Salon’s Tim Grieve attended a Rudy Giuliani campaign event in Maryland yesterday and heard the candidate’s basic stump speech. Giuliani, apparently, was supposed to deliver a specific address, but he managed to accidentally show up without a copy of the remarks. He told the crowd that he’d have to “do it from the top of my head,” which he said is “always better and more interesting” anyway. I’m not sure if “better” is the word I’d use.
Grieve posted a fairly detailed transcript, particularly on Giuliani’s comments regarding foreign policy, but one portion stood out.
“[D]uring the Democratic debate, I couldn’t find one of them that ever mentioned the words ‘Islamic terrorist.’ None of them. In fact, at one point, one of them was asked, who are the biggest enemies of the United States? The biggest No. 1, No. 2, No. 3 enemies of the United States. Do you know [who] they listed as number one? North Korea.
“North Korea is an entity. North Korea is dangerous. I mean, I grant that, and, boy, we have to be really careful about North Korea and sometimes we do a real long foreign policy address on North Korea, which I’m happy to do. I’m writing an article for Foreign Affairs, where we describe what we would do about North Korea. But I don’t remember North Koreans coming to America and killing us….
“I don’t even remember communists or Nazis doing that. Now, they were more dangerous in other ways, no question about that, but you’ve got to be realistic if you want to lead. You have to lead from cold, hard facts, not from fantasy.”
Good idea. When it comes to foreign policy, facts are good; fantasy is bad. It’s exactly why it’s worth noting that Giuliani’s off-the-cuff remarks were completely wrong.
During the first Democratic debate, Brian Williams asked Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), “What three nations other than Iraq represent to you the biggest threat to the United States?” Biden said North Korea and Iran right off the bat, and then explained why he’s concerned about Russia’s “totalitarian direction, which would unhinge all that’s going on positively in Europe.”
In other words, Giuliani, once again, doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He apparently expected Biden to list “Islamic terrorism” as one of the three nations that represent a threat to the U.S.
Indeed, listening to Giuliani talk about foreign policy is a bit like listening to Bush talk about foreign policy, only with a different accent.
“So let me talk to you, there are 12 commitments here. Eleven of them are in no order of importance, because I can’t tell you between No. 2 and No. 12 which is the most important. They’re all important and at different times different ones are important. But I can tell you what the first most important is, for sure. The first commitment that I make is I will keep America on offense against terrorism. And now, if I may, let me tell you what that means, because that’s a statement, it’s a sentence, it’s a very complex idea. And let me see if I can make it a little bit clearer. It comes from my view of the 20th century, both the 20th century and my understanding of Islamic terrorism. […]
“[I]f there is one main issue, if there is one big issue, if there is one single issue in this campaign, and rarely are there, and there probably isn’t even in this campaign — but if I had to select one, and that’s why I made it number one, it is if I’m president of the United States, I can guarantee you we will be on offense against Islamic terrorists in order to make sure that we end this war as soon as possible and with as few casualties as possible and keep America as safe as possible.”
So, what does being “on offense” mean? It means being “on offense.” And if you see a nuclear North Korea as a major threat, you don’t want to go “on offense,” but if you connect religion to terrorism, you’ll be ready to go “on offense.”
I keep thinking Giuliani will sound less dumb as the campaign goes on and he gets more practice as a candidate. So far, that hasn’t happened.
Update: I misunderstood something from Tim’s post. He didn’t personally attend the Giuliani event, and the speech was last week, not this week. My mistake. Giuliani’s still completely wrong, though.