Larry King brought on Mr. Noun a Verb and 9-11 and touts him as some sort of national security expert. Sorry Larry, but just because Giuliani's been milking being the Mayor of New York for every dime he can get since 9-11 doesn't make him an expert on anything besides how to exploit a situation for personal gain. Of course Giuliani defends Dick Cheney's remarks when the Republicans would have been calling someone treasonous if we'd heard the same sort of attacks on President Bush right after 9-11 as we're seeing from the Republicans now with President Obama, and he conflates what is being said now to criticism of Bush for invading Iraq.
Of course Larry King wasn't going to call him out for any of this and just allowed Giuliani a chance to make partisan attacks which went completely unchallenged.
KING: Back with Rudy Giuliani. The president is fighting two wars, trying to keep the country safe at home. What kind of message does it send when the former vice president openly says that he is not seriously fighting the war? Do you think it's a good idea what Dick Cheney did?
GIULIANI: You know, Larry, nobody was really concerned about that when everybody criticized President Bush day in and day out including Democrats calling him all kinds of names when he was trying to prosecute the war in Iraq. And the reality is, that's just part of the First Amendment, part of debate. Vice President Cheney is entitled to his view. I share some of them. I don't share all of them.
My hope is -- and I really mean this. I hope that this administration does a mid-course correction much like President Clinton did, which I always thought essentially showed President Clinton's practicality in terms of being fair. I think he has gone way too far to the left, President Obama. President Clinton had some of those problems early in his administration. He made a mid-course correction and then accomplished a lot of good things -- welfare reform, other things like that, criminal justice reform.
I hope President Obama is in a learning process and we see a change for the good of the country. Forget partisan politics. I would like to see him reverse his decision on the trial in New York. And I would like to him treat these people who are trying to attack this country as enemy combatants so that we can get the maximum amount of information out of them. If he made corrections like that, I think that would show great leadership.
KING: You are in the security business. What do you make of the Newark airport, right next door to you, the breach last Sunday. We now learned that cameras were running, but they weren't recording. The TSA takes full responsibility. How do they let that happen?
GIULIANI: You know, these things happen and they shouldn't happen and we need a lot more concentration on it. And you know, I think maybe one of the good things that can come out of the situation that just happened in Detroit, which thank God didn't involve the loss of life is this can act as a wake-up call for us. We've become too lackadaisical since September 11th.
The threat to this country is just as great now as it was then. September 11 is not part of our history yet. It's still part of present. The same forces that wanted to attack us then, ideological misperceptions that were present then are present now. And we have got to invest a lot of our time and effort in making ourselves secure and you know, I think maybe we have become a little too lackadaisical, which may account for not connecting some of the dots for some of these mistakes that are occurring.
KING: When we come back, we'll ask Rudy Giuliani about guess what, politics. Don't be shocked. Don't go away, we'll be right back.
