(Image by Sadly, No!’s Gavin)

Josh Marshall takes a look at Rudy Giuliani’s “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” in today’s video update. Says Marshall:

Maybe you love Rudy or maybe you hate him. But whatever you may think of him, check out his foreign policy team, because that’s the key to knowing what to expect from a Rudy presidency. Especially for candidates with little or no foreign policy experience of their own, the folks advising the candidate are key. And Rudy’s team is made up, more or less, of all the guys who were too nuts or too extreme to make the cut with George W. Bush. If you really, really want to go to war with Iran as soon as possible, vote Rudy.

Giuliani’s foreign policy advisers, like Mitt Romney’s “Jihad” ad, are meant to achieve the same objective: pandering to the party base by, really, overcompensating for their lack of conservative bona fides and moderate records. The results are candidates parading around like cartoon characters based caricatures of what’s left of the GOP.

Advisors, Rudy Giuliani | 10 Comments »

Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho) spoke to Matt Lauer of NBC’s The Today Show that airs on Tuesday night. In excerpts made available, Craig took aim at former Governor Mitt Romney and his reaction to the lewd conduct charges last August:

Craig also takes to task Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney during the interview. Craig was one of two Senate liaisons for Romney’s campaign before Craig removed himself from that position when news of his arrest broke. Romney later said of Craig, “He’s disappointed the American people.”

Craig tells Lauer: “I was very proud of my association with Mitt Romney. I’d worked hard for him here in the state. I was a co-chair of his campaign on Capitol Hill. And he not only threw me under his campaign bus, he backed up and ran over me again.” [emphasis added]

The interview airs Tuesday night on NBC.

Advisors, Mitt Romney | 1 Comment »

This is a major worry. We will simply have to build an entire federal penitentiary just to house members of the Giuliani campaign:

A prominent Texas Republican has sued Rudy Giuliani’s law firm and a close friend and partner of Giuliani’s, Kenneth Caruso, alleging that Caruso, the firm and others “schemed and conspired to steal $10 million.”

J. Virgil Waggoner, a Houston businessman and philanthropist, filed the previously unreported suit in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan in July. He alleges that Caruso, his former lawyer, conspired with Waggoner’s investment adviser to cover up the disappearance of $10 million Waggoner invested through a Caribbean bank, the British Trade & Commerce Bank.

Waggoner claims Caruso “may have also been romantically involved” with the investment adviser.

The Caribbean bank was shut down after its handling of Waggoner’s investment came to light, and its president was later jailed for money laundering.

We toyed at some point with putting together a Right’s Field police blotter, with a list of all the candidate advisors under investigation or indictment, but at this point, I actually don’t think we have the server space.

On another note, should Giuliani be elected, it would be easier if all these officials were imprisoned somewhere close to the White House, making cabinet meetings more convenient. Honestly, some people like to talk about the Bush Administration running a criminal enterprise inside the Oval Office. Giuliani apparently runs one wherever he appears.

Advisors, Rudy Giuliani | 2 Comments »

The Giuliani campaign has mnade it very clear that they have no relationship with the supporters who are throwing a fundraiser and asking for contributions of $9.11. But it’s not difficult to determine how these supporters came up with the idea. Their candidate is someone who relates 9/11 to absolutely every issue imaginable, who uses the imagery in every speech, who indeed has made it the centerpiece of his campaign. Why would these moral lepers think there would be a problem with raising money off the backs of the dead at Ground Zero, too?

Somehow, an advertisement in a paper is beyond the pale, but using the anniversary of an American tragedy to fundraise doesn’t cause anyone to bat an eyelash. The Giuliani team could do more than say they had nothing to do with the event; they could refuse the money. And they could stop making the surfeit of inferences that result in such behavior.

Advisors, Fundraising, Rudy Giuliani | 6 Comments »

It took David Shuster to say what Democrats could have been saying all along about this ridiculous MoveOn ad controversy. Marsha Blackburn had all the stats at the ready about MoveOn (except the one where the organization has raised $1.6 million dollars in a week because of the mau-mauing from the establishment), but she couldn’t name the last soldier from her district to die in Iraq, couldn’t understand why that would be kind of an important thing to know, and indeed said “I don’t know why I don’t know that” in defense of herself.

SHUSTER: Congressman, let’s talk about the public trust. You represent, of course, a district in western Tennessee. What was the name of the last soldier from your district who was killed in Iraq?

BLACKBURN: The name of the last soldier killed in Iraq, from my district, I do not know.

SHUSTER: His name was Jeremy Bohannan (ph). He was killed August 9, 2007. How come you did not know that the name?

BLACKBURN: I do not know why I did not know the name. We made contact with the families in our district. When you have a major military post, you are very sensitive to this and sensitive to working with those families, and that is something that my staff and I do daily. Our district director is a gentleman who has served in the U.S. Army and currently serves in the National Guard. And we do everything that we possibly can do to assist those families. We are very appreciative of the sacrifice.

It goes without saying that Blackburn is supporting the Freddie Thompson campaign, who has turned not knowing things into an art form.

But the point I want to make is that this was a lay-up. We know that Republicans manufacture outrage but are impervious to compassion or empathy. We also know that they have an ideological blind spot when it comes to the attacks perpretrated by their side. Why, indeed, then, can Democratic leaders not take a look at what was sung out loud during the “Values Voters” debate, attended by 7 Presidential candidates, and make a little noise about it?

Why should God bless America?
She’s forgotten he exists
And has turned her back
On everything that made her what she is

Why should God stand beside her
Through the night with the light from his hand?
God have mercy on America
Forgive her sin and heal our land

The courts ruled prayer out of our schools
In June of ‘62
Told the children “you are your own God now
So you can make the rules”
O say can you see what that choice
Has cost us to this day
America, one nation under God, has gone astray

Why should God bless America?
Shes’s forgotten he exists
And has turned her back on everything
That made her what she is

Why should God stand beside her
Through the night with the light from his hand?
God have mercy on America
Forgive her sins and heal our land

In ‘73 the Courts said we
Could take the unborn lives
The choice is yours don’t worry now
It’s not a wrong, it’s your right

But just because they made it law
Does not change God’s command
The most that we can hope for is
God’s mercy on our land

That’s really the most direct statement of hatred against America that you can ever possibly hear. And yet the DC establishment fears a backlash, somehow, if they deigned to bring up these radical, disgusting views, for fear of offending some mythical voter in the “heartland.” Do they REALLY believe that most every American wouldn’t reflexively recoil at this bile? Every Republican officeholder in the country should be asked if they support a view that God has abandoned as sinful America, and if they would be willing to condemn those who sang it. I mean, every Democratic officeholder was asked about a pun.

Advisors, Fred Thompson, Presidential Debates | 2 Comments »

Campaign adviser to Rudy Giuliani’s presidential bid, Congressman Peter King (R-Seaford, N.Y.), was quoted by The Politico as saying that the there are “too many mosques” in the United States. Rep. King’s statement also advocated profiling American Muslims and with a broad brush, painted them as radical Islamic sympathizers. Read the full quote from The Politico:

In the Politico interview, King said: “Unfortunately we have too many mosques in this country, there’s too many people who are sympathetic to radical Islam. We should be looking at them more carefully, we should be finding out how we can infiltrate, we should be much more aggressive in law enforcement.”

King stands by what he says, but listen to his explanation:

A homeland security adviser to Rudy Giuliani came under fire Thursday for claiming there were “too many mosques” in the United States — and defended himself by saying his point was that not enough Muslim leaders cooperate with law enforcement. [...]

“I stand by everything I said other than the fact that the Politico totally took it out of context,” King said Thursday. [emphasis added]

Seriously, how could The Politico not pick up on that?

Republicans like to claim quotes were pulled out of context but there is absolutely no way that what King actually said even remotely resembles the point he claims he was trying to make.

Advisors, Rudy Giuliani | 3 Comments »

McCain’s back, according to everyone, if by “everyone” you mean the Beltway media (he’d win a cocktail party straw poll with ease). If you mean actual activists and supporters that might help him get votes, McCain, um, isn’t back.

Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox plans to resign as John McCain’s state campaign chairman, according to two top Republicans who asked not to be identified because Cox has not yet spoken with McCain in person.

Cox thinks the Arizona senator would make a good president, but his campaign isn’t doing what it needs to win Michigan, the two Republicans said Monday. State Republicans are set to choose their presidential favorites in a Jan. 15 primary.

McCain won Michigan’s 2000 Republican presidential primary. But polls have shown Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney now are more popular in the state, and Fred Thompson is getting the same amount of support as McCain.

Cox is almost certainly the GOP nominee for governor in Michigan, so having him take a powder is a pretty big deal. The standard bearer in the state wants to associate with a winner. In other words, not McCain.

Advisors, John McCain | 3 Comments »

I confess that I haven’t been writing much about John McCain, mainly because I forgot he was still a Presidential candidate. But he’s had a couple newsworthy moments of late. First he participated in a political rally on 9/11 where he said the following:

“The important thing about Sept. 11 is that it not be repeated,” McCain told reporters after the event. “And if we leave Iraq, then it will be repeated.”

This is the tired old “they’ll follow us home” argument, propagated mainly by the fact that V-22 Osprey transport planes leave a trail of bread crumbs. They’ll know the routes! Even General Petraeus was careful to distance himself from a notion that Iraqi insurgents fighting for their own country will get on boats and start car bombing Milwaukee.

Appearing at McCain’s side at that campaign event in Sioux City was Col. Bud Day, who he called a longtime friend. Day appeared in national TV ads for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Yet McCain still has the nerve to claim that he renounced the Swift Boat ads.

McCain began by calling on the Democrats to repudiate the aspersions cast by Moveon.org on the patriotism and integrity of General Petraeus. McCain reminded us that he repudiated what he considered attacks on the patriotism of Max Cleland and John Kerry.

Repudiated the attacks, but appears at campaign events with those who do the attacking.

Finally, McCain, the surge’s biggest cheerleader, ought to get his story straight with the White House. While he continues to call for the capture of Muqtada al-Sadr, the US government is trying to negotiate with him.

There’s talk of a great McCain comeback in his core constituency, the media. Somebody ought to tell that to the three more staffers who resigned this week.

Advisors, John McCain | 1 Comment »

Today Fred Thompson officially becomes a candidate for President. The roadkill trailing him to that decision just got a bit longer.

Jim Mills, the former Fox News producer who joined the campaign only weeks ago, has resigned due to “strategic differences.” This from campaign manager Bill Lacy in a memo to the staff, sent out Tuesday “just before we begin the Big Dance.”

“Our new Communications Director Todd Harris is building an experienced and aggressive team of campaign professionals to help lead our press operation,” Lacy wrote. He added, “This constitutes a substantial shift, not in our candidate’s message, but in the way we support it and enhance it. Due to this shift, Jim Mills has informed me that he is leaving the campaign due to strategic differences. I respect Jim’s decision and encourage all of you to join me in wishing him the best of luck.”

The continued exodus could be due to the fact that Thompson HQ is not such a great place to work. But also, just trying out new top-level staffers the way some people try out new shoes almost automatically presages a chaotic environment. So far, Thompson’s team has been moving in twenty different directions at once, with each new hire revamping the operation completely. And so we have this campaign limping, struggling, huffing and puffing… to the START LINE.

Advisors, Fred Thompson | No Comments »

This one kind of got by the national media, given the fact that they can only deal with one Republican gay sex scandal at a time:

An organizer for a Rudy Giuliani presidential event plans to step down amid revelations of his arrests for allegedly extorting an FSU student in a sex case and his conviction for dealing in stolen state computers.

Barry S. Edwards, 45, told The Miami Herald that the charges against him were ”old news” — and were ‘unfounded’ in the student sex case — but he nevertheless thought it would be best to withdraw from the Pinellas County Republican Party fundraiser because “I’m not relevant and I shouldn’t be the story.”

Edwards said he was not being paid for organizing the Sept. 7 Reagan Day dinner, and had no real connection to the campaign of Giuliani, who is to be the keynote speaker at the Renaissance Vinoy Resort and Golf Club in St. Petersburg.

The two criminal incidents involving Edwards were unrelated, and occurred within months of each other in 1998.

According to a Florida State University arrest affidavit: Edwards was first charged after a 19-year-old FSU political science intern claimed Edwards, then an adjunct professor, plied him with beers, trolled briefly for prostitutes, watched ”heterosexual” pornography and then exhorted him to masturbate in a game.

Masturbate in a game? Was it part of the game? Was it in lieu of a field goal or something?

Advisors, Rudy Giuliani | 1 Comment »