Entries Tagged 'Rudy' ↓

Matthew Yglesias has it bad:

Obviously, expressing willingness to hold diplomatic discussions with Iran’s leaders is a political blunder whereas running around the world threatening to attack them like Rudy Giuliani is politically savvy toughness.

How bad?

Pot-kettle-black bad. Beyond-ignorant-whippersnapper bad. Blindly-striking-out-with-any-weapon-at-hand bad [e.a.]:

So I suppose that by the same token, promising to expand NATO to include Israel — thus committing the United States to the armed defense of the borders of a country that lacks internationally recognized borders — also reflects the politically savvy toughness rather than, say, a dangerous ignorance of what NATO is or how it works or international relations more broadly.

His commenters call him out:

What’s this, is Mr. Yglesias now claiming that Israel doesn’t have internationally recognized borders? If Israel doesn’t have internationally recognized borders, how can Mr. Yglesias complain about Israeli settlements? Has Mr. Yglesias finally come to recognize that the so-called green line is a cease fire line, not a border? If the green line is not a border, as Mr. Yglesias is now claiming, then the settlements East of the green line are not illegal but subject to negotiation as to the final borders.

…

There have been hints in your posts all along, but with your statement that Israel is “a country that lacks internationally recognized borders” you have fully and finally revealed yourself: as someone who basically questions Israel’s very right to exist. Instead of reacting to the NATO proposal on the merits, you dismiss the entire country as a worthless aberration…

Commenter SoCalJustice provides evidence, through links, that the movement to ease Israel into NATO has been going on for a long time (as has the metamorphosis of NATO itself):

From a year and a half ago:

Italian Defense Minister Antonio Martino recently announced that in his opinion, the time has come to include Israel in NATO as a regular member, and he intends to raise the issue at the meeting of NATO defense ministers next week.

From last April:

Israel, NATO conduct Red Sea naval exercise

And from June:

Israel moves closer to NATO missions

Assistant NATO Sec.-Gen. John Colston sounds dangerously ignorant of what NATO is or or it works or international relations more broadly.

But, so far all I’ve seen is a nut (Friedman) and an Italian defense minister.

Here’s another one:

Admit Israel to  NATO

Ronald Asums, executive director of the German Marshall Fund’s Transatlantic Center in Brussels, served as deputy assistant secretary of state for European affairs from 1997 to 2000

Here’s NATO’s Deputy Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs and Security Policy Dr. Patrick Hardouin calling for expanded Israel-NATO ties about a year ago:

NATO: Israel ties must remain strong

Here’s Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra and former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar calling for Israel (and Australia and Japan) to join NATO:

European leaders suggest Israel join NATO

There are several countries not exactly near the North Atlantic in NATO.

http://www.nato.int/structur/countries.htm

Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania - all closer to the Middle East than the Atlantic.

I’ve got a link of my own, from March 2007:

Supreme U.S. commander in Europe calls Israel ‘model state’

Gee, what’s going on here? I thought everybody knows that slavish, unconditional support of Israel such as (supposedly) Hillary Clinton’s is, “obviously, a disaster.” 

Well, whaddaya know? It turns out that there are people out there—people who play an active role in our national defense, foreign allies, people like that—who don’t consider Israel a liability. What a surprise, eh?

Some people need to get out more. Rudy Giuliani isn’t one of them.

It’s always interesting to get a glimpse of how others see you. Sometimes, though, it’s mind-blowing.

Gabor Steingart, the Washington-based editor of the German magazine Spiegel, sees an America that Democracy Arsenal’s Shadi Hamid doesn’t recognize:

I found this article from Der Spiegel International to be genuinely bizarre. It reflects, in my view, a serious misreading of American politics. The basic jist [sic] is that liberals are moving to the right on national security (apparently the author doesn’t read blogs), a reality reflected by the hawkishness of the three Democratic presidential contenders. He makes a weird reference to “Barack Bush-Obama,” a term which couldn’t be more unfair to the only candidate who got the Iraq war right. Then this:

The wind has shifted in Washington. America, not just its president, is at war. The Democrats are still critical of the failed Iraq campaign, but they are no longer opposed to the “War on Terror” in general. It has been accepted, and not just as a metaphor.

Really? DA readers, would any of you agree with this assessment?

Actually, I would agree with this assessment. I agree with this too, from the Spiegel article:

Opinion polls have shown consistently for months that while most Americans disapprove of Bush, very few are opposed to the worldwide fight against terrorism. Most Americans believe that the campaign against al-Qaida and its ilk is the only conceivable — in fact, the natural — reaction against the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The president is not faulted for his declaration of war against the terrorists, but he is blamed for having botched the war in Iraq.

And with this:

[W]hen voters hit the ballot box in November 2008, they will be looking for more than just a candidate charismatic and clever enough to lead the country politically. They will also ask themselves which of the candidates is sufficiently tough, crafty and brutal to win the multi-front war that the Bush administration has begun.

In these early weeks of the 2008 presidential campaign, the candidates from the two major parties are literally vying for the distinction of being the most crafty and pugnacious of the lot in the public eye. The Republicans, especially former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, have kept their steel-plated combat armor on. Their take on the fight against terrorism is to up the ante.

Indeed, Steingart wrote that even before Giuliani laid it all out in an article in Foreign Affairs, which I haven’t read. But the Sun’s Eli Lake has read it.

In a sweeping repudiation of the conventional wisdom that America’s war on terrorism must address Palestinian Arab national grievances, the leading Republican contender for the presidency is warning of the dangers of pressing too soon for Palestinian statehood and is asserting that Israeli security is a “permanent feature of our foreign policy.”

That language appears to be a direct shot at President Bush and Secretary of State Rice, who are making just such a push for final status negotiations between President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert in September, despite Hamas’s takeover of Gaza in June.

The former mayor’s vision for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations is also a repudiation of the approach of the Baker-Hamilton Commission, a panel on which Mr. Giuliani served briefly. In its final recommendations on Iraq policy in December 2006, the commission urged America not only to re-engage in the peace process, but also to explore ways for Israel to cede the Golan Heights to Syria.

It looks to me like Rudy Giuliani and his brilliant if hawkish foreign policy team are aiming directly for that part of the electorate which Spiegel’s Gabor Steingart describes:

Anyone who hopes to win the support of middle America — geographically, sociologically and politically — has to perform a balancing act of appearing capable of leading the country in war while at the same time not coming across as too eager to fight. Americans want a strong leader, a tough decision maker, not an adventurer. The worst charge one could hurl at a presidential candidate these days is that he or she is soft on terrorism.

Shadi Hamid doesn’t live in middle America, though. He lives (spiritually, at least—I have no idea where he actually lives) inside the Beltway, indeed inside a little cocoon in the Beltway where they’re trying to downplay—literally, with lowercase letters—the terrorism angle:

Personally, I’ve started to decapitalize [sic ---ouch! ed.] the term, to distinguish the real fight against terrorists from Bush’s distinct “War on Terror” - the latter having failed miserably, antagonizing 97% of the world, alienating Muslim moderates, and emboldening terrorists the world over. Anyway, the attempt to distinguish our “war on terrorism” from the Bushies’ “Global War on Terror” seems to be the trend on the Left.

For his part, the ‘Crat Pack’s ^TM ideological sharpshooter Matthew Yglesias, who is exceptionally busy these days trying to purge liberal hawks, is pushing the line that terrorists are mere criminals (and, for good measure, the notion that Giuliani is “batshit insane“)

Of course, we’ll see in November 2008 who correctly picked up the American electorate’s signals. Just a guess: I think it’s Steingart (and Giuliani too). He’s reading things broadly. Specifically, he sees America as:

the third-largest nation on earth, a country spanning four climate zones.

Hamid and Yglesias need to get their noses out of all those policy papers. Actually, they don’t even need to do that. All they have to do is watch a little reality TV.

At every level and in every sphere—social, professional, political, economic, military, corporate,  etc.—America is a nation of ruthlessly competitive people who will stop at nothing to win.

No, not him

LAWRENCE OLIVIER AS ARCHIE RICE, LONDON, 1957, photo by Snowden

I mean him:

Really, it’s too delicious. First, in May 2006, Andrew Sullivan introduces America to the crisis of “Christianism”:

 So let me suggest that we take back the word Christian while giving the religious right a new adjective: Christianist. Christianity, in this view, is simply a faith. Christianism is an ideology, politics, an ism. The distinction between Christian and Christianist echoes the distinction we make between Muslim and Islamist. Muslims are those who follow Islam. Islamists are those who want to wield Islam as a political force and conflate state and mosque. Not all Islamists are violent. Only a tiny few are terrorists. And I should underline that the term Christianist is in no way designed to label people on the religious right as favoring any violence at all. I mean merely by the term Christianist the view that religious faith is so important that it must also have a precise political agenda. It is the belief that religion dictates politics and that politics should dictate the laws for everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike.

 (though I note that the concept was introduced a year and a half earlier, in November 2004, on the Daily Kos)

However, there is another movement in this nation, which I refer to as Christianism.  The term is dervied from “Islamist” — or those people who claimed to be followers of Islam, but are nothing more than terrorists who do not follow the principles of Islam.  There are those “Christians” who do not seem to be following the principles of Christianity — thus the term “Christianist”.

Then today, having hysterically hyped a bogus concept for more than a year, Sullivan, finding himself uncomfortably off-message, asks: “Is Christianism Peaking?” His lede is a closeup of this dude,

the Big Bad Wolf who stared down the “Christianists” who got Sullivan’s knickers in a twist.

I won’t bother to copy and paste anything from Sullivan’s furious backpedaling. Just five days ago, he was claiming that Christianists were taking over the military and preying on innocent Orthodox Jewish kidney-stone sufferers—the horror! the horror! (I made fun of him here.)

He is left to bleat incoherently about his politics, religion, and moral code—not that I’m paying attention. I’m fascinated by the fact that he abandoned his year-long anti-Christianist crusade just like that. Stopped on a dime.

Yglesias slapped him about it. But it looks like the very influential Frank Rich is the one who made him back off.

The new bosses are not quite like the old bosses, eh?

In the illuminating documentary Billy Wilder Speaks, Wilder, a man who came of age in Berlin in the 1920s and fled Europe with the rise of Hitlerism and was the very essence of “been there, done that” ***—talks about politics. He says offhandedly to fellow European Volker Schlondorff (I’m paraphrasing): “Republican? Democrat? Who cares! In America,” he adds, “there’s not much of a difference between parties.”

Rudy Giuliani would certainly disagree with Wilder, as he made plain in the second Republican debate last night when he attacked Hillary Clinton for her enthusiastic embrace of statism (to put it kindly):

 Without mentioning her by name, Giuliani accused Clinton of believing that the free market is “disastrous” and that the government has to take money from citizens to spend on the common good.

“There’s such a stark difference there that this election in 2008 is going to make a very big difference about whether we go in that direction - the direction of removing private choice, putting … government in charge of so many things,” Giuliani said. “Republicans should be uniting to make certain that what the liberal media is talking about, our inevitable defeat, doesn’t happen.”

Were your knowledge of the world limited only to the full spectrum of ideas and positions spouted by American politicians, from the “hard right” all the way to the “hard left,” you’d have to agree with Giuliani that there are stark differences between the Dems and the Reps.

After all, isn’t Rudy the Fascist calling Hillary a Commie? How different can two candidates get? They certainly represent the opposite ends of the spectrum in mainstream American politics (i.e., the politics of the vast center), that’s for sure.

Which is where the Billy Wilder Perspective—a wide-angle shot encompassing not just American politics but sinister and inhospitable world politics—comes in. And that’s where I must concede that Wilder’s point of view is the sensible perspective from which to look upon American politics. +++

Also, there’s this post from Andrew Sullivan, who thinks that unpleasant, nasty harassment is a sign of the “Christianism” that threatens to swallow America:

Their take-over of the military continues under the radar. This time, they have been preying on sick veterans, including an orthodox Jew with kidney stones:

“Takeover”?

“Preying on”?

Darling, get me rewrite!

————————-

*** an attitude that resonates with me, because I grew up in a milieu in which it was the prevailing attitude. My “people” were not jaded; they were experienced, in the sense of having seen everything and feeling that they’d seen too much … but at the same time knowing they had survived. Because that’s what human beings are wired, and fated, to do. 

+++ Because, obviously, Rudy is not a fascist and Hillary is not a commie. Their biggest quibble is about how much of your money the government is going to take, and whether the government is going to give you (us) value for your (our) money. Everything else—and I do mean everything—is moot, because regardless of what the hottest partisans in the hottest partisan atmosphere say, we are all American to the bone and we love our freedoms. Even when the government tells us we can’t do something, we will find a way not just to do it but to contest it.

That is what makes us American. That is what we all have in common: the deep-seated, reflexive knowledge that, yes, you can fight City Hall.

You knew the honeymoon couldn’t last, right?

I bring you tidings of Rudy’s first goring, as of 9:30 p.m. on Google News:

On campaign swing, Giuliani questioned on relationship with son
San Diego Union Tribune, CA - 9 hours ago

Giuliani Seeks Privacy On Family Issues
CBS News, NY - 9 hours ago

Giuliani: Give my family some privacy
Newsday, NY - 14 hours ago

• Giuliani’s son says he doesn’t want to help his father campaign
CNN International - 16 hours ago

Rudy: Not her fault
Newsday, NY - 17 hours ago

Rudy Giuliani Asks for Privacy Over Questions About Relationship …
FOX News - Mar 5, 2007
Giuliani Estranged From His 2 Children
CBS News, NY - Mar 5, 2007

Giuliani’s son no campaign trouper
ImediNews, Georgia - 3 hours ago

Rudy Defends Judi After Family Estrangement Goes Public
MyFox Washington DC, DC - 9 hours ago

Giuliani Takes Blame For Estrangement From His Kids
NY1, NY - 11 hours ago

Giuliani Seeks Privacy Amid Reports Of Family Rift
CBS 5 - Green Bay, WI - 13 hours ago

Here’s the bottom line:

Giuliani’s Son Puts Him In An Uncomfortable Spotlight
ABC30.com, CA - Mar 5, 2007

We’ll see how “sticky” the story is. If people are still talking about Giuliani’s family issues a month from now, it’ll be a problem.

Still, after all that whining about how long this damn campaign is going to be, I’m rather beginning to enjoy myself.

This is smart. Rudy is trying to raise his profile abroad—or, at least, to present himself to the folks across the Pond. The Telegraph is buying (so far):

Whereas his rivals John McCain and Mitt Romney are engaged in attempts to disavow previous statements and recast themselves as social conservatives, Mr Giuliani’s pitch is that “for most it’s never about one issue” and consistency is preferable to pandering.

“I believe you’ve got to run based on what you are, who you really are,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “I find if you do it that way even people who disagree with you sometimes respect you.”

It is really smart for Giuliani to start doing “international” interviews, because he knows that he has to prove himself to many different audiences—and of course because the next president will most certainly be deeply involved in foreign affairs.

Meanwhile, the New York Times scoffs at the easy venues Giuliani chooses and the softballs being thrown his way. 

Instead of the sometimes barbed give-and-take endured by the other candidates, Mr. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, fielded a few questions from the firefighters and police officers who gathered to hear him here. The questions, which began with comments like, “Being in your presence here is just unbelievable,” stuck almost entirely to issues on which Mr. Giuliani is most comfortable, like airport security and border control.

More than the other major presidential candidates, Mr. Giuliani has limited himself to events with narrowly defined, friendly audiences, avoiding the kind of uncomfortable interrogations his rivals have occasionally faced. Aside from a couple of brief swings through diners, including one yesterday in Delray Beach, Fla., he has done little of the politicking that exposes candidates to random sets of people — at shopping malls or train stations — who might be of any political stripe, and can raise any issue.

I agree that Giuliani has gotten a really easy ride so far. I also think there’s no doubt that he knows what’s coming his way.

David Gergen has been dumping on the Republicans since forever on CNN. Tonight he visited with Larry King (following an interview with Giuliani), and Gergen was pretty impressed:

DAVID GERGEN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE ADVISER TO PRESIDENTS NIXON, FORD, REAGAN & CLINTON: Well, what I find really interesting, Larry, is that the pundits — the commentariat, if you would like to call it that, has discounted — and I’ve been among those who have discounted a Giuliani candidacy for some time.

We’ve always said, you know, he looks attractive on the surface, but people are going to move away from him. This is, after all, the Republican Party.

But something really interesting, though, has happened over the last 30 days. A month ago, the “USA Today”/Gallup Poll had Giuliani and McCain basically running neck and neck for the Republican nomination. Giuliani was ahead by around four points.

Their recent poll — it just came out today — has Giuliani ahead of John McCain for the Republican nomination by 16 points. Sixteen points. He’s opened up a huge lead and I find it really interesting.

I must say, my good friend, Arianna, I disagree about what’s going on here, in part, with Giuliani. I think he’s taking these stands because that’s what he believes in. And I think his appeal is he seems — like Barack Obama, who lights fires on the Democratic side — he is appealing because he’s authentic. He is who he is who he is. And it’s not all calculated…

Of course, some of us, ahem, saw this coming—and voiced our caveats. Back in August. Ahem. But we want to emphasize that we are not politicos. No sirree. We are culture watchers. Plus, we always listen to the voice of our inner sociologist. Oh. And we are no longer ideologues.

I’m with Reliapundit, who thinks that Lieberman’s double-digit lead over Lamont in Connecticut is excellent news for Rudy Giuliani, not for John McCain:

I think the fact that both candidates [McCain and Giuliani] appeal to so-called centrists/independents who pick-and-choose from among each party’s platform is trivial. WHY!? Well, Lieberman’s margin over Lamont doesn’t portend a McCain victory, but a RUDY VICTORY: It shows that a liberal hawk is a very appealing candidate for parts of the GOP and the DNC and the “moderate” independents.

(hat tip Roger Simon)

I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict Rudy over McCain—if he can get over the admittedly difficult hurdle of the Republican nomination—for the presidency. Here’s why: my sense is that the country wants a hawk for president (and that those who don’t want a hawk for president are a small minority, which happens to be over-represented in the media elite and the punditocracy.)

Call me crazy, but I think the country also wants a socially liberal (tolerant) hawk, not a socially conservative (intolerant) one. Here’s why: first, because we’ve had one of those icky conservatives for a horrible six years now, and we’re tired of him (and if not of him than of the constant culture war, which has left people exhausted); second (and way more important): social liberalism (tolerance) is one of the things we’re fighting for in the war on terrorism. That makes Rudy a seamless candidate with a consistent message: he stands for the same things abroad that he stands for here at home—a case that Bush has never been able to make. I believe Rudy can make that case, and make it well. 

Having lived in New York City during his entire mayoral career, I have strong reservations about Giuliani. He’s a confidence-inspiring leader in times of crisis—there’s no doubt about that. He is not, however, a democrat.

For what it’s worth, Richard Perez-Pena of the New York Times found that Rudy seems to be made of teflon.

Mr. Giuliani has embraced that role as 9/11 hero and national security authority. At stop after stop, he delivers the same message: that the nation is still in grave danger, that the war in Iraq must be won, that measures like the Patriot Act and electronic eavesdropping are essential to defeating terrorists.

Never mind that Mr. Giuliani has come in for some sharp criticism back in New York — about workers sickened by toxic dust at ground zero, about his disgraced former police commissioner, Bernard B. Kerik, and even about his handling of the trade center attack.

There is little indication that his noble image from 9/11 has been tarnished in the heartland.

For many loyal Republicans — and more than a few independents and Democrats — his national security message seems to work, blotting out the central question facing his candidacy: whether a supporter of legal abortion, gay civil unions, immigrants’ rights and gun control; a thrice-married, Catholic New Yorker whose split with his second wife took place publicly and none too neatly, can win Republican presidential primaries and caucuses.