Rudy Giuliani is still a terrible person, just in case you forgot that fact for a sec.
Rudy Giuliani went straight for the jugular Wednesday night during a private group dinner here featuring Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker by openly questioning whether President Barack Obama “loves America.”
The former New York mayor, speaking in front of the 2016 Republican presidential contender and about 60 right-leaning business executives and conservative media types, directly challenged Obama’s patriotism, discussing what he called weak foreign policy decisions and questionable public remarks when confronting terrorists.
“I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America,” Giuliani said during the dinner at the 21 Club, a former Prohibition-era speakeasy in midtown Manhattan. “He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.”
Well I don’t love Rudy Giuliani either, you know.
How you know President Obama is winning the argument: GOP responds with “He’s not like us!” directly from 2007. Might stop a guy with a weird-sounding name like Obama from winning a third term, I dunno.
This code-word racist crap is all they have now, and it’s all they ever had against him in the first place. It’s also why they lost.
satby
And in spite of what shit they have as potential candidates, they keep putting up FB posts saying “can’t wait for January 2017” like a Republican will assuredly get elected after the obvious horror of the Obama years.
We live in totally different countries.
Gene108
They lost the battle for the Presidency, but Republicans seem to be winning the war for control of American government at the Federal, state and local levels.
Instead of the Presidency being the office that sets the political agenda for the country, it has become a reactionary office that tries to keep right-wing legislation that harms us at bay.
biff diggerence
How the fuck does one ‘love’ an abstraction? There are huge swaths of Amurika that I certainly don’t love, including the people who occupy the swaths: Lets begin with Rudy and the entire former Confederacy.
Joey Maloney
It’s why they lost; it’s also why they won all those statewide and district races. Yes, racism won’t win the country as a whole, but it does GREAT in carefully-gerrymandered districts. And unless someone a lot smarter than me figures out how to break the cycle eventually they’ll be able to gerrymander and voter-suppress their way into the White House too.
Egypt Steve`
I actually hate Rudy Giuliani and everyone who was in the room with him. And I thank God I wasn’t raised to be a sociopath like him and the plutocrats, warmongers and racists he has long-since whored himself out to.
TomG
Rudy was a joke even before 9/11. I remember having a supervisor at work who was very offended because when she talked about him (in 2000) running for president, I burst out laughing because he was so unqualified and it was a ridiculous thing to contemplate.
Buddy H
I remember the first time I ever laid eyes on Rudy, and heard him speak. I thought “My god, he reminds me of every sadistic “phys ed” teacher I ever had in middle and high school”
Except my gym teachers were low rent; they got to practice their sadism on a bunch of scared, pimply adolescents. Rudy is truly exceptional; he gets to be a big-time bully.
The Ancient Randonneur
Evidently Scott Walker doesn’t have a problem with what Guiliani said. Someone needs to follow up and ask him if he agrees.
JPL
What ever happened to the olden days when you weren’t suppose to criticize the President when our troops were overseas? Oh yeah, that was when a republican was invading countries for sport.
Buddy H
@TomG: Can you imagine a Rudy presidency, with Carl Paladino as his vice pres?
Or maybe he’d “balance” the ticket with Lindsey Graham.
Joy
I wasn’t brought up the way Guiliani was either. I was brought up with tolerance, humanity, humility, a curiosity about life, and a desire for knowledge. I also learned if you can’t something nice, keep your f…ing mouth shut.
g
Great, Rudy. Let’s make sure President Obama loses the next election.
Idiot.
Mr. Longform
I love how these guys always know how other people feel and what their innermost motivations are. This great insight comes either from unusually sharp perceptive powers and empathetic understanding of those not like them or it is a stereotyped knee-jerk reaction based on deep-seeded prejudices and willful ignorance. Which could it possibly be? I’ll ask the well-educated and polite Dinesh D’Souza.
gratuitous
Yes Rudy, nobody loves the collection of Montgomery Burns you were addressing. Because they’re greedy, narcissistic, bullying motherfuckers who kill people for a lark, impoverish billions just because they can, and never have enough.
What’s not to hate, you blood-gargling psychopath?
Buddy H
In this week’s New Yorker, there’s an extended profile of Key & Peele. It’s mentioned that their version of Obama and Luther the anger translator is Obama and Michelle’s favorite.
Obama requested a meeting with them, and told them he needed Luther. “in the next term,” he told them.
ThresherK
“And this is a horrible thing to say”. Is it the new “I may be called politically incorrect”?
raven
Walnuts is just as bad.
debbie
@ThresherK:
It’s the new flavor of an non-apology apology.
ThresherK
@debbie: Well, if I offended any of you oversensitive weenies, I’m sorry.
Iowa Old Lady
@biff diggerence: I had that same thought. What is he talking about? I grew up feeling fortunate to live in the US because I wasn’t starving or in the middle of a war zone, and I had the chance for an education and a life that would be what I made of it. But L O V E, love?
I also don’t believe in American Exceptionalism, whatever that means. I guess I can’t be president.
@g: Yeah, they’re so freaked out about Obama being in office that they can’t stop running against him.
Buddy H
Was there any equivalent in the Bush years? Did any former mayor or presidential candidate come out and say “Well, this is a horrible thing to say, but Bush hates America.”
Maybe it happened, and I missed it.
Carol Ryan
In our home we refer to him as Ghouliani and that’s not because we love him!
Jack the Second
I’m trying to pick out my favorite Obama-2016 bumper sticker. I like the simplicity of http://www.zazzle.com/obama_2016_bumper_stickers-128829642961126174 so far.
VOR
@Buddy H: The Dixie Chicks said they were embarrassed to be from the same state as W.
Buddy H
@VOR: I meant politicians. I know lots of musicians and entertainers had less than nice things to say about Bush. But did any ex-mayor, presidential candidate, or governor say “Bush hates America”?
greennotGreen
@VOR: And look at the response they got from the people who so love America!
The Thin Black Duke
@greennotGreen: Kayne West is an idiot, but his best and brightest moment was when Katrina and the infamous non-response happened and he said, “I don’t think George Bush likes black people”.
delk
A desperate plea to be invited to speak at CPAC.
Iowa Old Lady
Also, I see Bill O’Reilly wants a “holy war.” As I recall, this is the guy who said no one knows why the tides come in and out. Why does anyone think he knows what he’s talking about?
Betty Cracker
Al Franken had the best explanation of the differences in liberal and conservative patriotism I’ve ever read — here’s the quote from his 2003 book, “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them:”
Yep.
Gene108
@g:
It is not about Obama losing. It is to de legitimize his accomplishments, so no Democrat will run on continuing anything he started.
They did this with “Clinton fatigue” in the 1990’s.
Presidential legacies are built by those, who continue their accomplishments. They want to reduce Obama’s accomplishments to a footnote in history.
PurpleGirl
I’ve said before and will probably say it again… but, I’ve never forgotten nor forgiven RG for his speech at that police rally when he disrespected Mayor Dinkins. The police were passing around a cartoon of Mayor Dinkins as a washroom attendant and RG didn’t say anything about the disrespect showed to the leader of the City. (Haven’t really forgiven the cops either for their disrespect of Mayor Dinkins.)
Helmut Monotreme
@Iowa Old Lady: Holy War my ass. He wants the US military to do the fighting, and I would be ready to bet real money that he doesn’t think the atheists, Jews, Buddhists and Muslims in the US military should get to sit it out. He wants world war three.
boatboy_srq
Shorter Giuliani: I don’t want that Blah President’s love, but I didn’t want that Blah President in the first place.
debbie
@PurpleGirl:
I remember that. I also remember his campaign to free the city’s elite from squeegee men. Just like a cowardly bully to pick on the weakest.
Comrade Dread
“I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that Rudy Giuliani doesn’t love to blow goats,”
Also I’d really like for some journalist to start calling politicians on their “America is the most exceptional country in the world” statement by asking, “In what way is America the most exceptional country? Certainly not in the number of gun deaths, or education, or health care, or even total GDP output now… so please quantify for us the ways in which America leads the world as the most exceptional?”
Mike in NC
Rudy was the genius who put the city’s emergency response office in the WTC after it was attacked the first time. Amazing how he’s still out there on the wingnut welfare circuit.
'Niques
@Gene108:
Didn’t last, though. Clinton love is back with a vengeance. Obama will go down in history as one of the greatest presidents the U.S. has ever had. Nothing the gop says or does can stop that particular runaway train. Truth always, ALWAYS wins in the end. It is Mr. 911 who will be a cringe-worthy footnote.
greennotGreen
@Comrade Dread:
Hubris.
greennotGreen
BTW, Zandar, great title for this post.
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker: The analogy actually works even better than that, because when Mommy doesn’t do what the 4-year-old wants, she’s the worst Mommy EVER and gets a screaming tantrum for her troubles.
Cacti
Rudy loves his country so much, he got the federal judge he worked for to write a letter to the draft board, begging that he be spared from conscription during Vietnam.
Matt McIrvin
@‘Niques:
I’d like to believe that.
'Niques
@Matt McIrvin: Optimism. It’s how I prefer to live my life. :-)
biff diggerence
@greennotGreen: Most Parking in the First World?
Cluttered Mind
@Buddy H: Drag Queen/Horse Porn 2016. It could work.
biff diggerence
@Mike in NC: Yeah. I always loved that shit. The Hero of 9/11. Wanna know why? “Hey, Everybody . . . Run Uptown . . . AND FAST!!!!”
Mike
I dont think a guy that married his first cousin should be lecturing the rest of us about how he was brought up.
Just sayin’
...now I try to be amused
@Jack the Second:
I love it! The “Obama 2016” meme will cause some folks to seriously freak out, I’m sure of it.
Cluttered Mind
I’m also not sure Giuliani is the best person to talk about love, given that his whole family appears to despise him due entirely to his own actions, his children want nothing to do with him, and if I recall correctly his daughter was even an Obama volunteer at the same time that he was active in the GOP primary.
Spinwheel
Oh yes, the GOP has “lost”.
They control nearly two thirds of states at this point, the Supreme Court, Congress, and Obama is basically a Republican warmonger who has presided over the death of the American middle class.
But they “lost”.
Ass.
satby
@Comrade Dread: American Exceptionalism to the is not that we’re particularly first in anything, but that “America is exceptionally blessed by God to lead the world”. Which is crazy, but what do you expect from God botherers?
boatboy_srq
@Helmut Monotreme: To Billo, Non-Xtian lives are of lesser value, and can and should be sacrificed in the pursuit of a Righteous Xtian World. Anyone who thinks this is about Christians versus Muslims isn’t paying attention: Xtians would wage a crusade against most mainstream Christians if they thought their propaganda would withstand the contradictions.
Comrade Dread
@satby: You know what it reminds me of? The stereotypical 40 year old former high school quarterback who has done nothing with his life since the day he won the state championship, but still brags about how awesome he is.
Ian
So just for kicks I went to look at the menu for the 21 Club, to see if it was just the sort of America-loving joint I thought it might be. And it was reasonably on-course, with a $36 burger and a $185 serving of caviar. Men who love America as much as Rudy get their salmon from the Faroe Islands, right?
More importantly, though: there’s a drinks list with plenty of $17 cocktails, which is actually cheaper than I might have expected (and the recipes rather more boring.) But the beer list is… awful and entirely down-market. I mean, the bottles cost $8.50, but it’s an $8.50 Amstel Light or Stella; Sam Adams is the snootiest beer on there. What’s up with that?
Citizen_X
@Comrade Dread: Hey, we have 5% of the world’s population, but 25% of its prison population, so that’s pretty exceptional!
brantl
Rudy Ghouliani, the guy that insisted that the security apparatus for New York, New York be put in the biggest terrorist target in the state..Eat a bag of salted dicks, Rudy.
Bystander
IIRC Rudi’s dad was a low level mob gofer. No wonder Obama wasn’t raised the way Rudi was.
Heliopause
“I know this is a horrible thing to say…”
This is a phrase we sometimes use when we’ve had eight or ten drinks and are about to make a tasteless joke about some catastrophe that’s just been on the evening news. Rudy needs to lay off the sauce.
theronware
Rudi Giuliani is simply an evil person. He’s a demagogue who appeals to the worst instincts of the republican base. He also clearly has some very strong authoritarian impulses! Man, those republican leaders love to play to the cheap seats don’t they?
JaneE
My disappointment with Obama is largely the result of his being too considerate of people like Giuliani who deserve no consideration at all, and trying to compromise with people who should have been completely rebuffed. If anything, he loves this country too much to be complicit in tearing it further apart. His very existence is all it takes for the GOP to try to re-start the secession and nullification movements that led to the Civil War. Unfortunately, Obama speaks to and for reasonable people, and there are no more of them in the modern Republican party.
Patricia Kayden
@Gene108: So true. Even my state of Maryland has a Republican Governor. The horror!! Democrats really need to get their supporters to vote in mid-term elections.
Patricia Kayden
@The Ancient Randonneur: Why do you think that Walker wouldn’t publicly agree with Giuliani? The Republican base hates President Obama’s guts.
Rasputin's Evil Twin
If memory serves, it was Josef Stalin who used the term “American Exceptionalism” and he meant it as an insult.
trnc
Hey, Rudy, who were you loving with the help of money intended for First Responder equipment?
David Koch
It must really burn that his own daughter rejected his candidacy for the blah one.
plus his own son hates him and rejected hizzhonor
mclaren
A “terrible person”?
Why can’t we just speak plainly and say “Rudy Giuliani is evil”?
I think most people know evil when they see it. Dick Cheney. Wal-Mart. ISIS. Rudy Giuliani.
When did people start to shy away from using the word “evil”? Was it around the time people stopping saying “shit” and started saying “poo” instead?