Why You Should Stop Paying Attention to Puppetician Rudy Giuliani
/Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani this weekend claimed that President Obama’s response to Hurricane Sandy was “worse than Katrina,” the New Orleans hurricane that left thousands dead, injured, and homeless.
But it turns out Giuliani didn’t reserve the “worse than” comparison for a dire situation. The former mayor — who has served exclusively as a partisan attack dog, and not a policy maker, for several years — has an affinity for using that turn of phrase to criticize the Obama administration. Here are five other instances in the last four years where he’s claimed Obama’s policy was in some way “worse than” whatever came before it:
1. Bengazi was “worse than” Watergate
In an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, Giuliani suggested that the murder of US Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens “could be worse than Watergate because it involves very, very sensitive, classified information about which people could be killed and that may be worse than Watergate in terms of, you know, the taking of human life.”
2. Obama as President is “worst” since pre-Carter
Appearing on CNN with Piers Morgan, Giuliani was asked whether he thought Obama was the worst since Jimmy Carter. In his typical inflammatory fashion, Giuliani responded, “I think he’s been the worst president we’ve had since before Jimmy Carter”:
3. The withdrawal from Iraq was “worse than” Vietnam
“There’s an extra danger involved in this that might be worse than Vietnam. And it’s not about scale. Obviously the Vietnam scale is much larger,” said Giuliani. “This is an enemy, the Islamic terrorists, who have proven to be even more aggressive than the Communists were, in the sense that the Communists never attacked within the United States.”
4. Stopping drilling off the gulf coast was “more damaging” the BP oil spill
After the BP oil spill, President Obama issued a moratorium on deep water drilling off the gulf coast. Giuliani, who has ties to the oil industry, told Fox News that, “In the long term, there may be bigger problems than the oil spill with this moratorium… It could be a two year problem. And could be bigger and more damaging than the oil spill itself”:
5. Obama is generally just “worse than” Giuliani thought
After Obama had been in office for just six months, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Giuliani, “Have your worst fears come true, or are you satisfied?” To which he replied, “In many respects, it’s much worse than I thought.”
Giuliani recently called for the resignation of Obama over lagging post-recession growth, and blamed Obama’s “incompetence” for the deaths of the four Americans killed in Libya this September.
