Rudy has NOTHING else to offer the campaign but 9/11 so he will use it continually over the next 18 months.

Global Warming? Didn't exist before terrorists hit us on 9/11, and the fact that there continues to be climate change indicates that, unless he's elected, we'll be attacked again AND the ice caps will melt some more.

Right to Choose? Can't backpedal on decades of support for choice, BUT this issue isn't as important as the events of 9/11 and the ongoing terrorist threat to Americans.

Use of torture? Of course, if he could have used torture, HE could have prevented 9/11 and we'll have another attack without using his kind of torture techniques.

Civil Rights Violations? Civil Rights are not important when trying to protect us against the next 9/11-type attack.

And the list goes on and on and on...

When you are a one-hit wonder, you have to keep falling back on that one "perceived" success or else you end up playing the same tune over and over again in Vegas.

Screw Rudy! He doesn't have a chance, but he sure will work on scaring the sh*t out of us AGAIN!

PEACE

Reminds one of how Republicans claim that FDR knew all along about impending Pearl Harbor. Rudy is just continuing a long vile tradition.

I posted a comment somewhere on TPM about how discouraging the Loyal Bushie Bullies' meme about Edwards being "the $400 haircut in a 'beauty shop' Breck Girl" is to me.

With that in mind, it is so cool to watch HIM be the uber-male (sp?) taking on the Repugs' uber-male.

A COD-PIECE'd Breck Girl = Luke Skywalker?
That works really well for me.

I don't see how this statement is even responsive. Because Giuliani says that Democrats blame America for 9/11, he's engaging in the "politics of fear"? What the heck?

A one-hit wonder whose one hit is really just one note: a few days (just a few, really) as an unquestionably pitch-perfect public face do not equal impeccable security credentials. Honest to Pete, when will his opponents and the media start pointing out that that was literally all it was? That his actual "security" record pre- and post-9/11 is in fact horrendous? Jeez, you'd think the Republicans of all people would grasp Rove's "go at their strength" strategy; and they've actually got real true facts to blow that perception of strength to bits. Not to mention that when Ed Koch thinks you're an authoritarian nutbar, trust me, you're an authoritarian nutbar. Criminy.

good solid statement by edwards campaign and am delighted to finally see something like this.

and re rudy's proprietary claim to 9/11 -- john harwood (despite his qualification) made a ridiculously insulting comment on countdown last night when discussing the response to brit's rather excited terrorist/torture fantasy:

HARWOOD: Well look, Keith, I think those answers by both McCain and Giuliani help both men perhaps in the primary and in the general election for different reasons. McCain‘s core message is toughness, and that I‘m tough enough that I can go against my party on this issue. Why? Because I‘ve been in combat. I‘ve been tortured myself, as you mentioned.

Rudy Giuliani also has a bit of a claim to combat in a different way, because he was on the ground in 9/11. And he‘s saying something popular when he says, look, we‘ve got to do anything possible to prevent that from happening again.

bkny
veteran of 9/11

Weak. I'm totally over these finger-wagging disapprovals of GOP inanity. The Dems need to hit the likes of Rudy with their own actions, failures, incompetence, contradictions, and intellectual cowardice. The "politics of fear" thing is old and whiney.

Something like:

"With all due respect to Mr. Giuliani, what he 'usually hears' is the same regurgitated talking points issued over and over by the failed and incompetent members of his own Party -the same failed and incompetent 'leaders' who have worn down this country's defenses, and made a horrible mess out of Iraq, all for their self-serving, imagined, an unearned senses of entitlement and revisionist concepts of history.

We see this in the petulant manner in which Mr. Guiliani and his fellow-candidates react to Representative Paul, a Republican, when he simply states what every learned intelligence agency, diplomat, student of history, and academic has known since WWII - the arrogant, interventionist, and self-serving policies of short-sited politicians like Mr. Giuliani, have placed us in an untenable and impossible situation in the world.

In sum, while Mr. Giuliani is certainly entitled to his opinion, and Democrats look forward to challenging his positions in public debate, it would perhaps be more useful for him to absorb a cursory examination of history, before pontificating on what he 'usually hears' from Democrats."

Why didn't Edwards hit at Giuliani's personal performance as the DNC did? Putting his control center for emergency response in WTC after bomb in '93, firemen hate him, Firemen for Rudy is a shame organization, etc., etc. Take the issue which is supposedly his strongest and hit him hard. 9/11 is all's he's got, but it is not an unalloyed strength for him.

Rudy is baiting democrats. By getting democrats to attack him over his statements about 9-11, it's his campaign's way of controlling the message and proving that he's really a Republican. The best thing Edwards and other Democrats could do is play it cool and say, "While I disagree with Rudy's strategy for an endless war in Iraq, I agree with him that women should have the right to choose, I agree with his position that gun control is necessary to fight crime in big cities, and I believe that he's right when he says that gays and lesbians should have the same rights as everyone else. I just wish that he would register as a Democrat so that we could also show him a smarter way to defeat terrorism." If democrats started reminding Republicans who he really is everytime he does this, than he would very quickly stop baiting democrats over 9-11.

I caught that, too -- I literally started screaming at my set. And by that standard, I know an awful lot of people who also "saw combat" that day. Guess that qualifies us all to be president...

Nice name.

But that's not really the argument. The argument is that the Democrats blame America for 9/11 because they are unpatriotic America-haters.

I'm an Edwards fan but this statement just seems way off pitch to me. It's a rehash of the talking points from the DNC yesterday which I wasn't impressed by either.

it's time for all the Democratic candidates to start saying "F*ck me? No, F*ck YOU!"

Amen to that. Why is this so hard to grasp? It would be nice if one could remain above the fray, but it should be obvious by now that when one remains above the fray, one winds up usually OUT of the fray altogether. Noble, and irrelevant. What's the point of that?

Props to Edwards for coming out first, but that statement is basically bullshit politicalspeak. 

Tepid. Tepid won't win.

"Thank God George Bush is our president." -Rudy Giuliani

You don't understand that the Republican base connects to a candidate on a purely emotional level. They may know intellectually where Rudy stands on other issues, but as long as he can keep them afraid and focused on 9-11, it doesn't matter.

It's not that they 'love a strongman' more than they love their own guns or care about abortion - it's that as long as they are focused on 9-11, they’re not thinking about losing their guns or about dead fetuses. When someone is thinking with their feelings, you have to re-direct their attention in order to re-channel their fears.

Pointing out that Rudy is a phony about 9-11 is completely useless, because you are trying to reason with them, and this is about fear – an emotion, and not about logic or reason. You have to re-direct their attention so they can be afraid or angry about something else.

At that point, they will realize how afraid or angry they still are – and always will be - about these other issues – which is the last thing Rudy wants. You have to show Republicans that they are actually much more afraid of Rudy and the left-wing social agenda that he represents, than they're afraid of 9-11. You have to treat the Republican base just like you would any other neurotic patient, because they are not in touch with their true feelings. ; )

Of course it's emotional -- and for most of them, Rudy-the-tough-guy satisfies not just the fear but the hate that drives them. Tell them again about his social liberalism, and they'll just say -- as Kate O'Beirne has on Hardball and elsewhere -- they know all that, but he's the toughguy hero of 9/11 who stuck it to the liberals in NYC (read: black people and poor people), and he'll stick it to the Muslim menace and their liberal apologists. That's the image that needs to be punctured; and it doesn't take logical argument, just the effective revelation of facts. And once they see that the would-be emperor's actually naked, *then* they'll care about the other stuff.

And btw, it's a really bad idea to 1) make it look yet again like we're running from a security issue, and 2) help a Republican sound appealing to the general electorate. Way to bring us President Rudy.

(Like the psychiatric observation, though; just think you're latching onto the wrong neurosis...)

The only person I heard blame America for 9/11 was Jerry Falwell.....