Rudy G. on Kerry: One Lie Begets Another

Does it seem to you that Bush-Cheney’s campaign is based on the premise that they can lie about everything – and that the public and the press are too stupid to realize this? Rudy Giuliani was a guest on Hardball this Monday. I wish I had a video link and not just the transcript for reasons that will become apparent. Rudy G. starts off by thanking God Bush is President and defending Zell Miller’s insanity at the RNC.

GIULIANI: He‘s making a very dramatic statement. So I think a lot of emotion would be attached to it. Yes, I thought it was an appropriate speech. It was tough, tough speech, but an appropriate one. And I think his point is all based on the record. John Kerry has voted against defense spending so often that you have to have the sense that he really doesn‘t appreciate the need for a very strong national defense. And you can raise that—nobody‘s talking about his Vietnam service.

No one is talking about his Vietnam service? But it’s this “voted against defense spending so often” that Chris Matthews sort of challenged especially with this:

MATTHEWS: Didn‘t you ever, as mayor of New York, veto or refuse to sign an appropriation because you thought it was too much, but you weren‘t against the whole appropriation?

GIULIANI: Absolutely. I vetoed…

MATTHEWS: But you meant to signal the legislature or the city council that you wanted to sign it 20 percent less because you needed to protect budget.

GIULIANI: Absolutely.

MATTHEWS: Isn‘t that what Kerry did? Or anybody does when they vote.

At this point, one has to see how Rudy rolled his eyes – sort of like the cheating husband who had told the wife he was working late only to spend the evening with the mistress – and then on arriving home at 2AM to have the wife inform him that she went by his office at 10PM. Whoops, what’s my next lie to cover the prior one?

GIULIANI: But he voted against defense spending so often…

MATTHEWS: OK…

GIULIANI: … that he was on the outer fringe. Look, this is not meant, again, to use the L-word as a bad word, liberal or conservative. But he was the most liberal member of the United States Senate.

MATTHEWS: OK.

GIULIANI: One of the reasons he was was he probably voted against defense spending more than any other member of the Senate, including Teddy Kennedy and other liberals.

“Voted against defense spending so often” again! And of course, Rudy G.’s only evidence of this is the oft-heard lie that Kerry is the most liberal member of the Senate. I guess the premise is that we liberals don’t care about national security.

But does Matthews go after these two clear lies? No, he goes to commercial. So Rudy G. gets away with this nonsense.