By Keith Olbermann
MSNBC Countdown

Wednesday 25 April 2007

Olbermann: Rudy Giuliani exploiting fear for power and personal gain.
A special comment about Rudolph Giuliani's remarks at a Lincoln Day
dinner in New Hampshire:

Finally tonight, a Special Comment about Rudolf Giuliani's remarks
at a Lincoln Day Dinner in New Hampshire last night.

Since some indeterminable hour between the final dousing of the pyre
at The World Trade Center, and the breaking of what Senator Obama has
aptly termed "9/11 Fever," it has been profoundly and disturbingly
evident that we are at the center of one of history's great ironies.

Only in this America of the early 21st Century could it be true,
that the man who was president during the worst attack on our nation,
and the man who was the mayor of the city in which that attack
principally unfolded, would not only be absolved of any and all blame
for the unreadiness of their own governments, but, more over, would
thereafter be branded heroes of those attacks.

And now, that Mayor - whose most profound municipal act in the wake
of that nightmare was to suggest the postponement of the election to
select his own successor - has gone even a step beyond these M.C. Escher
constructions of history.

"If any Republican is elected president - and I think obviously I
would be best at this - we will remain on offense and will anticipate
what (the terrorists) will do and try to stop them before they do it. "

Insisting that the election of any Democrat would mean the country
was "back... on defense," Mr. Giuliani continued:

"But the question is how long will it take and how many casualties
will we have. If we are on defense, we will have more losses and it will
go on longer."

He said this with no sense of irony, no sense of any personal
shortcomings, no sense whatsoever.

And if you somehow missed what he was really saying, somehow didn't
hear the none-too-subtle subtext of 'vote Democratic and die,' Mr.
Giuliani then stripped away any barrier of courtesy, telling Roger Simon
of Politico.Com, quote....

"America will be safer with a Republican president."

At least that Republican President under which we have not been
safer ... has, even at his worst, maintained some microscopic distance
between himself, and a campaign platform that blithely threatened the
American people with "casualties" if they, next year, elect a Democratic
president - or, inferring from Mr. Giuliani's flights of grandeur in New
Hampshire - even if they elect a different Republican.

How dare you, sir?

"How many casualties will we have?" - this is the language of Bin
Laden.

Yours, Mr. Giuliani, is the same chilling nonchalance of the madman,
of the proselytizer who has moved even from some crude framework of
politics and society, into a virtual Roman Colosseum of carnage, and a
conceit over your own ability - and worthiness - to decide, who lives
and who dies.

Rather than a reasoned discussion - rather than a political campaign
advocating your own causes and extolling your own qualifications - you
have bypassed all the intermediate steps, and moved directly to trying
to terrorize the electorate into viewing a vote for a Democrat, not as a
reasonable alternative and an inalienable right ... but as an act of
suicide.

This is not the mere politicizing of Iraq, nor the vague mumbled
epithets about Democratic 'softness' from a delusional Vice President.

This is casualties on a partisan basis - of the naked assertion that
Mr. Giuliani's party knows all and will save those who have voted for it
- and to hell with everybody else.

And that he, with no foreign policy experience whatsoever, is
somehow the Messiah-of-the-moment.

Even to grant that that formula - whether posed by Republican or
Democrat - is somehow not the most base, the most indefensible, the most
Un-American electioneering in our history - even if it is somehow
acceptable to assign "casualties" to one party and 'safety' to the other
- even if we have become so profane in our thinking that it is part of
our political vocabulary to view counter-terror as one party's property
and the other's liability... on what imaginary track record does Mr.
Giuliani base his boast?

Which party held the presidency on September 11th, 2001, Mr.
Giuliani?

Which party held the mayoralty of New York on that date, Mr.
Giuliani?

Which party assured New Yorkers that the air was safe, and the
remains of the dead, recovered - and not being used to fill pot-holes,
Mr. Giuliani?

Which party wanted what the terrorists wanted - the postponement
elections - and to whose personal advantage would that have redounded,
Mr. Giuliani?

Which mayor of New York was elected eight months after the first
attack on the World Trade Center, yet did not emphasize counter-terror
in the same city for the next eight years, Mr. Giuliani?

Which party had proposed to turn over the Department of Homeland
Security to Bernard Kerik, Mr. Giuliani?

Who wanted to ignore and hide Kerik's Organized Crime allegations,
Mr. Giuliani?

Who personally argued to the White House that Kerik need not be
vetted, Mr. Giuliani?

Which party rode roughshod over Americans' rights while braying that
it was actually protecting them, Mr. Giuliani?

Which party took this country into the most utterly backwards,
utterly counter-productive, utterly ruinous war in our history, Mr.
Giuliani?

Which party has been in office as more Americans were killed in the
pointless fields of Iraq, than were killed in the consuming nightmare of
9/11, Mr. Giuliani?

Drop this argument, sir. You will lose it.

"The Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the
terrorist war against us," Mr. Giuliani continued to the Rockingham
County Lincoln Day Dinner last night. "Never, ever again will this
country be on defense waiting for (terrorists) to attack us, if I have
anything to say about it. And make no mistake, the Democrats want to put
us back on defense."

There is no room for this.

This is terrorism itself, dressed up as counter-terrorism.

It is not warning, but bullying - substituted for the political
discourse now absolutely essential to this country's survival and the
freedom of its people.

No Democrat has said words like these. None has ever campaigned on
the Republicans' flat-footedness of September 11th, 2001. None has the
requisite, irresponsible, all-consuming, ambition. None is willing to
say "I Accuse," rather than recognize that, to some degree, all of us
share responsibility for our collective stupor.

And if it is somehow insufficient, that this is morally,
spiritually, and politically wrong, to screech as Mr. Giuliani has
screeched ... there is also this: that gaping hole in Mr. Giuliani's
argument of 'Republicans equal life; Democrats equal death.'

Not only have the Republicans not lived up to their babbling on this
subject, but last fall the electorate called them on it.

As doubtless they would call you on it, Mr. Giuliani.

Repeat, go beyond Mr. Bush's rhetorical calamities of 2006.

Call attention to the casualties on your watch, and your long,
waking slumber in the years between the two attacks on the World Trade
Center.

Become the candidate who runs on the Vote-For-Me-Or-Die platform.

Do a Joe McCarthy, a Lyndon Johnson, a Robespierre.

Only, if you choose so to do, do not come back surprised nor
remorseful if the voters remind you that "terror" is not just a matter
of "casualties." It is, just as surely, a matter of the promulgation of
fear.

Claim a difference between the parties on the voters' chances of
survival - and you do Osama Bin Laden's work for him.

And we - Democrats and Republicans alike, and every variation in
between - We - Americans! - are sick to death, of you and the other
terror-mongers, trying to frighten us into submission, into the
surrender of our rights and our reason, into this betrayal of that for
which this country has always stood.

Franklin Roosevelt's words ring true again tonight.

And, clarified and amplified, they are just as current now, as they
were when first he spoke them, 74 years ago.

"We have nothing to fear but fear itself" - and those who would
exploit our fear, for power, and for their own personal, selfish,
cynical, gain.

goes to show something here doesnt it?

olberman a news anchor for msnbc- someone who is suposed to report on
facts without showing any bias. now we have to worry about news anchors
who are really , what? not news anchors at all but rather people hired
to do editorials, msnbc should just hire rosie and quit pretending that
they really report the news, cause baby that aint what i just read.

to throw one person out to the wolves because he said something you dont
agree with is assinine, lets dont mention the derogatory remarks made by
both clinton and osama oops i mean obama, fear mongers and liars every
last one of them, but at least rudy isnt afraid to stand up and take a
shot, wouldnt pee on a democrat pres. canidate if they were on fire, no
good lousy truth destorting communist/socialist biggits.

I agree Armydoc. I'd rather the news people just give me the facts. I'll
figure out what it means.

being a democrat armydoc i have to AGREE withya on the candidates!!!
Like i said when it was Kerry or Bush this last election I didnt walk I
RAN to the polls to vote for BUSH.
Just because i am a democrat doesnt mean i agree or APPROVE of their
thoughts or actions. I was honestly hoping rudy would have gone for it
with this upcoming election. He would have had my vote.

olberman is only doing what limbaugh or o reilley or any number of
others are
doing...to me..whether dumocrat or republicon it is all
propaganda...shortly
after 911 I stopped watching news on television...prefer internet
sources...
which includes many european sources for balance...

recommend anyone to listen to RBN (republican broadcasting network)
available on the net...barry goldwater republicans there...

I stopped voting dem/rep long ago...and I used to be a democratic party
officer in mn at one time...time for a third party