yes, agreed, Dems do need to undercut Rudy's 9/11 credentials. the media certainly won't do it...

This is exactly right.

Mention Kerik and the clueless Van Essen.

Mention the incompetence after the 1993 attack placing the city's emergecy management in the towers.

Mention the total lack of coordination between FDNY and NYPD in the 9/11 response because he (rudy) wanted to be the center of all decisions and appointed incompetent yes-men as fire and police commissioners.

Mention the total disorganization in the recovery process (until FEMA took control)

Mention the despise felt by the NYPD and FDNY. interview the retired chiefs and commissioners!!

He has absolutely no terrorism credentials.

C

To my mind, Giuliani's "game plan" might really work. Giuliani understands that no one has ever won an election by having a more profound, empathetic understanding of one's "enemies." While understanding the roots of terrorism has great utility, it is a political dead end; better to attack Giuliani and Bush camp for incompetence and our lack of allies in fighting Terrorism.

Giuliani has to be discredited. More importantly, he has to be made an object of ridicule. The bully that cows his opponents is powerful. The bully that gets meets forceful opposition can marshall supporters. The bully that is successfully mocked and ridiculed is impotent. That doesn't mean that discrediting his argument on an intellectual level is unimportant, but it does mean that he must be an object of derision to be discredited thoroughly.

If 7 years of Bush have taught us anything, it is that there's a fine line between tough and dumb. Rudy is further across that line than Bush and McCain combined.

This is the guy who couldn't get the police and fire dept. radios to communicate with each other.

If I understand Giuliani's argument, he is saying that the root cause of terrorism is not poverty, but that it is RELIGION. So his position is that we are in a war against an opposing ideology, a CRUSADE if you will, where the only way to win is to eliminate the other side's ideas. This is a very radical position for a mainstream candidate to explicitly take. I would also say that religious wars are not something that modern first-world nations engage in any longer.

As Lincoln once said, there are two ways to get rid of enemies...one is to kill them but the best way is to turn them into friends. Sun Tzu said that the best way to defeat enemies is to take away his allies. I would say that if we combined those two strategies, we could defeat the worst of our religious enemies by not being so HATEFUL that our potential friends stay estranged from us. If it were not so obvious to the world that we did intend to KEEP Iraq, then we would find a lot more friends willing to help us pacify Iraq.

I saw that, but I think what he meant is that they are not wrong for acting in accordance with their own mindset...

Rudy is offering Americans a prescription for perpetual war because Rudy doesn't realize that Islamic terrorists aren't Squeegee men. Unless something is done to ameliorate the economic and political conditions that turn an average person into a terrorist, no amount of military action or suppression of civil liberties at home or abroad will ever prevent the creation of more terrorists. It's perpetual despair that causes the average person to join with the ranting crazies and become willing to sacrifice their own life in a terrorist act. Simply give people hope that things will get better without resorting to bombing innocents and the crazies will be marginalized. Rudy will never do that and , unfortunately for him, he can't simply conduct police sweeps throughout the whole world and lock up everyone who he doesn't want to hear or doesn't like to look at. Americans wouldn't stand for it either, seeing as they are already tired of the occupation of Iraq.

It's perpetual despair that causes the average person to join with the ranting crazies and become willing to sacrifice their own life in a terrorist act.

Nawwww.

It is the frustration of rising expectations.

I think most of those historians who studied the French Revolution would agree with Marxists that it was not deteriorating conditions that sparked the revolution but the increase in wealth alongside privilege.

Giuliani's mindset would never admit of the distinction that it is injustice, real or perceived, that incites rebellion rather than ideology as such.

Best, Terry

Absolutely right, and good point. That's precisely what Rudy did on crime--set up a battle between mushy headed liberals intent on understanding root causes and Himself, a man well in touch with the true nature of Crime and now Terrorism.

Know thine opponent ...

Also get into Giuliani Partners, who they were, and who they did business with.

"iuliani’s chosen partners at Giuliani Partners included a former FBI administrator, Pasquale J. D'Amuro, who admitted taking artifacts from Ground Zero, Alan Placa, a former Roman Catholic priest who was accused of covering up sexual abuse in the church, and Bernard Kerik, Giuliani's former police commissioner, who was later accused of having ties to organized crime."

"One of Giuliani's clients during this time included an admitted drug smuggler, Hank Asher, who according to a shareholder in the company, hired Giuliani for his "influence with the federal government to enable Mr. Asher to take an active role in Seisint as a chief executive officer despite the allegations about his drug dealing." Giuliani helped Asher's company get $12 million in government grants. After Asher's past was publicly revealed, he resigned from the company; Giuliani defended him to newspapers without mentioning that Asher was a paying client. After Asher's resignation, investors in the company, Seisint, looked into how much Giuliani Partners had been paid: $2 million a year in fees, a commission on sales of Seisint products, and 800,000 warrants for Seisint stock, which would prove valuable when Seisent was sold to Lexis Nexis for $775 million. One investor sued the board, claiming that Giuliani's contributions had not been worth the large amount paid.

In representing a pharmaceutical company, Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, in a case against the Drug Enforcement Administration, Giuliani negotiated a $2 million fine and no further penalty for what the DEA called "lax security" at plants that produced OxyContin, which the DEA said was being used as a recreational drug. The lead DEA investigator later said that Purdue Pharma got off easily in the case because of Giuliani's connections to government officials. Giuliani later represented Purdue Pharma in a recently settled case in which the DEA accused the company of marketing OxyContin by playing down its level of addictive properties. Giuliani met with government lawyers six times to help negotiate a settlement in the case. Clients of Giuliani Partners are required to sign confidentiality agreements, so they do not comment about the work they get done or the amount that thay have paid for it. Giuliani has refused to talk about his clients, the work he did for them, the compensation he received from them, or any details about the company."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Giuliani#Giuliani_Partners
(not an even-handed article, but character is fate)

Rudy is actually doing us a favor, and dismantling the Bush web of scary lies. As stupid as he is, he is demystifying the terrorism problem.

It's no longer about a handful of inscrutible, black-hooded ideologues doing crazy horrible stuff to us. It's just plain global crime and needs to be dealt with that way. It's not a Global War on Terror, it's a Global War on Crime. Rudy knows how to deal with just plain criminals.

Doesn't anybody see an opportunity here?

Shorter: Rudy coddles drug smugglers, priests accused of sexual abuse, and defends a company that thinks Oxycontin's for everyone.

Crime went down under Giuliani, but the downturn actually started under David Dinkins, his predecessor. The strategy of cracking down on low-level crime (vandalism, jumping turnstiles) was actually the creation of William Bratton, his chief of police - Giuliani ran Bratton out of the city when he started getting too much credit. In addition, the drop in crime came exactly when Bill Clinton was president and the economy of NYC improved, so maybe it really is about poverty after all.

So the rebut is easy. The way to stop him from transferring his crime-fighting reputation to anti-terrorism is to point out that the crime-fighting reputation itself is inflated and largely unjustified. Emphasize that if he does get the GOP nomination, he's not even going to carry NYC. Remind people that he ran for the Senate against Hillary Clinton but dropped out, supposedly because of his prostate cancer. That was a lie - he dropped out because he knew he would lose to her. His achievement such as it is was being the only public figure who acted responsibly on 9/11, but otherwise he's a very divisive figure. Look at his actual record when he was mayor - the pettiness, authoritarianism and needless troublemaking are all there. I've lived in New York for 25 years and watched all this happen firsthand.

By the way, calling him "Rudy" is the kind of chummy familiarity that gave us "W" and made "Arnold" the governor of California. It doesn't help. Stop it.

Rudy's broadside today was the same stuff: He knows what it takes to deal with them and understands that the only thing they understand is a kick in the teeth. Dems are wussies who don't get this.

I was one of "them" in NYC in the 90s. Getting frisked by 3 gun toting cops while carrying an arm full of groceries. Come out of your front door and have guns drawn on you and be frisked because of "a puffy jacket". Rudolph Hitler put the mindset in place that had Abner Louima plunged and Amadou Diallo murdered.

But thanks to Rudy I left NYC for the less racist and less abusive South.

------------

I wish Edwards would mention his mafia dad, his mafia chauffeur/homeland security director or his inability to keep his own family together.

Rudy is asking for a kick to the balls. I guess he is scared of Obama and Hillary.

Nah checkout Greg Sargent's point. Rudy has an image amongst some people as can-do guy and plays on his anti-dinkins role all the time. Big time lil runt tough guy racist mafia connected crime stopper. He's trying to transfer his crime fighter image into a terrorist fighter image. Its hilarious.

Rudy is shameless. All the GOP candidates are sloppy with their language but Giuliani is the worst. At their debate earlier in the week he said JFK airport and Ft. Dix in New Jersy were attacked by Islamic terrorists. Attacked? Really? The thousands of folks who go through JFK and Ft. Dix will be surprised to hear that. And, worst of all, Wolf Blitzer didn't correct him. The so-called plot was as far from an attack as you can get. it wasn't even a plan; it was an idea. But in fear mongerer's minds, like Giulianis, everything has to be blown out of all proportion to try to keep the people afraid. As Mayor Bloomberg said a day after the "plot" was announced, Rudy should "get a life".

The press indeed lets him get away with this crap and among the small-minded of the country he gains credibility. The press must counter this dangerous hype before we get another Bush-type in the White House.

But terrorism is not caused by poverty.

Neither is gangsterism - for instance the variety Rudy's father had membership in - unless you count the need to do work, to do something to acquire money, as constituting "poverty."

Terrorism is a variety of gangsterism. So is the mafia. So is the Bush administration. Most people capable of being successful gangsters would also be capable of earning an honest living, and are not gangsters because the alternative is hunger.

Also, Saudi Arabia is a gangster regime - witness the kickbacks to the prince from the British. If we can define all this in terms of gansterism, it wraps up Guiliani and associates nicely.

I have what I believe will be the perfect counter to Rudy's "The Only Thing They Understand is a Bullet" tough talk. Show an excerpt of Rudy saying that. Then show an excerpt of Dubya saying the same thing. Then show a few seconds of Arlington.

Of course there's also a slight problem with blaming it on religious extremism- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - the architect of 9-11. As BBC and the Philippine Newspapers reported, Khalid liked to get drunk, visit strip bars, go scuba diving, etc. go pretty much anywhere but a mosque.

But then Rudy has always had a problem with the "blame America" crowd, refusing to look into the mirror and accept the responsibility everyone else recognizes as blowback for decades of covert suppression.

Gangsterism especially the variety Rudy's father had membership in is caused by alienation from society. What Italian wanted to call the Irish cops in a city like NYC or Chicago if a crime had been committed against them at the turn of the century? What Irishman wanted to call the American cops in 1850? The newer immigrants on the lower rungs of the ladder didn't get a fair shake so it was better to have their own neighborhood enforcement of the rules. Those organizations grew into crime families and most minority groups eventually grew as they became successful out of their need for them.

the media is "already beginning to show signs that they'll let him get away with it"??????

oh my god, Dems of all flavors themselves have been letting him get away with it for 5 years! of course that's the media line, have you ever, ever heard ANY media figure not refer to Giuliani as "America's Mayor" and Mr. 9/11 and all that crap?

nobody has more to do with Rudy's over inflated image today than moderate Democrats. they should all be taking it all back en masse. the public doesn't care about abner louima, bernie kerik, 3 divorces, etc etc. the public cares about remaining afraid, and Rudy is the one giving them what they want, that's why he's leading in EVERY poll!!! hello!

"However, it was Ed Koch, not Guiliani who really waged the war with the Far Left."

Daniel Greenbaum

Hey Dan, old buddy, would you do us the generous favor of telling us who exactly, or what organisations make up the "far left"?

Myself, I have found chimeras remarkably easy to defeat. Maybe you could tell us why we should be afraid of the "far left". You could start by telling us who is in it.

Greg,

...but I think what he meant is that they are not wrong for acting in accordance with their own mindset...

It looks to me like Giuliani is trying to draw a distinction between socioeconomic crime -- ie, the mugging and burglery, and drugs and prostitution -- that we're familiar with in the kind of urban environment that made Rudy himself famous, and the ideological-political extremity of terrorism in order to convince enough voters that he is qualified to make the jump from Big City mayor to Commander-in-Chief (by the way, are any Republicans running for anything as pedestrian as "President of the United States" anymore?).  Along the way, Giuliani shows how reasonable he can be by admitting that "Libruls" are right about something (poverty and crime), but that he's the conservative big daddy most able to fight the War on Terror (but not win it... remember, we can't remain scared if we win the endless war).

We can argue over what the Democratic response should be, and we could even be correct on many points.  But none of it will matter unless and until we figure out how to engage the discourse in order to effectively respond at all.  Unfortunately, as long as the consolidated and comfortably deregulated infotainment industry controls the means of mass communication (and while only about 40% of American households have internet access), it seems unlikely that any conventional response will penetrate the necessary level of our political discourse. 

There's no hard and fast formula for it either way. There have been revolutions borne of poverty, some of disparity (although, its difficult to say that isn't directly related to being a 'have-not' amongst powerful 'haves'), some of pure politics and/or ideology. That Bin Laden is rich, however, is a childish argument to use against what Edwards is talking about. Bin Laden isn't sacrificing his life for anyone. There is a tendency on the left to conflate America's past with that of other, older countries, which is a mistake that leads to incorrect assessments of situations like these. The poorest people in places like say, Afghanistan, have jack crap to do with these ideological conflicts and militant jihads. they don't benefit from them! they just want to live their lives without being worried someone's about to blow them up, they don't give a sh#t why its happening, they just want out but can't get away. the bulk of Afghanistan did and still does passionately hate the Taliban.

Fight sound bites with sound bites. For example:

1). If you're a leader, you need to understand what you're fighting. You need only look at the disaster that is Iraq to see what the lack of understanding can accomplish.

2). When Rudi Guliani said "We're not in a war..." I had to agree with him. Terrorism is a strategy not a military target.

3). Rudi thinks that terrorists are religious fanatics. That's not true. Even the Bush administration understands that's not true and classifies the IRA, ETA and other non-religious terror groups as terrorists. If you're a leader, failure to understand is very, very dangerous.

4). Rudi Guliani thinks that lack of clarity in a leader is very, very dangerous. George Bush did not suffer from a lack of clarity as a leader. He suffered from a lack of understanding what he was fighting for or why he was fighting.

I could go on and on. I think you get my point. Tie Rudi to George and point out that he could be even worse than the worst President in US history. Argue for using your brain. It hasn't worked well in the past, but I think this country is prepared for it. Too much of the absence of brain power in the last 6 years.

Just when it hard to believe anyone can be scarier than Bush I am surprised.

We were not occupying Saudi Arabia. We were there at the request of the Saudis to protect them from Iraqi invasion via Kuwait.

The no fly zones protected, extremely well the Shia and the Kurds, both of whom were gassed by Saddem. Of course al Qaeda, and I presume their American apologist don't care much about.

Bin Laden's declaration of war on the U.S. and Jews, not Israel, was based on the Saudis decision to ask America to defend it.

More to the point so what? What justified the murder of 3,000? How about the bombings in Bali, Madrid and London?

Pape is just another of the anti-Western anti-Israeli fools who gives the Republicans an actual chance of winning election despite Bush.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Guliani's comment is ludicrous. The Dems aren't suggesting poverty programs are the way to address terrorism in Iraq now. Guilani lives in a dream world where the Dems are proposing to send in the Peace Corp. There is no point in addressing Guilani's comments at all. The whole point of Guilani is to set up a nonsensical dialogue. The Dems are supposed to step up and defend poverty amelioration when the such is a complete non sequitur vis-a-vis Iraq now. The Dems best respond by charging that Guilani's policies increase terrorsim.

Edwards,like most democans and republicrats, supports lavishing arms and money on Israel along with the last half-century of overthrowing governments and supporting oppressive ones in the middle east.

He therefore has to avoid naming those as the cause of attacks on the U.S. and is a hypocritical, deceitful politician like the rest of them (Save Paul and Gravel)

It would be one thing to have the courage of your convictions and say Israel and empire are worth the cost.

But it is entirely another thing to be a mealy-mouthed coward and think you're going to make Giuliani look bad. Because as bad as Giuliani is, Edwards and company are no better until they start addressing how our foreign policy is the precise source of anti-american hatred.

First, it's very important that we stop this fearmongering nonsense. They're trying to create a Cold War bogey monster to justify keeping the US on a war footing. It's not just about Rudy.

How to do it? Take a page out of Rove's book. Attack the perceived strength.

Get some independent YouTube bits up that ridicule the idea that Rudy is any kind of hero. Always open and close with Rudy in drag. Start with a 30 second spot about the command center.

Open with the 93 trade center bombing. Describe the event--truck bombing in the parking garage. Then show the report that recommended locating the disaster command center in Brooklyn. Then show a shot of Rudy at a podium, insert text that say Rudy overrides, and puts the command center where? In the World Trade Center.

Need some kind of tag line about being smart rather than cocky. Close with Rudy in drag.

Do the same with communications failures--the systems didn't operate, because Rudy didn't have the guts to stand up to the unions and the contractors. Same tag line--need to be tough and smart, not play one on tv. Close with Rudy in drag again.

But after him. He will lose his temper in public. He will say stupid things. Capture those, and always close with Rudy in drag--you want it to symbolize that he's a fraud, a bully, not a tough guy.

You also want to tot up the arrests and convictions the USAttorneys in New York made in the wake of the 93 bombings. Again, tough smart intelligence and police work locks them up. Strutting around at press conferences and invading irrelevant countries increases the risk.

But, no matter what, attack him for mismanagement, malfeasance and fakery. Make him defend the record. Make him get mad. And then bring up Kerik.

The news media types would love to see Guiliani as President, so don't count on them exposing any of his nonsense. Republicans are all about money when they run for office or hold office, and that means they will do anything they can to change the laws or ignore the laws if it causes wealthy people to get more money. News media owners are wealthy people.

We are in this election by ourselves - no news media will gallop to our rescue.

As far as the horrendous terrorism threat we face from "Islamofascists" - many of us lived quite well thru a real threat, that Soviet Russia would launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike on our country. It wasn't Repubs in the forefront of that "war", it was mostly Democrats. The present threat is a joke by comparison, and even then the Repubs haven't shown any ability to handle it.

Hoppy in Sacramento

There's no hard and fast formula for it either way. There have been revolutions borne of poverty, some of disparity (although, its difficult to say that isn't directly related to being a 'have-not' amongst powerful 'haves'), some of pure politics and/or ideology.

Formulas are made to be disproven just as laws are made to be broken. Nevertheless I think you will be hardpressed to find a single instance of a rebellion born of poverty alone.

Did slaves revolt because they had nothing or because they were slaves?

A visit to an old coal mine in Pennsylvania might persuade you that the Irish miners were not notably better off than slaves. More interesting perhaps is a visit to the prison museum in Jim Thorpe. We thought it worth the displeasure of the touristy atmosphere of the town.

The prison officials once opened the prison doors for the joyful spectacle of "Molly Maguires" being hanged en masse. The crowds filled the street outside. The Irish were potential troublemakers, in the instance framed by the English mine owner, who himself had his own superviser murdered.

Some would say all us Irish deserve hanging with some justification. We are not unknown to riot. In fact the largest riot ever is purportedly that of the Irish in Boston, when they hanged the mayor from a lamppost.

But none were surely ever worse off than the Irish miners in Pennsylvania, who did not rebel as far as I know but were hanged nevertheless for fear they might.

Best, Terry

Wasn't Atta living with a stripper in Florida? Yeah, he really hated our freedoms.

Great ideas. The Dems are too stupid to implement them. I'm afraid they are hopeless. And, yes, by the time Rudy gets the nomination (if he does) it'll be too late to counteract his absurd assumption of national security expertise.

The Repubs know this. They are already branding the Dem candidates, viz., Edwards' haircut. It's never too early to drag the opposition through the mud, and it's easy to be too late to counterattack. The Dems have no knack for either offense or defense. They suck at politics.

Didn't crime go down because of the legalization of abortion (per Freakanomics)? Or was that discredited?

I am not sure this is an election winning argument, but does Rudy really deserve any credit for crime reduction in NYC?