Rudy Giuliani was in Virginia Beach yesterday, making an appearance with TV preacher and bona fide nut Pat Robertson at the televangelist’s Regent University. Giuliani tried to make some news by going after Bill Clinton for not launching a war on terror after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
“Many people think the first attack on America was on Sept. 11, 2001. It was not. It was in 1993,” said the former New York mayor.
Giuliani argued that Clinton treated the World Trade Center bombing as a criminal act instead of a terrorist attack, calling it “a big mistake” that emboldened other strikes on the Khobar Towers housing complex in Saudi Arabia, in Kenya and Tanzania and later on the USS Cole while docked in Yemen in 2000.
“The United States government, then President Clinton, did not respond,” Giuliani said. “(Osama) bin Laden declared war on us. We didn’t hear it.”
Is that so? Thank goodness we have visionaries like Rudy Giuliani who did hear it — which is why he put the emergency response center for NYC in a building already attacked once by terrorists. Which is why he neglected, as mayor, to ensure first responders had compatible communications equipment. Does Giuliani really want to go there?
For that matter, let’s also not forget that Giuliani was reversing himself in dramatic fashion yesterday. Last September, Giuliani said, “The idea of trying to cast blame on President Clinton is just wrong for many, many reasons, not the least of which is I don’t think he deserves it.” I guess that’s no longer operative.
But I’d suggest responding to Giuliani’s specific stupidity is secondary to the big picture.
The more notable occurrence yesterday was that Giuliani was cozying up to a crazed TV preacher in the first place. Democratic presidential candidates try to avoid controversial figures, but Giuliani jumped at the chance to appear with a televangelist who insisted publicly, 48 hours after the attacks, that the United States brought 9/11 upon itself.
Regular readers may recall a few of Brother Robertson’s more colorful public remarks, but Nico recently reminds us of some of the radical televangelist’s recent tirades.
Robertson on the vote in Dover, PA in support of evolution science: “I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city.”
Robertson on September 11: Two days after the terrorist attacks, Mr. Robertson held a conversation with Jerry Falwell on Mr. Robertson’s TV show “The 700 Club.” Mr. Falwell laid blame for the attack at the feet of “the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians,” not to mention the A.C.L.U. and People for the American Way. “Well, I totally concur,” said Mr. Robertson.
Robertson on Islam: “I believe it’s motivated by demonic power. It is satanic and it’s time we recognize what we’re dealing with. … [T]he goal of Islam, ladies and gentlemen, whether you like it or not, is world domination. ”
Robertson on former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s stroke: Robertson suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s recent stroke was the result of Sharon’s policy, which he claimed is “dividing God’s land.”
Robertson on assassinating Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez: “I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it.”
The list (.pdf) of Robertson gems goes on and on, but I’d add that he also recently said that the terrorists of Sept. 11 were just “a few bearded-terrorists who fly into buildings” and that federal judges who fail to share his worldview are a greater threat to the fabric of America than terrorism today, Nazis during WWII, and the Civil War in the 19th century. In 2003, Robertson told his television audience that the U.S. State Department deserves to be hit with a nuclear bomb.
Forget Giuliani’s ridiculous Clinton smear; this is what matters. Reporters should be confronting Giuliani with Robertson quotes and asking a) whether he agrees with them; and b) whether presidential candidates should lend their credibility to fringe fundamentalist extremists.
In 2000, when Bush visited Bob Jones University, it became a controversy — why would a credible presidential hopeful sanction BJU with a high-profile appearance? The questions dogged Bush for weeks. There’s no reason Giuliani shouldn’t face similar scrutiny now.
I’m curious, if a top-tier Democratic candidate publicly appeared with a radical extremist who blamed 9/11 on Americans and encouraged a terrorist attack on the State Department, do you think it might become a big deal?