Another double standard: Giuliani bashes Obama over “vacations”
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on June 18th, 2010 4:51 am by HL
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.
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 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 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 “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.”
