Rudy Demands Press Probe Obama's Past Drug Use -- Which He Previously Dismissed As Irrelevant
Prominent McCain surrogate Rudy Giuliani today urged the media to look into Barack Obama's past drug use -- even though he explicitly said last November that it shouldn't be an issue and even said he respected Obama's candor for having written about it.
On Fox News today, Rudy echoed the McCain campaign's new line, asking why the press, in light of the Times's recent profile of Cindy McCain, hadn't investigated Obama's youthful indiscretions (which the Times already has done).
"God forbid somebody would do some reporting on Barack Obama's use of drugs," Rudy said this afternoon, artfully dropping the fact that it was past drug use.
But last fall, when Rudy was a GOP primary candidate and Obama's past drug use came up in a different context, Rudy explicitly said it shouldn't be an issue, as a way of arguing that his own manifold indiscretions should be overlooked.
"I respect his honesty in doing that," Rudy said then, referring to Obama's writings about his past use of drugs. "I think that one of the things we need from our people who are running for office is not this pretense of perfection. And the reality is all of us that run for public office, whether its governor, legislator, mayor, president, we are all human beings. If we haven't made mistakes don't vote for us."
Later in today's Fox interview, Rudy did say that he didn't think the press should probe Obama's past drug use or Cindy McCain's. But let's get real: Rudy was deliberately amplifying the McCain campaign's new message that Obama's should now be on the table -- even though he explicitly said such foibles, and Obama's in particular, were irrelevant, back when his own were at issue.
Can you imagine if Giuliani had been the nominee? We'd had to wade through filth about Ayers, anti-Americanism, terrorist sympathizers, socialism, Marxism and any other "ism" that gives a wingnut something to hold onto. Oh. Wait.
http://pufferfish.typepad.com/
October 20, 2008 5:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, Giuliani or even Thompson wouldn't have been an improvement. What would a Huckabee or Romney campaign had looked like though?
October 20, 2008 5:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
I can't imagine him as the nominee. I can't imagine impossible things.
October 20, 2008 6:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
You know the really bizare thing about Rudy is that he actually does pal around with terrorists. Real terrorists, as in the folk who tried to murder Margaret Thatcher and her entire cabinet.
For Giuliani, pandering to the NYC Irish vote is as natural as pandering to the NYC Jewish vote. So he is pro-IRA terrorism and anti-PLO/Hamas terrorism. So Gerry Adams got a 'peace award' from Rudy while Yasser Arafat was kicked out of a Carnegie Hall concert he was invited to.
Not that being against terrorism in Israel is a bad thing. But if Rudy is only for or against terrorism depending on whether it buys him votes, that makes it a pander rather than a deeply held belief.
Rudy even helped raise money for the IRA. He was due to attend an IRA fundraiser a few days after 9/11. Like Hamas, NORAID uses the dodge of pretending that the money is going for humanitarian causes but anyone with a brain knew it was going for bullets and bombs. Rudy certainly knew, he was told on many occasions.
October 20, 2008 10:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Paging Joe Biden.
October 20, 2008 5:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can anyone explain Intrade, how it works, how accurate it has been in the past, how long it has been around, etc. Thanks.
October 20, 2008 5:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
All I can tell you about Intrade is what Josh posted last weekend, I think it was - someone with a lot of money to waste has been keeping McLame's chances high - apparently one person has been steadily putting money on McLame to make his number there go up.
October 20, 2008 5:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Basically you can buy into a candidate based on their market value, which is determined by how much money everyone else is paying into that candidate. Then on election day you're either a winner or loser. The amount of money you earn is inversely proportioned to that candidate's chances. So if you were to bet McCain right now and he won, you'd earn back more than you wagered. With Obama you'd get back significantly less than you wagered.
October 20, 2008 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Which is why there is no rhyme or reason to someone pumping money into McLame.
But someone has been.
October 20, 2008 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
In theory you would pump money into McCain to artificially inflate his numbers so the press has a talking point that the betting money shows the election is expected to be close. You're paying for good coverage.
October 20, 2008 6:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you Tena and Danny.
October 20, 2008 6:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're buying options on the candidates for $100. The current price for Obama is $84, so essentially, you put up $84 and if he wins you get $100 on Nov 5. McCain's option is $15, so if you bought a McCain option and he wins, you'll still get back $100, but for a lot less money.
It's uncannily accurate, for reasons I can't fathom.
October 20, 2008 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Very insightful. Maybe Cindy McCain is buying for John to inflate his numbers. Are there any rules that she could not?
October 20, 2008 6:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
For a lot less money than you would have to put in for Obama.
The safer bet now is Obama. The riskier, but potentially more rewarding, bet is for McCain.
yes?
October 20, 2008 6:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Those are exceedingly long odds - at some point doesn't that just break down into impossible?
I mean I see what you're saying - the favorite never pays like the come from behind - who pays big.
But at some point this is no longer a horse race because it's not about the yards, it's about the EVs and we're beyond the finish line.
October 20, 2008 6:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's a bit different: you make the difference in the purchase price. So if Obama is at 84 (which he is right now) when you buy then you get the difference from 100. So buying Obama for $84 would earn you $16. For McCain, betting $15 would earn you $85 if he won.
October 20, 2008 6:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you and CT need to finish this conversation without me cause numbers are not my strong point.
LOL
October 20, 2008 6:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
At a more elementary level, you buy a contract for one candidate or the other to win at whatever price it is selling for that day. Come election day, if your candidate wins, you get a buck per contract. If your candidate loses, you lose it all. If you sell before then, you get whatever someone will pay for it. So if you bought Obama futures on a day back last winter when he was trading at 20 or 30, you could sell now and more than double your money or you could wait until election day and get a buck.
As Eddie Murphy's character said in "Trading Places," "sounds to me like you guys are a couple of bookies."
The part most people don't get is that, thanks to Bill "The Mortician" Frist, it is almost impossible for individual Americans to get money into Intrade anymore, thanks to the Illegal Internet Gambling Act that Frist tacked on to a safe ports bill in the dead of night right before his last Congress adjourned. (The idea that that creepy prick ever harbored presidential ambitions is the biggest, scariest, laugh of all, IMO.)
October 20, 2008 8:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm guessing that it's the guy who owns the Diebold Voting Machine company. He's got the insider trading market cornered with that little device.
October 20, 2008 6:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh Rudy. You're just all pissed off because a community organizer turns out to be more qualified for the Presidency than a Republican cross-dressing former mayor of NYC.
Seriously, everyone saw the debates. It was clear who was the edgy, angry old man, and the guy who is cool as a cucumber and on point. Rudy's accusations aren't even weak tea, more like weak urine.
October 20, 2008 5:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dear Rudy,
STFU.
Sincerely,
Everybody
October 20, 2008 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL!!! Thanks for that!
October 20, 2008 5:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's it. They've finally found the issue that's going to turn this election around. I expect to see a 20 pt shift to McCain any day now.
Seriously, these guys are out big game hunting with popguns.
October 20, 2008 5:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
If RG is all you got to carry your water, you're fucked.
October 20, 2008 5:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pssst! Rudy, Sarah Palin used drugs, too.
October 20, 2008 5:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Anybody got any figures on what percentage of the voting population used drugs in their youth? I mean, come on, folks who were in their 20s during the Summer of Love are in their 60s now.
October 20, 2008 5:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yep, this isn't 1992. Nobody cares about past drug use.
October 20, 2008 5:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
yeah really. Unless you smoke cigarettes--it's like the drug of disdain right now.
October 20, 2008 6:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well if Sarah and Cindy, can get off the pills and take a toke...They may sound san for a change.
They are difinetely over-stimulated.
October 20, 2008 5:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
O Rudi, you little devil. I like you so much better when you put on the pearls, the stole, the high heels and the wig and start getting down with Donald Trump.
I wish you'd stick with that - you cross-dressing metrosexual 2-faced Wormtongue!
October 20, 2008 5:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just love the way you turn a phrase Tena.
October 20, 2008 9:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Looks like someone is pissed at Obama's cross dressing joke.
October 20, 2008 5:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Tough primary you had there, John."
October 20, 2008 6:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Total putdown.
Followed by the "Who woulda thought that a cross-dressing person would have problems winning the Republican nomination"?
October 20, 2008 6:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
As NYC folks will remember, here's Rudy in a nutshell:
This happened when Rudy was mayor. A guy got shot by an undercover cop. The cop was pretending to be looking to buy drugs. The guy told him to fuck off and the cop got pissed and started arguing with the guy. The guy started to punch out the cop (thinking he was a drug buyer) - so the cop shot and killed him.
There was an outcry - but Rudy would have none of it. So his people started investigating the dead man. They found he had been arrested for marijuana when he was 13 years old, some 15 years earlier. No other record. So Rudy personally ordered the juvenile records unsealed and smeared the dead man as a former drug dealer. The guy deserved it. The cop got off.
That's Rudy. The law doesn't matter because HE is the law. Drug use decades earlier? Still fair game for Rudy.
A first rate fascist. And no, I don't use that word lightly.
October 20, 2008 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
nice.
October 20, 2008 6:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Then there was the time that then-DA Rudy and Al D'Amato wanted to publicize how easy it was to buy crack in NYC.
They raided an evidence locker in a precinct and got two Hell's Angels cuts and wore them to go to Harlem and buy crack. They took a NY Post photographer with them, and the pictures ended up on the Post's front page the next day.
The Hell's Angels' lawyer (Ron Kuby, of all people!) sued the city for copyright infringement. He won the Angels upwards of $2 million bucks because of Rudy's little PR stunt.
October 20, 2008 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sure ol' Rudy has never indulged in any pleasure-giving substances -- in or out of silk stockings.
October 20, 2008 8:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
That sounds uncannily like an Al Paccino movie, circa 1996.
October 21, 2008 8:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
God these people are stupid. Due in part to the loose lips in McInsane's own campaign, Obama has firmly established the frame that every time a McCain surrogate talks about this crap it's because they're avoiding talking about the economy. But they keep obligingly digging the hole they're in even deeper. So thank you very much, Rudy!
This truly is Dukakis-level ineptitude. Who dared hope we'd ever see that in a Rethug campaign?
October 20, 2008 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
And thinking back over the events of the day, all they did was to keep whining. At the end of the day, Rudy hops in to emulate. God I really want those losers to disappear. Argh!
October 20, 2008 6:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thye front page link to Salter's hissy fit is awesome:
http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/10/mark_salter_on_mccains_tough_r.php
He totally buys into all of the Campaign's lies, and now all of the excuses. In a way, it's not surprising since he's long been a total fanboy of McCain's. But the Anger... yow.
John
October 20, 2008 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Go to CSPAN! Orlando Rally!
October 20, 2008 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks! I just tuned in and Hillary is speaking!
October 20, 2008 6:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hillary is on now.
October 20, 2008 6:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Its official. The GOP have nothing left to run on.
October 20, 2008 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
The NYT's article on Obama drug use
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/09/us/politics/09obama.html?scp=1&sq=obama%20drugs&st=cse
October 20, 2008 6:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Unless the NY Times does a piece declaring Obama the head of a Colombian drug cartel, the GOP isn't going to be happy.
Oh, and for all you Times readers out there: Judy Miller is joining Fox News.
No. I am NOT making that up.
October 20, 2008 6:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
An Islmo-Socialist Drug Cartel that uses its profits to support terrorism in the US
October 20, 2008 6:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
O honey - I started the day with that bit of news. Posted it twice really early this morning (for me) - big surprise, no? What a career trajectory -
You might know Cheney's bitch would end up there. It's like a retirement home for neo-cons.
October 20, 2008 6:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wish it were.
October 20, 2008 6:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
OT...
Hey Tena-
Missed your message from a couple threads back re: getting your ballot. Congrats! It sure feels good to V.O.T.E: Vote Obama To End the madness!
(sorry for the cheese)
October 20, 2008 6:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
:)
October 20, 2008 6:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree, they should start an investigation, just as soon as they get to the bottom of GWB's drug use that he wouldn't talk about as a candidate. What balls these guys have; in place of brains it appears.
October 20, 2008 6:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not only that, Rudy couldn't live in a more patently glass house. He was running his mistress into the mayoral manse while he was running his wife and kids out the door - among many other questionable things he's done that he's gotten by with because while the Repugs were in charge, IOKIYAR. That's not the rule anymore.
So Rudy better be careful about sticking that scrawny neck of his out there -
October 20, 2008 6:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hillary is great (Orlando Rally)
October 20, 2008 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Tool says:
Who's "King of the World", you ask?
{warning: you may feel an urge to hurl upon the answer}
John King of CNN.
October 20, 2008 6:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Crap, you beat me!
Well played, worthy adversary!
Hillary was great, Barack is talking now.
October 20, 2008 6:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hah!
October 20, 2008 6:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Unless they can flip PA or MN or some other state, giving CO to Obama is basically giving Obama the election.
October 20, 2008 6:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, that's why they're still pushing for PA. They know it's their only hope for flipping a blue state with enough EVs to win.
They're fucked.
October 20, 2008 6:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rudy Guliani jumps in and out of dresses--i guess we should investigate him. The rethugs have nothing left.
October 20, 2008 6:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
CNN's John King: McCain will probably give up CO, IA and NM.
Video on Halperin's site.
October 20, 2008 6:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is big news. McCain is out of dollars. And states.
http://pufferfish.typepad.com/
October 20, 2008 6:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sure we'll hear from the far right "Obama bought the election" for a long time to come, as if he was using his own money or corporate special interest dollars.
October 20, 2008 6:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
And ideas. And decency. And hope.
October 20, 2008 6:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Then why doesn't he just concede?
He can't win without all 3 of them -
October 20, 2008 6:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly. And if he's giving up, why no go out with some shred of his former faux integrity rather than continuing to hose out the filth?
October 20, 2008 8:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
JOBS BABY JOBS-ORLANDO, YES WE CAN.
FL is going berserk. Obama/Hillary look terrific together.
October 20, 2008 6:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
O I'm done - I'm sobbing - that ending killed me
October 20, 2008 6:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I missed Hillary's speech. But Barack has brought back in 04/Iowa 08 flair back in his stump speech.
October 20, 2008 6:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sure Rudy, right after we probe your cross-dressing! I know J. Edgar Hoover and Rudy, you're no J. Edgar Hoover!
October 20, 2008 7:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL!
October 20, 2008 7:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
McCain's team, campaign, etc. is one of the worst I've ever seen--not just morally, but as far as effectiveness, too. Talk about the gang that couldn't shoot straight!
Maybe Bernard Kerick or G. Gordon Liddy will speak on McCain's behalf.
October 20, 2008 7:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
the political animation of the 2008 election:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1exiyBYnJ00
October 20, 2008 7:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Does Rudolph Giuliani want to discuss how he illegally moved around city funds to hide the fact that he was having an affair while married with two kids?
Does Rudolph Giuliani want to discuss the rumor that he also cross dresses in private and has had affairs with men? (Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just something that reveals his hypocritical nature.)
Does Rudolph Giuliani want to discuss the fact that his close friend whom he appointed police commissioner is going to be facing a trial for corruption? And that it could involve his ties to organized crime and the possibility of Giuliani being tied to organized crime as well?
People in glass houses should never throw stones. Got that, Rudy?
October 20, 2008 8:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Does Rudolph Giuliani want to discuss how he illegally moved around city funds to hide the fact that he was having an affair while married with two kids?
Does Rudolph Giuliani want to discuss the rumor that he also cross dresses in private and has had affairs with men? (Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just something that reveals his hypocritical nature.)
Does Rudolph Giuliani want to discuss the fact that his close friend whom he appointed police commissioner is going to be facing a trial for corruption? And that it could involve his ties to organized crime and the possibility of Giuliani being tied to organized crime as well?
People in glass houses should never throw stones. Got that, Rudy?
October 20, 2008 8:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow, this could really derail Obama's campaign. Hardly anyone has ever heard about this story and almost no one of voting age in America has ever used illegal drugs at some point in their youth. I'm especially worried about senior citizens in the 60-65 age bracket, because drugs were virtually unheard of when those people were in their late teens and early twenties.
October 20, 2008 8:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perfectly understandable for Giuliani to amplify!
Cindy McCain used pain killers. Giuliani represented OxyContin manufacturer, Purdue Pharmaceuticals. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/28/us/politics/28oxycontin.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/giuliani/oxycontin.html
Whatever Obama may have ingested in his youth never profited Giuliani Partners.
The moral of the story: If the drugs one uses fails to profit a values Republican, condemn the user!
October 20, 2008 8:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gee, I remember Billy Shaheen saying the Republicans would use Obama's drug use, and Obama supporters were screaming that Shaheen was a racist. (I know, it's hard to imagine Obama supporters accusing someon of racism, but it really happened.)
So anyway, was he wrong? I'm sure you're all sending him your apologies now.
October 20, 2008 9:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Billy Sheehan was engaged in the worst kind of concern trolling and in the process made up a bunch of shit that's way beyond anything even Giulaini is saying here.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2007/12/12/post_235.html
No one questioned that the Republicans would try this. As predictions go, it was like predicting that the sun would come up in the east. What got people upset was his insinuation that there was some basis for believing that other stuff and, more importantly, that it would be so devastating that we should dump him and nominate Hillary. Pure concern trolling, not a prediction.
Not unlike what you're doing here. So no, no apologies to Billy Sheehan and, really, absolutely no reason for you to bring the topic up other than to show how wise Hillary was to throw his big mouthed loose cannon ass over the side.
October 20, 2008 10:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
man I knew even without reading any of this that he said this on fox please tell me all fox viewers are not the mindless people that will believe anything they say that fox think they are
October 20, 2008 9:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, but there are. Fortunately, there are only six to ten million of them.
October 20, 2008 10:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bringing up Obama's drug use in his youth may inspire the far right conservatives, but it will not effect the independents and may even offend them.
What's shocking me is how the McCain campaign is now sounding like the wingnuts who comment on sites such as Politico. McCain has ruined his "honorable" legacy and has become the poster politican for everything that is filthy in politics. Every time he says the word "welfare" I think how much I will be donating to his opponent for AZ Senate, so we can send McCain's racist ass into permanent retirement. McCain has become the modern day Nixon--a divider, definitely not a leader.
October 20, 2008 11:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I DEMAND a press probe of Rudy's Mob use!
October 21, 2008 2:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
So, the cross-dressing ex-mayor of New York wants to look into the private lives of Americans now? Didn't he ever hear about George W. Bush being arrested for cocaine in 1972? (And then having his record expunged at Poppy's request?)
Is he saying that Cindy McCain, multimillionaire wife of John, didn't steal unlicensed pills through her own charity?
And what about his own father's arrest in a public bathroom?
Rudy, before you call other people on their sins, check your own -- like, for instance, adultery. Plus marrying your cousin -- what are you, Appalachian Italian?
You are such a complete asshole, I can't believe you still show yourself in public.
October 21, 2008 8:07 AM | Reply | Permalink