How to respond to a smear — A case study

April 25, 2007

This morning, we talked about Rudy Giuliani smearing the Dems’ presidential candidates, arguing that if any of them are elected, there will be a “new 9/11,” because the “Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us.” Giuliani made the same argument Republicans have made in every campaign cycle since 9/11: unless you want to get attacked by terrorists, vote GOP.

For all the obvious reasons, Giuliani’s attack doesn’t make any sense, and it’s particularly dumb coming from him. Regardless, Kevin Drum wrote the post of the day, suggesting Dems are missing the point here.

So I was curious: how would the Dem candidates respond? With the usual whining? Or with something smart? Greg Sargent has today’s responses from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton over at his site and the verdict is in: more whining. Obama: “Rudy Giuliani today has taken the politics of fear to a new low blah blah blah.” Clinton: “One of the great tragedies of this Administration is that the President failed to keep this country unified after 9/11 yada yada yada.”

Unbelievable. Neither one of them took the chance to do what Rudy did: explain in a few short sentences why the country would be safer with a Democrat in the Oval Office. Is it really that hard? Giuliani’s position is clear: more war, more domestic surveillance, more torture, and fewer civil liberties. And while it’s true that the liberal position on making America secure is a little more complicated than the schoolyard version of foreign affairs beloved of Bush-era Republicans, it’s not that complicated. So instead of complaining about how mean Giuliani is, why can’t Obama and Clinton just tell us what they’d do?

Whining just reinforces the message that Democrats are wimps. The real way to be “hard hitting” is to explain why Giuliani is wrong and what Democrats would do instead — and why the average Joe and Jane would be safer and better off without guys like Giuliani bumbling recklessly around the globe leaving a stronger al-Qaeda and a weaker America in their wake. Until they do, Rudy and the Republicans are going to win every round of this fight.

Now, I’m sympathetic to Kevin’s perspective on this, though I’m not entirely sure the GOP is going to “win every round of this fight.” The Giuliani vs. Dems dynamic played out largely the same way last year, and Dems did pretty well. As of today, Americans prefer Dems to Republicans on preventing terrorism, and that’s not a bad position to be in going into a presidential race.

That said, Kevin’s point is well taken; the Dems’ response to Giuliani should hit hard. Let’s look at what the campaigns had to say.

Obama was the first out of the gate.

“Rudy Giuliani today has taken the politics of fear to a new low and I believe Americans are ready to reject those kind of politics. America’s mayor should know that when it comes to 9/11 and fighting terrorists, America is united. We know we can win this war based on shared purpose, not the same divisive politics that question your patriotism if you dare to question failed policies that have made us less secure. I think we should focus on strengthening our intelligence, working with local authorities and doing all the things we haven’t yet done to keep Americans safe. The threat we face is real, and deserves better than to be the punchline of another political attack.”

Score: B+. This didn’t strike me as whining; it seemed rather on-point — Rudy’s wrong, here’s what I would do differently. It could have hit Giuiliani harder, but not bad.

Clinton was next.

“There are people right now in the world, not just wishing us harm but actively planning and plotting to cause us harm. If the last six years of the Bush Administration have taught us anything, it’s that political rhetoric won’t do anything to quell those threats. And that America is ready for a change.

“One of the great tragedies of this Administration is that the President failed to keep this country unified after 9/11. We have to protect our country from terrorism – it shouldn’t be a Democratic fight or a Republican fight. The plain truth is that this Administration has done too little to protect our ports, make our mass transit safer, and protect our cities. They have isolated us in the world and have let Al Qaeda regroup. The next President is going to be left with these problems and will have to do what it takes to make us safer and bring Democrats and Republicans together around this common mission of protecting our nation. That is exactly what has to be done and what I am ready to do.”

Score: B. Clinton’s response to Giuliani neglected to mention Giuliani. It sounds like a pulled punch, though it does a good job of connecting Giuliani to Bush’s failed presidency.

Edwards:

“Rudy Giuliani’s suggestion that there is some superior ‘Republican’ way to fight terrorism is both divisive and plain wrong. He knows better. That’s not the kind of leadership he offered in the days immediately after 9/11, and it’s not the kind of leadership any American should be offering now.

“As far as the facts are concerned, the current Republican administration led us into a war in Iraq that has made us less safe and undermined the fight against al Qaeda. If that’s the ‘Republican’ way to fight terror, Giuliani should know that the American people are looking for a better plan. That’s just one more reason why this election is so important; we need to elect a Democratic president who will end the disastrous diversion of the war in Iraq.”

Score: A-. I’d give Edwards the A, except he tacitly complimented Giuliani’s post-9/11 performance and said we need a “better plan” without alluding to what that might be.

DNC:

“How can the man who failed to prepare NYC for a second attack after the first one, quit the 9/11 commission because he was too busy raking in money from sketchy business deals, can’t assess if the surge is working or if Iran and North Korea have nuclear weapons claim that he will keep America safe?”

Score: A. Dems want to knock the 9/11 halo off Giuliani’s head, and the DNC did just that. I’d give it the A+ if it made some mention of why Dems offer a better way.

How would you respond?

You don’t win when you play on the defensive. This isn’t WWI. You hit them and you hit them hard and don’t let them take breath. Hit them in their soft belly, and then when they cry, hit them again.

With apologies to the Continental Op.

  • I’d have been harder on Obama. His was weaker in my opinion than Hillary’s. He gets a C from me

    Of course, if I applied my “furious” curve, none would have received passing grades. Calling Guiliani the asshole that he is would be mandatory.

  • They shouldn’t forget to play the Bernie Kerik either – early and often. Do they really think more GOP cronyism of their corrupt buddies is the superior way to keep America safe? This should be a complete no-brainer.

  • My response:

    Rudy Giuliani has no experience what-so-ever in foreign policy, international anti-terrorism, diplomacy or federal politics. His opinion regarding the security of this country are pure partisan political rhetoric and Americans have definitely seen enough of that kind of politics.

    I believe that America can be secure AND can be a world leader. Democrats can repair our international standing and defend our Constitution in letter and in spirit. When a Democrat takes the White House in 2008 we will use our strengths and world leaderhip to make us safe. Republicans have shown that they only know how to lead using fear and threats. America will not live in fear any longer!

  • “Rudy Giuliani knows more about cross dressing, protecting corrupt cronies, and echoing Bush-Cheney smears than he does about keeping our country safe.

    The last six years have been a disaster for American foreign policy and our efforts to keep the country safe. Instead of the empty rhetoric and failed leadership that Mr. Giuliani and the far right offer, we need a renewed committment to… (fill in your top three security themes/proposals)”

  • I would like Gore to take a crack at this one too. He is by far the best qualified and he raises truthful issues that others miss because he sees the big picture.

  • One of them should also have mentioned that NOT only did Rudy not properly protect his city for a 2nd attack, he put the damned command center at the place of the previous attack with all that fuel in the building, but he also neglected to put the fire and police command centers in one spot and failed to get them communications devices that worked together. Way to go Rudy! He’s gotta be culpable for many of those First Responders deaths, just on sheer incompetence and because he didn’t want to listen to professional advice or spend the money to protect those people. Why on earth would one person feel safer with him in charge of anything?

    And, The ONLY reason he looked so “heroic” and like such a great leader on Sept 11 was because our beloved leader sat reading a book, looking like he was messing his pants for an entire 7 minutes after he learned about it, and then went and played like some sort of aeronautical mouse running from the Osama cat the rest of the day. ( Though I do understand why the Secret Service wanted him to do that) And our beloved Puppet Master was in an underground bunker at an indiscolsed location for many many days after the attack. And that is why Rudy looked so “take charge”, in essence he was only doing the job that we expected of our civic leaders, before that time, to do in an emergency.

  • Giuliani’s position, and the Republican position in general, on the GWOT and how to prosecute it is surrender, because the means by which they choose to fight it undermines the very ideals that make us who we are. Boiled down to its essence, the message is that we must become more like these backward, barbaric savages in order to fight them. They’ve forgotten that sometimes being the good guy means fighting with one hand tied behind your back. Certain options simply should not be on the table if one wishes to stake out the moral high ground and hold it.
    If you become your enemy in order to defeat him, then he has defeated you.

  • I’m not sure Giuliani is legitimate enough to warrant more of a response. What’s he polling these days? Who supports him?

    Let the ankle biter crazy himself into obscurity. Frankly, America isn’t going to buy his bullshit because it’s the same brand as Bush’s.

    I’d rather not have the Democratic candidates come out fighting against this loser and leave themselves open to a flanking from a more substantial candidate.

  • I think the thing to remember is that the only people who will possibly be swayed by Giuliani’s fear smear probably aren’t ever going to vote for us anyway. And if Rudy’s the Republican nominee, all we’ll need to dissuade the wingnuts will be to post his “drag” picture everywhere and remind them he’s pro-choice.

    I thought Obama’s answer was the best of the bunch, except for the part where he repeated the BS meme “America’s mayor”. I thought his line “The threat we face is real, and deserves better than to be the punchline of another political attack” was great stuff. I liked that his proposal was not too specific (like Hillary’s, which was very city-centric).

    Edwards did a better job tying Bush and Iraq around Rudy’s neck. We need to more of that.

  • I would also add that if Osama bin Laden attacks again, it will be the fault of the Republican administration, who allowed bin Laden to get away because they were focused on launching the disastrous war in Iraq.

    …the CIA field commander for the agency’s Jawbreaker team at Tora Bora, Gary Berntsen, says he and other U.S. commanders did know that bin Laden was among the hundreds of fleeing Qaeda and Taliban members. Berntsen says he had definitive intelligence that bin Laden was holed up at Tora Bora—intelligence operatives had tracked him—and could have been caught. “He was there,” Berntsen tells NEWSWEEK…

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8853000/site/newsweek/

  • The most important thing about the way Democratic candidates responded is that (everyone sitting down?) they didn’t let the bogus charges go unanswered. Beyond that, they wisely tied into several themes that already exist in the public mind (without getting too wonky for a change): (1) the Bush approach to terrorism has weakened America, (2) Bush obliterated whatever unity we once had, and (3) it’s no longer unpatriotic to disagree with Republicans. In the process, they made Rudy sound absurd, which in my mind, goes a lot further than beating him on debate points. They need to discredit the total fool.

    None of these responses will fit on a bumper sticker, but that’s another assignment.

  • A beast at bay is not a way to live your life in dignity.

    Come out of your terror hole and shape a new world.

    Be proud to be kind.

    It’s not a sin to be patient. It’s not a crime to be tolerant.

    Make a new world free of fear, carnage, hatred and misery.

    Are you so weak and feeble you cannot even imagine such a possibility?

    Then shame on you — go vote Republican, it’s all you deserve.

  • #9 I like your comments, taoless…the Dems would have done well to incorporate the spirit of your remarks.

    CB, you were very generous…have you ever actually been a teacher? 🙂 I would have graded much more strictly…while you merely ding candidates for not providing much in the way of a solution, I see that as a huge hole. Obama touches on it with “strengthening our intelligence, working with local authorities…” but then cops out with “…doing all the things we haven’t yet done to keep Americans safe.” Um, elaborate please?

    Clinton is similarly vague with “this Administration has done too little to protect our ports, make our mass transit safer, and protect our cities.” What, specifically will you do to make mass transit safer? To protect our cities?

    The others offer nothing even this specific. You gave them A’s for that? This is one of the biggest gripes that conservatives have with Democrats, and it would behoove the Dems to offer some concrete ideas — ways that they will actually improve on the Bush presidency. You might actually be able to win the election with this vague stuff, but you better damn well have a plan when you get in office.

    Look, for all their faults, Bush (and conservatives, somewhat by extension), have one thing to brag about in the last 5 1/2 years — there has not been another 9/11, and as far as we know, we’ve never even gotten close. Maybe that’s dumb luck…maybe Al Qaeda is resting on their laurels for the time being, but I don’t think anyone believes that there won’t be a significant effort in the next 5 years to carry on the Jihad on American soil. Democrats can claim that Bush hasn’t done enough to protect us since 9/11, but they aren’t going to get very far in the face of the obvious fact that we haven’t been attacked again. So let’s hear it Dems…give us an actual plan, and show us you’re better than the conservatives are giving you credit for.

  • No, no, no. They’re all wrong, but so’s Kevin Drum (less wrong, but still not as right as the response could be).

    The way to respond to Giuliani is to say, “Wow, I didn’t know someone could be such a fascist *and* such a pussy as well, but apparently, that’s what he thinks Americans want, so he’s going to give it to them.”

    Bonus points if someone can work in the “cowards make the best torturers” line for an analogous it’s-not-inconsistency-it’s-actually-projection argument.

  • I think Rudy Giuliani is a marginal candidate. The cross dressing will sink him with the wing-nuts and his desire to cozy up to the Bush thugs will be very disturbing to the few sane folks who haven’t defected to independent voter status. His record isn’t very good as has been pointed out (his decision to have command and control HQ in the World Trade center for example) and that record leaves a lot of unanswered questions about his competence.

  • What will save America from future attacks is a president with a good knowledge of the dynamics of the middle east and the ability to transcend partisanship to get this country working together. Guiliani, unfortunately, has not demonstrated either.

  • why i love john dean.

    he likes to fight

    and

    he doesn’t have any of those “campaign asvisors” writing his comments for him.

  • “why i love john dean.” – orionATL

    Howard Dean by any chance????

    My answer:

    Democrats stopped the Millenium Attacks.

    Enough said.

  • Yes, Edwards and the DNC get the best grades, but to me it’s A-, not A. You whack the futhermucking schmuck with the fact that he’s so good at fighting terrorism that after the FIRST attack, he put the city’s disaster response center IN THE WORLD TRADE CENTER, and DID NOTHING to prepare for a second attack of any kind.

    You whack them as the lying incompetent moron pissants they are.

    “The only ‘good Republicans’ are pushing up daisies.”

  • Rudi Giuliani would have America believe that unless we want to get attacked by terrorists, we must vote GOP.

    But Rudi Giuliani desperately wants to hide a small fact from America: That the real terrorists among us ARE the GOP.

    Consider the pre-emptive warnings related to bin Laden attacking America. Consider the blatantly dishonest evidence created by a Republican administration used to justify the Iraq War, when the real intelligence pointed to Afghanistan as home base for Al Quaeda. Consider the lies, piled one upon another to hide from public view the ever-growing list of crimes committed by the current administration—covered up by six years of Republican rule. Consider the bigotries of post-Katrina. Consider the hatreds of convicted republican felons. Consider the violations of individual liberties by the current administration.

    Consider the rising poverty rate inflicted upon American society by the creation of a service-class economy not seen since the days of medieval serfdom, the increased numbers of children without adequate healthcare brought about by substandard wages and political greed, and the millions who are punished by the profit-driven PLan D of Medicare designed to further enrich the nationalistic profiteering of the pharmaceutical industry.

    Then—consider that Rudi Giuliani wants to “stay the course” on each and every one of these issues.

    Rudi Giuliani threatens our nation with the spectre of the terrorist—but Rudi Giuliani IS the terrorist.

    Vote Democratic, for a safer, healthier, more prosperous, and freer America….

  • Every day Bush is in office, another Arab has decided to devote their life to killing us. Every week, there’s another weapon made for that terrorist to use. Every few months is another atomic bomb in the hands of the Axis of Evil, who are increasingly itching to hand them over.

    Every second of Bush’s Presidency is a step closer to a mushroom cloud Rice warned us about.

  • I agree with CB and Kevin Drum: the Dems need more piss and vinegar. Instead of responding diplomaticaly and in measured tones, as Barack and Hillary did, they shoulf mock the opposition. These candidates need to put some swagger in their voice and uncork a zinger. Like what? I’d say …

    The Democrats will keep this nation safer because the Dems will appoint competent people to protect this country whose loyalty is to this nation. The Republicans, Rudy included, will keep apointing the same incompetent idiots whose only qualification is that they have a crush on the president and who have made everything in this nation less safe from our ports, to our military strength and readiness, to our food supply, to our air and water … hey they can’t even keep Americans from wondering if the next can of pet food will kill their dog. All because Republicans value loyalty to party over brains. The Republican response to 9/11 was to attack a country we didn’t need to and promptly doubled the death tolll of that fateful day. Democrats are much smarter than that.

  • Rudy Giuliani fired the most effective New York City police commisioner of the 20th century for getting too much credit (i.e., more than Giuliani) from the newspapers as a crime fighter. That’s Rudy Giuliani’s idea of keeping people safe.

  • Josh Marshall’s onto something here [my emphasis]…

    […] Make no mistake: complaining that the other side is questioning your patriotism telegraphs weakness.

    Democrats should just hit right back on how President Bush has been helping Osama bin Laden for almost six years. Sounds harsh. But it’s true. Consider the facts. President Bush had bin Laden trapped in the mountains of Tora Bora. But he let bin Laden get away because Bush wanted to focus on Saddam Hussein instead. The president and the White House tried to lie about this during the 2004 election. But since then the evidence has become overwhelming. President Bush decided to let bin Laden get away so he could get ready to attack Saddam Hussein. So pretty much anything bin Laden does from here on out is on President Bush. And how about Iraq? President Bush has screwed things up so badly that he’s created a whole new generation of recruits for bin Laden. He’s created a whole new army for bin Laden. Not by being tough but by being stupid. And by being too much of a coward to admit his mistakes once it was obvious that the occupation of Iraq was helping bin Laden specifically and the jihadist agenda in general.

    After half a decade, the verdict is pretty clear: President Bush has been the biggest ally Osama bin Laden has. He’s helped bin Laden at pretty much every turn — even if only by his own stupidity, incompetence and cowardice. And when the next big terrorist attack comes, we can thank President Bush for helping make it happen.

    That’s more like it.

  • My response from last night at Liberal Values:
    Some believe that John McCain lost his reputation (never really deserved) as a straight talker and moderate when he became too closely associated with George Bush’s policies on Iraq. If voters no longer like McCain, they should not be too happy with Rudy Giuliani. Politico quotes Giuliani as sounding as out of touch with reality as Bush and Cheney on terrorism and the war.
    Giuliani claims that there will be a new 9/11 attack if the Democrats take over as, “The Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us.” That’s strange considering that it was the Democrats who supported action against terrorism before 9/11 and the Republicans who opposed it.
    Bill Clinton attempted action against al Qaeda, while the Republican Congress blocked him. The Clinton administration passed on the warnings about al Qaeda, with recommendations for fighting them, but the Bush administration ignored them, and Rice was even was caught lying about receiving the plans. Bush ignored many other warnings and recommendations to take action, including the August 6, 2001 daily presidential briefing warning of “patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.” When the attacks came, Bush was unable to act, with former Bush supporter Lee Iacocca saying he “was paralyzed” afterwards.
    Even after Bush overcame his paralysis he responded to the attack inappropriately, including attacking the wrong country and allowing bin Laden to escape at Tora Bora. While the Iraq war has led to increased recruitment for al Qaeda and radicalization of moderate Muslims, placing us at greater risk, Giuliani supports George Bush’s decision to attack the wrong country.
    Giuliani, once again proving he is no libertarian, complains that if the Democrats are elected, “We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation and we will be back to our pre-Sept. 11 attitude of defense.” Moving beyond the fact that our pre-Sept. 11 “attitude of defense” was inadequate due to the failure of Republicans to take the threat seriously, Giuliani’s statement is ironic in light of another statement he made. Giuliani echoed Bush in claiming the terrorists “hate us for the freedoms we have and the freedoms we want to share with the world.”
    This is a simplistic explanation, and a commander in chief who shows this little understanding of terrorism could not be expected to be able to take actions to diffuse the threat and prevent future attacks. Such an attitude will only result in a perpetual state of warfare, which I suspect is what the Republicans really want as long as they believe they gain politically. Even if we accept the Bush/Giuliani logic that the terrorists “hate us for the freedoms,” it hardly makes sense to respond by limiting freedom at home as Giuliani advocates.

  • Terrorism will never be defeated until both Repugs and Dems
    get real about the corrosive influence of AIPAC. Then pressure Israel to make peace within the 1967 boundaries with Palestine.
    Then I am absolutely certain that terrorism will reduce by at least 75%.

  • “…Politico quotes Giuliani as sounding as out of touch with reality as Bush and Cheney on terrorism and the war…”
    (Comment by Ron Chusid — 4/25/2007 @ 11:59 pm )

    Probably because Rudy Giulliani knows as much about foreign affarirs as a pig knows about Sunday.

    Hi Ron!

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