Last week, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was quoted as saying that there had not been any domestic terrorist attacks on the United States during the eight year administration of President George W. Bush. Those of us who lived through eight years of Giuliani looking through his own personal looking glass of reality couldn’t have been shocked, but his refusal to accept reality in this instance may have topped his own world record for denial.
It is almost cruel to dissect the errors in Giuliani’s alleged statement of fact, but his statement warrants consideration and analysis and response. After all, Rudy Giuliani revived his failed and flaccid political career by marching around the ashes of the World Trade Center, proclaiming himself some kind of Horatio at the gate, after the gate had been blown apart. He has made millions of dollars proclaiming himself as some grand genius of crime prevention and has endlessly self-promoted himself in this fashion.
This, despite the fact that when he was elected mayor in 1993 he inherited a declining crime rate in New York City, a decline that predated his election by over a year. This, despite the fact that his first Police Commissioner, William Bratton, is widely acknowledged as being the brains and inspiration behind the continued decline in crime and the improvements in policing. This, despite the fact that several of his direct appointments were indicted, convicted and sentenced to prison, including the first Police Commissioner in New York City to have this particular distinction – Bernard Kerik. The same Bernard Kerik that Rudy Giuliani recommended to be the first Secretary of Homeland Security – a bizarre irony that cannot be ignored. This, despite the fact that many of the families that lost loved ones at the World Trade Center, particular the families of fire and police officers, travel around the country to protest his presence because of his shameful lack of attention to safety provisions that could have saved lives on that fateful day.
And so, in this most recent foray into Giuliani Land, we hear our erstwhile hero denounce President Obama for a domestic terrorist attack on “his watch” referring to the Fort Hood shootings. Interesting, because there has been no fact-based assertion that the shooting was terrorist-inspired. But, in Giuliani Land, the fact that the alleged shooter is of Arab background and is a Muslim is enough to earn the Rudolph Giuliani Seal of Terrorism.
And, in Giuliani Land, there were no domestic terrorist attacks in the United States during the administration of President George Bush because, presumably, the 9/11 attacks never happened. Presumably the Richard Reid shoe bomber incident didn’t happen either. And, of course, the anthrax scare which still keeps mail from being delivered directly to the U.S. Congress never happened either. The multiple shootings at U.S. military bases since the beginning of the Iraqi/Afghanistan wars either never happened, or in Giuliani Land, didn’t constitute terrorist attacks.
There is nothing laughable about these lies and falsifications and misrepresentations. But too many people still take the former mayor seriously on matters of security. He was able to hoodwink and bamboozle the Brazilian Olympic Committee into hiring him to provide security advice for the 2016 Olympics and one can only hope that, as Giuliani begins to samba around the truth when he goes to Rio de Janeiro that the Olympic torch doesn’t go missing.