Rudy Giuliani: We Had No Domestic Attacks Under [George W.] Bush

Yes, Giuliani really said that, seemingly forgetting about the whole 9/11/01 terrorist attacks including the attack on the city he was mayor of at the time and the shoe bomber that same year. Surprising given Giuliani's repeated non sequitur references to the 9/11 attacks in speeches for years after.

What color is the sky in Giuliani-land I wonder?

Here's Biden bagging on how Giuliani constructs a sentence:


And here's Rudy bringing it back to 9/11 when asked about Hillary Clinton getting choked up on the campaign trail during the 2008 primaries:


Other things that, according to Giuliani, probably happened or didn't happen during W. Bush's administration:
- There was a link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.
- The USA went to war in Iraq based on good intel.
- Colin Powell didn't lie to he UN about WMD's in Iraq.
- We found WMD's in Iraq.
- Giuliani won the GOP nomination in 2008 for president.
- We captured and/or killed Bin Laden.
- Cheney never shot anyone in the face.
- W. Bush took swift and effective action after Hurricane Katrina.
- The mission really was accomplished when W. Bush stood in front of the "Mission Accomplished" banner on that aircraft carrier.
- The economy didn't tank during W. Bush's administration.

And here's the thing, Giuliani isn't the first, and probably won't the last, GOP'er to claim there were no attacks during W.'s presidency. Remember, W.'s former White House press secretary Dana Perino and former Dick Cheney aide Mary Matlin have gone on record saying the same thing. Do they think if they say it often enough or loud enough or really, really really believe no attacks occurred during W.'s presidency then everyone will agree with them? They do know that people can remember and read, right?

Man oh man, I do love the smell of revisionist history in the morning.

Some Examples of Why the Last Decade Was Maybe Not So Good

A comment to the cartoon/post on Jan. 1, 2010 read, "[I] don't get it why did the decade suck."

I hope/think maybe they were joking. I essentially responded, in a comment to that post, as follows:


You're joking right? What about:

9/11

Iraq

Anthrax attacks

Afghanistan

Osama Bin Laden is still alive

Bush took the White House in 2000 after probably losing Florida and losing the popular vote

We re-elected him in 2004

The snuggy was invented

I'm pretty sure 1980's "fashion" was coming back towards the end of the decade there

We owe China WAY, WAY, WAY too much money now.

The Steelers won another Super Bowl and now have more than the Cowboys

Bennifer

Wall Street collapse

We bailed out Wall Street and they laughed all the way to he bank

Bernie Madoff

Housing bubble

ARM mortgages

DC sniper

Perry has been governor of Texas THE WHOLE DECADE

swine flu

bird flu

Sarah Palin

Tea Parties/Partiers/Baggers

Tiger is human

WAY too much reality TV

tsunami

Katrina

Ike

That's all I can think of right now. If anyone can think of more add a comment.


Side Note: Someone may bring up the whole argument/discussion that a decade doesn't begin until year one (1). For example, we don't start counting with the number zero (0) we start counting with one (1). So you wouldn't start a decade, much less a millennium with number zero would you? Meaning the past decade would have started in 2001 not 2000. Also, meaning a decade would end with year ten (10), in this past decade's case the year 2010 would actually be the last year of the decade not 2009. Weird to consider at best, boring at worst. I thought it was worth noting.

Too Soon?

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Yeah, probably.

But, a little levity sometimes helps an otherwise solemn, serious situation or in this case past occurrence.  

Some Thoughts Before the Weekend On: Racist Witch Doctor Posters; Tea "Party" ; Beck vs. Limbaugh; O'Reilly Shocks; Dems Push Back

Some things that got me thinking that you may be interested in checking out before the weekend:

First, a CNN piece discussed posters depicting Obama as a witch doctor seen at the 9/12 protest in D.C. with some discussion as to whether the posters(and those holding them) are racist. This is not the first time this poster has made news. I made my thoughts known regarding this racist poster here on PTN way back in July. Think of it this way, what kind of posters would they be carrying if the president were Mexican-American? Jewish American? Asian-American? Or, gasp, of Middle Eastern descent? Sure, using stereotypes for a race or ethnic group happened often to Irish and Italian Americans(see below), for example. But, that was during the late 1800's and early 1900's for the most part.

(anti Irish propaganda titled The Usual Irish Way of Doing Things, from Harpers Weekly)

(anti Italian propaganda from The Mascot newspaper)

Moving on, Time did an article about Glenn Beck (I still don't understand how people can take him seriously). Time! How much more mainstream media (or "MSM", that's what some conservatives call "mainstream media" even though "mainstream" is one word so it should be MM, jeesh, they can't even get initials right) can you get? Remember, Beck trumpets the Tea Party. Beck was behind the 9/12 protests. Look at Beck's site the912project.com, if you scroll to the bottom it's owned by Mercury Radio Arts, Inc., Beck's company (by the way, and I'm sure someone's already called him out on this but, really classy on Beck's part using the terrorist attacks on 9/11 to help promote his 9/12 protest attended by at least some wingnuts). Here's a thought, if the Tea Party is going to continue to call itself a "Party" that means it should put up its own candidates. Would a real third party in the form of the Tea Party be a bad thing? I would think it would be a good thing for the Dems and a bad thing for GOP'ers. Why? Do you think Dems would lose votes to a new Tea Party political party and its candidates? Or would GOP'ers? Or if GOP'ers embrace Tea Party ideas how many independent voters do you think they'll get? Remember, only about 30-35% of Americans consider themselves Republicans. Also, recall if you can the Independent Party when Ross Perot ran for prez in 1992. How did that work out for H.W. Bush? OK, I'm done ranting about this.

Next topic, Politico.com has a piece about Beck vs. Limbaugh (oh, don't worry, there's a cartoon forthcoming about that, it'll be Star Wars themed, if you guess the general idea of the cartoon you get a gold star from yours truly and a mention when I post the cartoon). In the piece a GOP strategist says that Dems and Limbaugh should be worried about Beck. I disagree, see my thoughts above regarding what an actual Tea Party as a political party would mean for the Dems. And not that I care one way or the other but, Limbaugh has nothing to worry about regarding Beck's popularity.

Also, Bill O'Reilly is for the public option?!?!?! (spit take, shake head, rub eyes, pinch self) OK. Kinda. Maybe. HuffPo has the actual conversation O'Reilly had regarding the public option on its site.

And lastly, the Dems are actually pushing back against some of the outlandish assertions being made about health insurance reform through a new site. Well, would you look at that? The Dems finally got hit enough in the nose on this (death panels for example) that they finally decided to stand up for themselves. This is what it must feel like for a parent when their kid stands up to a bully.

- The Gift That Keeps on Giving

or alternate title, what more do "birthers" want, the above was issued by the State of Hawaii, and says that this document is evidence of birth in any court proceeding. Oh wait , I forgot, they can explain this away too, this document was obviously forged and planted by an Obama operative or operatives; or this conspiracy involves dozens of people dating back to the President's birth or; someone traveled back in time and altered the birth records to show he was born in the USA; or Hawaii wasn't really a state when he was born there because their admission into the Union was unconstitutional or; [insert any explanation other than the most simple].

First, I' m addressing this only because of the attention it's received from mainstream media. Moreover, for all those that say "the media" has a left bias I guess you don't include Fox News
 and CNN as "the media".

I don't have much of an opinion regarding the "birthers" quest to kill their own personal windmills other than it reminds me, as it reminds others, of other fairly recent conspiracy theories. Let's not forget about the 9/11 conspiracy theory that in some way the Bush administration ordered the attacks on the towers or the conspiracy theory that the Clintons somehow orchestrated the death of Vince Foster. Case in point, one of the original leaders of the "birthers" is attorney Philip J. Berg who filed lawsuits on behalf of 9/11 conspiracy folks.

For whatever reason it seems that usually the party out of power has to deal with a fringe movement that advances a theory that flies in the face of the evidence presented to date. And those in the fringe movement focus on that theory with a tunnel vision that stops them from reasonably evaluating any evidence that rebuts their beliefs. They cannot accept that sometimes the simple, straight forward explanation is in fact the true one.

Lastly, like many other recent red herrings for the GOP dating back to the campaign(Obama is Muslim, he's anti-American, he pals around with terrorists, Obama doesn't wear a flag pin, Obama is a socialist/communist) here's the GOP's problem: The GOP's numbers are dwindling so they have to try to appease this group because, let's face it, they don't have many "groups" left in their party right now.

So, here's another conspiracy theory for you from yours truly: The Dems are letting this "birther" conspiracy theory fester because they know the GOP has to deal with these wingnuts and the Dems don't. Why address a non-issue that's hurting your opposition's base and not yours?

Sidenote: Wanna go down the rabbit hole further? What if McCain had been elected, would there have been anti-McCain birthers(note, McCain was born in 1936 in what at the time of his birth was the U.S. controlled Panama Canal Zone on a military base)? I'd have to say, "you betcha!"

Side-sidenote: The National Review, one of the most, if not the most, conservative periodicals going today has even written that the "birthers" are wrong.