Don’t ask me. I think it was a dicked up process from the get go.
We have executive and legislative bodies, with vested power, authority, expertise and staff in each. I can think of very few cases where the powers of these bodies ought to be foisted onto outside groups.
And in this case, it wasn’t done to get opinions that were especially keen on the situation in the region. No, it was done for political cover on all sides.
A loincloth like this, I don’t think we need.
Rudy in a loincloth! Do you have any idea how much the drugs will cost to erase that?
It was obviously the equivalent of an honorary doctorate. Given a choice between being a placemat at a table full of experts discussing things I don’t understand or making $11 million dollars, I’m going to make $11 million. If that’s stupid to you, then you’re stupid to me. […shrug…] Or maybe he did it out of a goodness of character, prefering not to derail the actual progress of the group with the spectacle of his presence. He had nothing to offer, and they had nothing to gain from him. Whatever the reason, it’s good he wasn’t there. He’d probably have been pitted either way, though —
“Giuliani bogged down the Iraq Study Group, where he soaked up media attention while offering nothing of substance for making policy. Who the hell does he think he is, getting free tutoring from people who are trying to get work done? And to top it all off, he broke commitments for speaking engagements all over the country, leaving people scampering to cover for his ass. What a jerk.”
You just think you addressed this point well. But in reality, you’re criticizing Giuliani for a lack of expertise in foreign affairs, yet fail to acknowledge that Edwards faces the same perception.
I think it is legitimate to raise this issue, but frankly it has to be raised all around. And John Edwards in his campaign is avoiding talking about foreign affairs as much as he can, except to mention that the war is bad.
So if you prefer Edwards despite this, just be honest and say so. Nobody will think any less of you for it. Frankly, I think this is a problem for Giuliani, and I still support him for other reasons.
There are so many considerations involved in making this choice, and so many traits to balance, that nobody normal will fault you if your candidate doesn’t turn out to be perfect. Of course, you will do that to others all day long, but I think we all decided a while back that you weren’t normal in this regard.
Well, then, he should have said “No”. But he didn’t, did he, buckaroo?
Which buckaroo are you talking to?
Who cares? Rudy accepted a responsibility, then welshed on his commitment. He put earning money via speechmaking ahead of some rather non-demanding service to his country. And he passed up on a pretty damned good chance to add greatly to his minimal knowledge about Iraq and the Middle East.
And now he’s lying about it: he says he left because “as someone considered a potential presidential candidate, the Mayor didn’t want the group’s work to become a political football.”
Funny, he’d already said in October 2005 that he was considering a 2008 Presidential run, and agreed in March 2006 to serve on the ISG.
Maybe he’d forgotten by March that he was thinking of running for President, but suddenly remembered when he was asked to either show up or get lost.
Perception? Whatever. Maybe you haven’t read his recent address on terrorism. I think people can assess his understanding of issues quite well from it.
I don’t think you understand the juxtaposition here - of pissing on an opportunity to learn in his area of ignorance.
Feel free to keep ignoring that, though. I thought you conservatives used to say that “character counts,” and I’ve raised some character issues. Or do “character issues” only have to do with personal parts of one’s anatomy?
I guess we’ve all learned the answer to that one in recent years, haven’t we?
Well, yeah, I can see why we wouldn’t want a major bipartisan “blue-ribbon” commission like the Iraq Study Group convened for every little thing that Congress would like to know more about. But heck, the Iraq war is a fairly important subject, wouldn’t you say?
We’ve had bipartisan commissions to investigate 9/11 (the “9/11 Commission”), the Iran-contra affair (the “Tower Commission”), the assassination of JFK (the “Warren Commission”), and so forth. I’d think that something on the scale of the current Iraq situation is at least equally deserving of an independent bipartisan study.
This attitude, while certainly understandable in its motivation, is exactly one of the things that’s troubling me in current Republican politics. More and more, Republican politicians these days seem to be coming to the conclusion that their best strategy is to invest most of their time and effort in finely tuned PR campaigns and money-making, and just blow off the boring nuts-and-bolts policy-wonkery that involves actually sitting down with better-informed specialists and learning some details about complicated issues.
Karl Rove, of course, is the high priest of this approach, and the current President is its most high-profile practitioner. And there are certainly Democrats who also practice it. But it worries me that it seems to be turning into almost the default approach for many Republicans.
Sure, I don’t want over-specialized political leaders who try to micromanage every detail of every piece of public business they’re involved with, but I also don’t want slickly packaged ignoramuses who can’t be arsed to learn important facts. And the attitude of “I’d rather be out making 11 million dollars than be on a high-profile commission of distinguished public servants listening to experts talk about foreign policy in Iraq” comes down too far on the “slickly packaged ignoramus” side for my comfort.
Especially in a presidential candidate, who, if he gets his wish in 2008, is going to have to know a hell of a lot of what the experts think about foreign policy in Iraq in order to make intelligent decisions.
Well, as you mentioned above, they can also have a lot to do with issues of one’s personal finances, the ethical practices of one’s business partners and employers, and the moral implications of someone’s personal lifestyle.
'Course, you tend to dismiss such considerations when they come into play for your preferred candidate, and play them up for other politicians. Like I said above, that’s fair, just that you ought to just say why you are doing so.
In my case, I think the appeal Giuliani demonstrates across party lines and his status as a nontraditional Republican far outweigh concerns about his personal life some voters might have. And in the case of foreign affairs, I think he gets the fundamentals right. The details will follow.
Why can’t you just be honest and say the same, instead of just insisting that since Giuliani didn’t participate in a particular board to your liking, he’s out? He was never in with you, was he?
Wasn’t it Rudy who said to his bestest friend forever, Bernie Kerik, “Thank God George Bush is President!”
Who? Bernie Kerik! Another all American bullet headed Saxon mother’s son… Wasn’t it Rudy who thought good ol’ Bernie would do a heck of a job heading up Homeland Security? Whatever happened to good ol’ Bernie?
**Rudy **is looking less and less appealing to me, although I can’t get too upset over this particular decision. As **Liberal **said, why sit on that ridiculous committee when you can be out making $$$? I could have told you what conclusion that group would come to before they even met for the first time-- it was an obvious middle-of-the-road recommendation.
The only guy that looks even remotely interesting to me is Obama. If the election were held today, I’d probably end up voting for him. Mainly because I think I can trust his decision making ability, not so much that agree with his policies. I don’t know if I could bring myself to vote for someone who was in the Senate in Oct '02 and voted for the Iraq AUMF without even bothering to read the NIE beforehand. Yeah, I’m talking about you Senators McCain, Clinton and Edwards.
It doesn’t bother me, as a Republican, because I don’t believe in the either/or scenario you’ve laid out. You’re presenting it as fact that just because Giuliani chose to leave the committee, in part, because of speaking commitments that he “chose to not be educated about a rather vital part of the Presidency.” There’s no factual basis for that idea. You can become educated about foreign relations without being part of the Iraq Study Group, in fact most of the world’s population that is educated on foreign relations was in fact, not part of the ISG.
You should realize that not only does the ISG have a staff, so does the Giuliani campaign. Do you really think there’s no one on his staff who has any sort of foreign relations credentials, that Giualiani has no other means, aside from his membership on some committee, to become educated about foreign relations?
This is of course making the assumption that being part of the committee would, in fact, educate him meaningfully, that isn’t necessarily the case.
Like I said, he could have been pitted either way. He’s in the group for political posturing. The theatrics surrounding him are taking away from the group. It’s just a photo-op for him. Why is he there, knowing nothing about foreign policy? And on and on. Frankly, the only thing a politician cares to know about Iraq, as far I can tell, is “what do I have to do or say to make me look less bad than the other guy?”.
Hypothetically, perhaps so. But if it’s worth it to you to object to a hypothetical pitting that could hypothetically have been inflicted on Giuliani if he had hypothetically pursued a course of action different from the course that he actually took, you must have a lot more spare energy than I do. I find that keeping up with my complaining about actual occurrences that I disapprove of is enough to handle, and then some.
Meh. I’d just pit him because he’s a lying opportunist. I’d think that’s enough.
And so what does this have to do with this discussion, pray tell?
OK, please quote chapter and verse. And explain how I dismissed similar considerations there that I raised here.
I’m dying to see your cites. Unless it’s one of those bullshit “It’s immoral for rich people to be concerned about the poor” arguments, in which case I’ll be totally bored, but I’ll explain that yet again if I must, as I have in the Edwards threads we’ve already had.
Mind you, that still doesn’t change the issue with respect to Giuliani; pretending that the issue is me won’t get you anywhere there.
Ah, because he’s politically popular, it’s OK for his character to not count very much. I see.
There needs to be a special Clenis Rolleyes.
I guess the last four years haven’t yet demonstrated to you that the details count.
Ah well, no use trying to teach a pig to sing.
Maybe because I don’t believe it? Sheesh.
So what you’re saying is that, because political popularity outweighs character in your mind, it therefore must do the same in mine, and if I take a stance to the contrary, I’m being dishonest?
Holy crap, Mr. Moto, that’s quite a conclusion you’ve reached there. Nice of you to foist your abysmal values - or lack of them - on your opponents.
They’re all yours, I’m afraid. Not interested.
I think of myself as reasonably knowledgeable about foreign affairs, for a layman.
But if I were considering running for Congress, let alone President, I’d feel obligated to step that up considerably. Maybe that’s just me.
I’m sure they do. But usually it’s not a particularly large or varied staff - probably one or two main advisors, who may or may not even have been selected and hired yet.
Not to mention, for a second time, that neither his website nor his remarks in the debates that I’ve read exactly reveal much of a grasp of anything, other than the usual “be tough,” “show resolve,” and “use force” mantras that have worked so well so far.
If he sat there like a bump on a log, no. If he availed himself of ISG staff, then he’d have had the opportunity to learn as much as his brain could hold without exploding.
Maybe it WAS a ridiculous committee, but Rudy did agree to serve - then welshed on his commitment, without bothering to let anyone know what he was doing, or why. Just didn’t show up, gave speeches instead.
People I respect don’t do stuff like that.
People I respect have lived in big houses and slums, have been gay and straight, have spent too much time and money on their appearance, or almost none at all.
But people I respect don’t do stuff like that.
JFTR, I think this is a much bigger deal than, say, Rudy’s South Carolina campaign chairman getting busted for selling cocaine, which is something it’s hard to imagine that the Giuliani campaign could have known about. It’s quite interesting for followers of SC politics, since the Ravenel family is practically political royalty down there, but it says zip about whether or not Rudy should be President.