Another double standard: Giuliani bashes Obama over "vacations"
Appearing on Fox News and MSNBC to criticize the Obama administration's response to the oil spill, Rudy Giuliani attacked President Obama for taking vacations after the oil spill and the Christmas Day bombing attempt, stating that "if it had been President Bush," the media would have slammed him. In fact, Bush did remain on vacation after the 2001 shoe bomber attempt and was not criticized for doing so; moreover, Bush spent several weekends at the Camp David retreat in the months following Hurricane Katrina.
Please upgrade your flash player. The video for this item requires a newer version of Flash Player. If you are unable to install flash you can download a QuickTime version of the video.
Attacking Obama's Christmas bomber response, Giuliani claims Bush would have been slammed by press if he "remain[ed] on vacation" and didn't "respond for three days"
Giuliani: "[I]f it had been President Bush, the media would have come down on him." From the June 17 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:
GIULIANI: They caught him on Christmas morning, the president's on vacation. President remains on vacation for 11 days. Doesn't respond for three days. This is a dilatory response that I think if it had been President Bush, the media would have come down on him like catch the dogs. And I think you would have learned something from that. You learn from getting criticized. He gets a pass. He doesn't get criticized.
In fact, Bush waited six days before mentioning shoe bomber and remained on vacation
Bush waited six days before commenting on 2001 shoe bomber attack. On December 22, 2001, after Richard Reid attempted to light a fuse in his shoes while aboard a U.S.-bound American Airlines international flight, the passengers and flight crew were able to restrain him and foil the plot. Bush first mentioned Reid on December 28, 2001 -- six days after Reid's attempted bombing -- during a press conference in Crawford, Texas.
Bush remained on two-week vacation at Camp David and his Texas ranch after shoe bomber attack. According to announcements from the Office of the Press Secretary (accessed via Nexis), Bush arrived at Camp David on December 22, 2001, and then traveled to the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas, on December 26. The New York Times reported on December 31: "Last week, the president arrived at the ranch after Christmas at Camp David and has since been running, fishing, clearing brush, watching University of Texas football, reading a biography of Theodore Roosevelt and getting in a 'little chain-saw work,' as he put it at his news conference." The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on January 6, 2002, that Bush would return to the White House on January 7, 2002:
President Bush returns to the White House on Monday to begin a contentious election year amid war, recession and a gloomy budget outlook.
Fresh from a two-week holiday break at Camp David and his Texas ranch, Bush is scheduled to start his week meeting with Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan and White House economic advisers to search for ways to turn around the shrinking economy. [accessed via Nexis]
Jan. 2002, Wash. Times: "Critics find little to carp about with Bush vacation." Bill Sammon wrote in a January 4, 2002, Washington Times article that "Democrats and journalists" had not criticized Bush for taking the vacation and quoted Leon Panetta stating of Bush, "No matter where you're at, you're going to find yourself preoccupied with the job of being president ... It's not like he's sitting in a rocking chair":
President Bush took some heat for going on vacation in August during a period of peace and relative prosperity, but the critics are silent now as he takes a second break less than four months later, at a time of war and recession.
The new restraint appears to be a nod to the president's heightened stature as wartime commander in chief. Democrats and journalists who accused the president of "loafing" back in August are now more willing to shrug off presidential vacations.
One critic who changed his tune was Leon Panetta, who served as President Clinton's White House chief of staff.
[...]
"There are no vacations when you're the president of the United States, particularly when you're consumed in a crisis like this," Mr. Panetta told The Washington Times yesterday. "No matter where you're at, you're going to find yourself preoccupied with the job of being president." Besides, Mr. Panetta added, "It's not like he's sitting in a rocking chair."
[...]
Democrats, far from ridiculing Mr. Bush's shirk ethic, are now lauding his work ethic.
"There's no tougher task that any president has to confront than the one that George Bush has had since September 11th," said Democratic strategist Mary Anne Marsh of Boston. "So I don't think there's any doubt in anyone's mind how focused and how hard he's been working when it comes to confronting the war in Afghanistan." [accessed via Nexis]
Politico: "President Obama takes the heat President Bush did not." Contrary to Giuliani's claim that Obama got "a pass" from the media after the Christmas bombing attempt, and that if Bush had responded in a similar manner "the media would have come down on him," a December 29, 2009, Politico article noted that "it was six days before President George W. Bush, then on vacation, made any public remarks about the so-called shoe bomber, Richard Reid, and there were virtually no complaints from the press or any opposition Democrats that his response was sluggish or inadequate." Politico added: "That stands in sharp contrast to the withering criticism President Barack Obama has received from Republicans and some in the press for his reaction to Friday's incident on a Northwest Airlines flight heading for Detroit." From the article:
Bush did not address reporters about the Reid episode until December 28, after he had traveled from Camp David to his ranch in Texas.
Democrats do not appear to have criticized Bush over the delay. Many were wary of publicly clashing with the commander in chief, who was getting lofty approval ratings after what appeared to be a successful military campaign in Afghanistan. The media also seemed to have little interest in pressing Bush about the bombing, or the fact that the incident had revealed a previously unknown vulnerability in airplane security -- that shoes could be used to hide chemicals or explosive devices.
Giuliani attacks Obama for weekend trips during oil spill
Giuliani: Obama "was off on vacation twice" during oil spill. During the June 17 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, Giuliani stated that the oil spill was not Obama's priority "because the president was off on vacation twice during all of this." He later repeated his claim that "when we had the Christmas bombing, he was on vacation ... remained on vacation for 11 days":
JOE SCARBOROUGH (co-host): Well, the president himself said, though, on April 22 --
MIKA BRZEZINKSI (co-host): Yes, I just pulled up that --
SCARBOROUGH: On April 22 he called all the agency heads in and he said, OK, listen, this is gonna be very bad. It's before -- it's before the thing blew out of the water, and he said this is the top priority for this government. We have to focus on it. This is job number one.
GIULIANI: Well, then that's even worse, because if -- if this was job number one, look at the horrible -- if this is job number one, which I don't think it was, because the president was off on vacation twice during all of this. If this were job number one --SCARBOROUGH: Did you go on vacation as the mayor?
GIULIANI: Did I go on vacation as the mayor? No.
SCARBOROUGH: Isn't that a cheap shot?
GIULIANI: No, it is not a cheap shot.
SCARBOROUGH: You never went on vacation?
GIULIANI: Not in the middle of a crisis, I didn't.
SCARBOROUGH: Ronald Reagan went on vacation.
GIULIANI: Not in the middle of a crisis, he didn't.
SCARBOROUGH: George W. Bush went on vacation.
GIULIANI: Not in the middle of a crisis. This is the second time the president has done that, and I resent it. On Christmas Day, when we had the Christmas bombing, he was on vacation --SCARBOROUGH: It was Christmas.
GIULIANI: -- remained on vacation for 11 days.
Obama visited Asheville in April and Chicago in May. The Obamas visited Asheville, North Carolina, the weekend of April 23. During that trip, Obama eulogized the 29 workers killed in the West Virginia mine explosion and "met with the workers' families privately before the ceremony," according to CNN. During Memorial Day weekend, Obama traveled to Chicago and was scheduled to deliver his Memorial Day address at the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery. Due to a thunderstorm, he spoke at Andrews Air Force Base instead.
Bush vacationed during
aftermath of Katrina
Bush reportedly made at least three trips to Camp David in the two months after Katrina struck Gulf. In the two months after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005, Bush reportedly made at least three separate weekend trips to the presidential retreat at Camp David. Bush visited the Camp David retreat in September 2005 and again during two weekends in October 2005. Three months after the hurricane, news outlets reported that hundreds of thousands of people were "still at loose ends in provisional housing -- many in isolated trailer parks"; "thousands of people were "still unaccounted for"; and "[m]ore than 80 percent of New Orleans's population has not been able to return home."
Giuliani reportedly spent more time at Yankees games then at World Trade Center
Giuliani touted his own response to NYC crises. On Morning Joe, Giuliani claimed he did not "go on vacation as the mayor ... in the middle of a crisis." Giuliani touted his record, claiming, "On Christmas evening, the first year that I was the mayor, I left my house and I went to the hospital, and I spent five hours there, because I was the mayor of New York City, and I should be on the spot, taking charge of something from the very beginning. This has been a gross failure in crisis management. Could not have done it worse. And you shouldn't be on vacation when a crisis is affecting the country."
New York Times refuted Giuliani's previous claim that he was at ground zero "as often, if not more" than cleanup workers. In an August 2007 article, The New York Times reported:
On at least three occasions, in responding to accusations that the city failed to adequately protect the health of workers in the wreckage, he has boasted that he faced comparable risks himself. In one appearance he declared that he had been in the ruins "as often, if not more" than the cleanup workers who logged hundreds of hours in the smoldering pile.
[...]
So, how much time did Mayor Giuliani spend at ground zero?
A complete record of Mr. Giuliani's exposure to the site is not available for the chaotic six days after the attack, when he was a frequent visitor. But an exhaustively detailed account from his mayoral archive, revised after the events to account for last-minute changes on scheduled stops, does exist for the period of Sept. 17 to Dec. 16, 2001. It shows he was there for a total of 29 hours in those three months, often for short periods or to visit locations adjacent to the rubble. In that same period, many rescue and recovery workers put in daily 12-hour shifts.
Salon: Giuliani spent more time at Yankees games than at ground zero following the 9-11 attacks. In an August 18, 2007, Salon.com article, Alex Koppelman examined Giuliani's schedule in the 90 days following the World Trade Center attacks and found: "By our count, Giuliani spent about 58 hours at Yankees games or flying to them in the 40 days between Sept. 25 and Nov. 4, roughly twice as long as he spent at ground zero in the 90 days between Sept. 17 and Dec. 16."
Giuliani has previously revised history of Bush-era terror attacks
Giuliani falsely claimed "[w]e had no domestic attacks under Bush." On the January 8 edition of ABC's Good Morning America, Giuliani falsely claimed that "[w]e had no domestic attacks under Bush. We've had one under Obama." Media Matters has documented numerous domestic attacks during the Bush administration following the September 11 World Trade Center attacks.
Giuliani: "I usually say we had no domestic attacks, no major domestic attack under President Bush since September 11." After falsely claiming on Good Morning America that "[w]e had no domestic attacks under Bush," Giuliani stated during CNN's The Situation Room, "I did omit the words 'since September 11.' I apologize for that. I should have put it in." However, Giuliani continued to ignore several domestic attacks that took place under Bush after 9-11 -- including the 2002 attack at Los Angeles International Airport, the 2002 D.C.-area sniper shootings, and the 2006 SUV attack at the University of North Carolina -- and dismissed the 2001 anthrax attacks, which were characterized by John Ashcroft as "a terrorist act," because, Giuliani said, "as far as we know, that was not done in the name of Islamic terrorism."
487 Days At Camp David For Bush
77 visits to Crawford, Texas during his presidency, spending all or part of 490 days there.
10 seconds to Google this info. I timed myself
Perhaps Rudy's corset and control top pantyhose were a tad too tight.
Randy
The wingnuts are always pretty transparent, but when they fail at even getting their talking points down, it just makes them more laughable.
Muslim/Radical Christian, Weak apologist/ruthless thug, etc., and now he's the perpetual vacationer who's too busy to leave the White House. The Republicans aren't even trying to make sense any more.
I guess this is a pre-emptive strike tactic:
Remind the base about a short vacation taken a few months ago as we head into the traditional vacation season, so it's fresh in their minds when Obama takes a typical (or judging by his actions thus far, a shorter the average) vacation and use it for a new baseless angry hypocritical attack.
The numbers are meaningless to the right wing haters. Obama took more vacation days then the average working class Amercian, see how ELITIST he is! Even though we did everything we could to justify the historically long vacation breaks taken by the last republican president.
You can now kind of predict these things. When you make baseless, alarmist, venemous attacks on Obama everyday, and he turns out to be sort of an average President in terms of victories and mistakes, you need to work hard to keep the level of hate and animosity flowing in your base.
This last one was unintentional, but it pretty much sums up the Drunk Cowboy:
In fact, keep trying to provoke...somewhere's else highliter, you troll!
Not going to happen.
And of course the corrupt manner in which his administration operates is another issue entirely. Luckily in about 6 months he will likely become a lame duck president when he loses his huge majority in Congress.
I wonder if he and Holder have read that Arizona law yet, you know the one that Hillary told the Ecuadorian press that they would challenge.
But maybe Hillary was wrong about the lawsuit, the sniper fire may have distracted her.
Please ignore this fool, and don't give him what he wants - lots of negative attention.
No comparison here, and that's what makes Rudy's attack so laughable.
Hey highlighter, it is a FACT, Bush took way more vacation days, so Bush didn't do what Obama is doing, he did something that merits actual criticism, not the right wing mantra IODIIB: If Obama Did It It's Bad.
I feel for you guys. I only wish you would use the FACT that you were so completely WRONG about G-Dub and his ideas to invite in some introspection into your lives. Find out WHY you were so wrong. Investigate the root cause of your wrongness. Try to avoid another horrible mistake that may cost your country again in the future. Re-examine some of those ideas you defended so vehemently that you now know were so wrong. Good luck!
Jim Kramer, another poop-monger who should not be invited onto any program seeking truth, joined right in on that meme.
Mika finally broke through the BS to challenge both of them to name ALL these industry experts they know for a fact were not contacted. Giuliani deflected and did not answer. Kramer said one name and then changed topic.
But, like she always does, Mika turned all submissive again and let them get away with it.
And when are you progs going to get off the notion that because Stalin killed more people than Hitler, that the latter was a better guy?
Start comparing your man to today, not yesterday.
But here's a hint:
Don't compare villains of the past to current villains and try to prove who was the least or most villainous. That's the core of this blog, and it is ridiculous.
We need to deal with what we have now.
MMFA is talking about double standards here. I understand that it's got to be frustrating to have your side's hypocrisy called out over and over again. Too bad, so sad. Stop being hypocrites and you'll stop getting called on it.
MMFA is looking at comments that Giuliani made yesterday. That's not too far in the distant past for MMFA to look at.
By the way, congratulations on hauling the Hutt up into position to respond.
Try serving your country instead of MMfA.
That was my question too, Mary. It doesn't get any better, I'm afraid. There's something about working on a shrimp boat that seems to be volunteered as charity work or military service, but it's all sort of Forrest Gump-esque.
His sort of thought process that leads us to think he stuck his fork in an outlet at an early age.
The other part about the NOW is also strange, since Rudy is currently spouting nonsense on our airwaves, and oilmen Bush/Cheney and their policies have infected our regulatory policies and agency personnel to a huge degree. It would be like ignoring Hep C because the virus invaded 20 years prior.
Thanks for your charity and compassion toward those who are suffering because of your and GWB's ineptitude.
Salazar has been in charge of the MMS for nearly 18 months.
When are you going to place blame exactly where it belongs: MMS and BP, not Bush.
I have nothing but compassion for the people. I worked my way through college as a hand on a shrimp boat. Try it...it ain't blogging for a living.
What's your "charitable and compassionate" connection?
It was his administration that chose to allow the oil drilling industry to win the argument over redundant safety blowout protectors. It was his administration that didn't choose to craft rules to better insure that when problems arose, they stopped and verified that all was well before continuing - those regulations were in front of the MMS when Bush was in office, but they didn't go forward with them. It was Bush who really politicized the MMS and who allowed all kinds of corruption to infiltrate that group without stopping it.
Too bad for Dolly, a poor "accident victim" yet to recover and undoubtedly has a team of trial lawyers ready to pounce while she fakes disability. But of course the disability is real...it's between the ears.
When are we here finally going to call her out? Do we need a silver-engraved invitation? Come on, members!
!. Don't call me "doofus" again. Don't like "Hutt"? Be the first to acquiesce, or from now on that's your moniker.
2. Do something for your country. Try to deserve the benefits you receive.
3. Learn something. Salazar had 18 months to work on MMS, but he didn't.
4. I hated GWB as much as you, never voted for him, spent two hours on the phone trying to discount Chalabi's media statements to my congressman, had a son in Iraq, and more, but this constant comparison is not productive.
You, on the other hand, have done absolutely nothing.
Mr. Mayor, I admire, and I will be forever grateful for your work, and I believe your genuine sincerity of the horror during and after 9/11. However, this horror is very different.
First of all: I think it is very healthy for a President to play a round of golf, or take a vacation. The best, and most creative work is usually done when one is given sometime to think, and get in touch with things that tend to get lost with the day-to-day business of work - like family, and the environment in which we raise our families.
Secondly: I grew up on Long Island Sound, and I grew up and learned to swim and clam in this habitat. I love it. If something like this happened or was even close to it ; the habitat that I love, would be destroyed.
That's part of what makes this so sad...the government doesn't give a tinker's damn about Louisiana.
Concern troll is concerned.
Bush was on vacation almost every weekend and in fact was away when Katrina hit. In comparison this President has been away from the White House on vacation very little.
Giuliani needs to keep his facts straight, stop with the double standard and SHUT HIS BIG FAT MOUTH FOR A LONG WHILE.