September 20, 2007
Hotline After Dark -- Tighter Than A Tube Sock
CNN's J. King sat down with Rudy Giuliani in London:
Giuliani, on saying the U.S. will stop Iran if it pursues nuclear weapons: "The reality is we don't want them laboring under misimpression that we wouldn't take action. And they'll make some seriously wrong decisions. And we also want everyone to know what the point of demarcation will be for the United States."
King: "Your message to the American people is I have the judgment and the experience to do it better and so people finally said, look at your record. You're in this spat right now with moveon.org and by extension Hillary Clinton over the ads criticizing General Petraeus. Moveon.org came back at you with a criticism that, well, here was a guy who had this unique opportunity to sit on the Iraq Study Group. To get inside information from the generals, from the administration on everything that went right in Iraq, everything that went wrong in Iraq. You wanted to be president of the United States and instead skips the first two meetings and then leaves the group because he's giving paid speeches and he didn't want to offend the media."
Giuliani: "I couldn't give the time to it and secondly I knew that ultimately I could very well be running for president of the United States. Wasn't sure at the time. And had I stayed on that group, their report was put out just at the time I announced for president and it was totally politicized. It was a mistake to join in the first place. And as far as foreign policy experience goes, I've probably traveled to Europe, Asia and Africa more often in the last five, five and a half years than any of the people who are running for president. ... I've actually dealt with terrorism. I've actually dealt with it firsthand. And in most of these countries like here in England and Europe, I don't know how many times I've been here in the last five years, very often meeting with Tony Blair, other heads of state, police officials, I've given security advice all over the world. I'm well known all over the world. So I didn't feel like I needed foreign policy experience. I've had tremendous amount of involvement in foreign policy. And I really did think in retrospect that it would both politicize the situation for the commission and politicize the situation for me. And it probably was a mistake to join in the first place. And frankly, I wish moveon.org would do several more commercials attacking because if they do it could get me nominated. They are not exactly the most popular group among Republicans. They have spent $200 or $300 million assassinating the character of Republican candidates and the fact that they want to personally attack me is probably a badge of honor for me and probably is going to jump me five points in the Republican primary."
Giuliani, on the New York Times saying he only spent 29 hours at Ground Zero post-9/11: "I was there probably in the first two weeks more than 29 hours. So the New York Times in some cases is not the most accurate judge of my record. ... What I was actually pointing out was you can be there for a relatively short period of time and still get sick and still be considered in the category of people who are at risk. But the reality is that I was there a good deal of time. A lot more than the Times indicates. ... I wasn't there as much as some others but I was there enough that I would be in the at-risk category. ... In fact I have even been invited to join some of the studies ... to determine what kind of impact it had on me. The New York Times likes to think of it as I was there just bringing dignitaries there. What they don't remember is I was there sometimes in the middle of the night, I was there at the morgue, I was there when people's bodies were taken out. I was there to identify people. And I was there just sometimes for several hours just going around, talking to the people and making sure their morale was OK. I'm not saying other than a factual sense, I was there more often than some people who have gotten sick, less often than other people" (CNN, 9/19).
AND ON THE SEVENTH DAY ...
Bill Richardson was in the "Situation Room" last night:
On the MoveOn.org ad: "I disagree with that. They shouldn't have done it. On the other hand, MoveOn has done some great things to alert the American people about the escalation of the war. But they shouldn't have done that."
On saying IA should be the first caucus "for reasons related to the lord": "That was a stump speech. I was joking. The point I was trying to make is that there's a reason Iowa and New Hampshire have been first, because they scrutinize candidates. They know these examples of democracy. ... But ... it was a joke. I was kidding."
CNN's Blitzer: "So it has nothing to do with the lord?"
Richardson: "No" (CNN, 9/19).
OUR FAVORITE TEXAN IS BACK IN THE NEWS
There wasn't a lot of talk about Dan Rather's $70M lawsuit against CBS last night simply because O.J. continues to dominate the cable news cycle but here are some highlights:
CBS' Couric gave the suit a small mention toward the end of the newscast noting: "In other news Dan Rather filed a $70 million law suit against CBS." She then read from CBS' statement ("Evening News," 9/19).
ABC's Gibson: "Rather claims he was made the scape goat. ... He accuses the network of punishing him to pacify the White House" ("World News," 9/19).
NBC's Williams: "Tonight a giant of the television industry is suing a giant of the television. Dan Rather has reported the news in some form for over four decades. He has also made his share of news as he did again today" ("Nightly News," 9/19).
NBC's Allen: "From the moment Dan Rather was forced to step down as anchor of the 'Evening News,' his relationship with CBS apparently just kept getting worse" ("Nightly News," 9/19).
FNC's O'Reilly: "He's doing this to get back at Leslie Moonves" ("O'Reilly Factor," 9/19).
CNN's Blitzer: "A lot of people, I assume, are going to say that Don Imus worked out some sort of major financial settlement with CBS since then and maybe Dan Rather is looking for a settlement as well" ("Situation Room," 9/19).
MSNBC's Abrams, on Rather: "I really like him personally, and I think it's horribly unfair that to some his career is now defined by that Bush National Guard story. I think he got smeared based on the mistake. But his legal papers are an effort to litigate journalistic questions. He offers a detailed defense of how he handled the story. But why bring that to court? Why have his legacy further tarred by a lawsuit? There's no question Rather got hung out to dry by CBS, but that's the business. Those of us on the air get the credit and the blame, and they paid him through his contract" ("Live with Dan Abrams," 9/19).
Ex-CBS corr. Bernard Kalb: "Dan is determined to see that there's a cleansing of the record. He does not want his reputation, 40 years' worth of hard work in journalism, to be tarnished, to be smeared. So I think Dan will go right down on the mat on this" ("Live with Dan Abrams," MSNBC, 9/19). [EMILY GOODIN]
Posted at 08:51 AM
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