Some thoughts about Rudy Giuliani

I haven't blogged anything about Rudy Giuliani since I used his campaign commercial in 2008 to exemplify the word (fear)"monger".  I had thought about reviewing the controversy that erupted when he acknowledged to Peter Jennings [at 1:50 of the video] that he was told the World Trade Center was going to collapse ("we were told that the World Trade Center was going to collapse. And it did collapse...) at a time when no steel-framed building had ever collapsed from fire.  But I gave that a pass and won't bring it up again.

But now he has thrust himself back into the limelight with a remarkable gaffe - claiming in an interview with George Stephanopoulos that there were no domestic terror attacks when President Bush was in office:

“What he [Obama] should be doing is following the right things that Bush did -- one of the right things he did was treat this as a war on terror. We had no domestic attacks under Bush. We’ve had one under Obama,” Giuliani said.

The Mayor of New York seems to forget 9/11.  He later apparently clarified that he meant "after 9/11", conveniently forgetting a few others during the Bush administration:

• July 27, 2008 - Jim David Adkisson shoots two persons in a Unitarian Church
• May 5, 2008 - Pipe Bomb detonated outside Federal Courthouse in San Diego
• March 7th, 2008 - Bomb detonated at Times Square Recruiting center in NY.
• December 6, 2007: Chad Altman and Sergio Baca were arrested for the arson of Dr. Curtis Boyd's clinic in Albuquerque.
• May 9, 2007: Unidentified person deliberately set fire to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• April 25, 2007: A package left at a women's health clinic in Austin, Texas contained an explosive device capable of inflicting serious injury or death.
• April 16, 2007 - Terrorism? Virginia Tech Shootings.
• September 13, 2006 David McMenemy crashed his car into the Edgerton Women's Care Center in Davenport, Iowa. He then doused the lobby in gasoline and then started a fire. McMenemy committed these acts in the belief that the center was performing abortions, however Edgerton is not an abortion clinc.
• March 2006 - Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, an Iranian-born graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, drives an SUV onto a crowded part of campus, injuring nine.
• December 12, 2005: Patricia Hughes and Jeremy Dunahoe threw a Molotov cocktail at a clinic in Shreveport, Louisiana.
• July 4, 2005: A clinic Palm Beach, Florida was the target of an arson.
• October 1, 2005 - Joel Henry Hinrichs III detonated a bomb near the packed football stadium at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma killing himself in the process.
• October 2002 - John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo conduct the Beltway Sniper Attacks
• July 4, 2002 - An Egyptian gunman opens fire at an El Al ticket counter in Los Angeles International Airport, killing two Israelis before being killed himself.
• May 2002: Luke Helder injures 6 by placing pipebombs in mailboxes in the Midwest.
• January 5, 2002 - 15yo Charles Bishop, expressing sympathy for bin Laden, crashes his Cessna into a Tampa Florida Skyscraper
• June 11, 2001: Tacoma, Washington bombing destroys a Clinic Wall
• December 12, 2001 - Jewish Defense League plot by Chairman Irv Rubin and follower Earl Krugel to blow up the King Fahd Mosque in Culver City, California, and the office of Lebanese-American Rep. Darrell Issa, foiled.
• December 22, 2001 - Richard Reid attempts to bomb flight 63
• November 2001 - Clayton Waagner mails powder-laden envelopes to 550+ Clinics, is convicted on 51 counts in 2003.
• September 2001 - 5 People Killed, 17 Infected by Anthrax laden letters, $250million spent cleaning up postal facilities.

These six are listed as terror attacks during the Obama adminstration:

• Christmas Underpants Bomber
• November 5, 2009 - Ft. Hood Gunman killed 13, injured 30.
• June 11, 2009 - White Supremacist Von Brunn kills woman at Holocaust Museum
• May 31, 2009 - Dr. George Tiller Murdered
• February 4th, 2009 - West Memphis, Arkansas, United States. Trent P. Pierce Chairman of the Arkansas State Medical Board was critically injured in a car bombing that occurred in his drive way.
• January 22, 2009 (2 days into office) - Matthew Derosia drives his SUV into a Planned Parenthood facility

One can argue at length (and fruitlessly) about the definition of a "terror" attack.  I'm pleased that Rachel Maddow called Giuliani out on this matter.  Her commentary in the embedded video is incisive.