 2007 clip in which he denounced a MoveOn.org ad calling General Petraeus “General Betray Us.” In the clip, Giuliani asked, “What kind of civility is that?”
“I ask you the same thing. What kind of civility is that?” Kelly looked at him sternly.
Giuliani insisted he held “a perfectly reasonable opinion.” He complained that Obama has “gone abroad and criticized us over and over again. …Every time he does it, it embarrasses me.”
Is Giuliani embarrassed by Republicans who have teamed up with Israel’s prime minister and deliberately disrespected our president? Kelly didn’t ask.
Instead, she asked, “What about the critics who say you hurt the GOP? …Do you think you hurt the Republican brand?”
In my opinion, this is what Kelly’s challenges were really about. Despite her now-famous “Megyn Moments,” I can assure you that she would never treat a Republican notable this way without approval from above.
“I’m right about this,” Giuliani said. “I have no doubt about it.” He brought up Wright again. “17 years in that church and that man condemned America over and over and over again. …I would have walked out of that church in two darned seconds because I love my country.”
Watch the discussion below from last night’s The Kelly File. Also, be sure to read Wayne Barrett’s perfect column about just what kind of love draft-dodging, criminal-promoting, adulterous Rudy Giuliani really practices.
“I wonder if Giuliani was trying to look like the tough guy with his attacks on Obama, you know, hoping to impress the powers that be (because I think Giuliani would like to, at least, get the VP slot on the GOP ticket).”
Well d d, after seeing the front page of the New York Daily News today (http://www.nydailynews.com) at the local 7-11, I’ve come to the conclusion that the answer to your question is A RESOUNDING YES. Don’t forget: the Koch brothers are two of the GOP’s PRINCIPAL FUNDRAISERS — and mark my words, like their father Fred, they are VIOLENTLY RACIST AND ANTI-COMMUNIST (and here is the MOTHER OF ALL IRONIES: Fred Koch started building his MASSIVE fortune in 1930 working for NONE OTHER THAN JOSEF STALIN — here’s the link that backs this up: http://other98.com/soros-vs-koch-infographic/), so naturally Adolf Giuliani KNOWS DAMN WELL he has to really suck up to them in order to have a decent chance of at least landing the VP slot on the GOP ticket in 2016. Furthermore, I believe David Koch still lives in New York City (probably in a VERY POSH PENTHOUSE on Park Ave. or Central Park West) and he and his brother Charles own a VERY POSH WATERFRONT MANSION out on the eastern end of Long Island in Southampton.
Ellen
I think you’re right as Kelly isn’t the only one I heard voice this concern. Gutfeld did on “The 5” today too and it sounded like he thinks that Giuliani took it too far and hurt the GOP cause. And if these 2 are wondering aloud about the damage, you know some of the big dogs in the GOP are definitely thinking it too.
Giuiani said his stupid and “horrible” remarks at a Scott Walker political event. I wonder if Giuliani was trying to look like the tough guy with his attacks on Obama, you know, hoping to impress the powers that be (because I think Giuliani would like to, at least, get the VP slot on the GOP ticket). But his remark were so far over-the-top and his contorted explanations seem to be making his hole deeper (which is causing him to receive even more criticism). Kinda makes one wonder what the GOP honchos really think of his stunt and whether it knocked him out as a VP or Presidential hopeful.
The right seems to obsessed with the misguided and incorrect psychoanalysis of the left. They demonstrate they have no idea of why we do what we do. Our motives are NOT couched in the same ridiculous paranoia and hate of the right.
Rudy uses every far right stupid talking point he can think of.
“Goddam America?”
Goddam YOU, Rudy.
Giuliani went so far as to rebuke the President for not being “brought up the way you were and the way I was brought up through love of this country,” a bow no doubt to the parenting prowess of Harold Giuliani, (Rudy’s father) who did time in Sing Sing for holding up a Harlem milkman and was the bat-wielding enforcer for the loan-sharking operation run out of a Brooklyn bar owned by Rudy’s uncle.
