MSNBC Countdown w/ LAWRENCE O'DONNELL - 8 January 2009: Lawrence O'Donnell blisters Rudy Giuliani for his terror-mongering lie, the right-wing garbage talking point du jour, that no terror attacks occurred Bush's administration, but have under Obama's.
PART TWO contains the interview with Eric Burns of Media Matters from this segment, discussing why George Stephanopolous did not counter Giuliani's lie (for which Stephanopoulous later admitted error):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPQgVjDqY5M BURNS: "This is about politics for them. It's not about national security and it's disgraceful."
DUer eleny has the Daily Kos diary posted that lists the attacks during Bush:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x116173ost-9/11 Domestic Terror Attacks During Bush Administration
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/1/8/823179/-Post-9-1... Sept-Oct 2001: Anthrax attacks on Congress, NY govt offices, media.
Dec 12, 2001: Foiled plot by Irv Rubin and Earl Krugel to blow up mosque in Culver City, CA, and office of Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA).
Dec 22, 2001: Shoe Bomber Richard Reid fails to blow up AA Flt 63.
July 4, 2002: Hesham Mohamed Hadayet kills 2 at the El Al ticket counter at LAX.
Oct 2002: Beltway Snipers John Allen Muhammed and Boyd Lee Malvo kill 10; Malvo later testifies attacks motivated by "jihad."
April 2003: White supremacists William Krar, Edith Bruey foiled in the Tyler Poison Gas Plot with huge stockpile of cyanide, 100 conventional bombs, and 500,000 rounds of ammunition.
June 5, 2003: John Noster arrested in LA w/cache of pipe bombs, jet fuel, weapons, and assorted books alleging a worldwide socialist conspiracy.
March 3, 2005: Mohammed Reza Taheri-azana drives an SUV onto a crowded part of campus at UNC at Chapel Hill, injuring 9.
April 3, 2006: Allen Weatherford arrested in MN with cache of weapons, detonation devices, fuel oil, and fertilizer intended to blow up a local courthouse.
July 28, 2006: Naveed Haq kills 1 and hospitalizes 5 in a shooting at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle.
Aug 30, 2006: Omeed Aziz Popal kills 1 and injures 17 in SUV rampage that began in Fremont, CA, and ended at the Jewish Community Center of SF.
Dec 22, 2006: Derrick Shareef’s "violent jihad" attack on an Illinois shopping mall disrupted by feds.
Feb 12, 2007: Sulejman Talović opens fire at the Trolley Square Mall in Salt Lake City, killing 5, injuring 4, while shouting "Allahu Akbar!"
Not to mention the March 23, 2003 grenade attack by Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar on his fellow members of the 101st Airborne, which killed 2 and wounded 14. That particular attack is not technically "terrorism" because it involved combatants rather than civilians, but then again so did the Right's previous-favorite Obama administration attack, that of Nidal Hassan at Ft. Hood earlier this year. Funny nobody ever mentions Hasan Akbar when they're trying to claim that the Ft. Hood incident proves Obama is soft on terrorism.
TRANSCRIPT OF VIDEO:O'DONNELL: "The party that refused to let anyone forget about 9/11 when they thought it would help them politically, has now forgotten about 9/11, hoping it helps them politically. The latest lying exploiter of 9/11 is the man who will never let anyone forget he was New York's mayor on 9/11, who could not say anything during his Presidential campaign without using the formula 'Noun. Verb. 9/11.' Less than two months after former Bush press secretary Dana Perino declared that America 'did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term,' former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani appeared on ABC, and, criticizing President Obama for not saying 'war on terror,' said this is why America has been attacked under President Obama and has not under President Bush.
GIULIANI (VIDEO): "If he recognizes we're at war with terror, a lot of things follow from that, then they're enemy combatants, they're not just mere domestic criminals, then we don't close Guantanamo... What he should be doing is following the right things that Bush did. One of the right things he did was treat this as a war on terror - we had no domestic attacks under Bush, we've had one under Obama. No. 2, he should correct the things that Bush didn't do right: Sending people to Yemen was wrong. Not getting this whole intelligence thing corrected was both Bush's responsibility and Obama's."
STEPHANOPOLOUS: "So bottom line.. the President has stepped up, he's taking responsibility, he's calling it a war. Are you satisfied now with his response?"
GIULIANI: "Now let's see what he does."
O'DONNELL: "Online, George Stephanopolous writes: 'All of you who have pointed out that I should have pressed him on that misstatement in the moment are right. My mistake, my responsibility.'
A Giuliani spokesman tells ABC he was 'clearly talking about post-9/11 with regards to Islamic terrorist attacks on our soil.' ABC reporting
that Giuliani's reference to an attack under President Obama was not a reference to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab who was arraigned today in Detroit and pleaded not guilty on all six charges, but a reference to Maj. Nidal Hasan, who killed thirteen people at Ft. Hood two months ago.
Of course, not counting the underwear bomber, lets Giuliani discount the shoe bomber, whose attack DID occur under President Bush, although not, as Mr. Giuliani idiotically claimed, recently, before 9/11.
And limiting it to Islamic attacks lets Mr. Giuliani discount the anthrax mailings that killed five people, and Jim David Atkinson, the Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly fan, who shot two people dead because they attended a liberal church. And limiting it to attacks on our soil also lets Mr. Giuliani discount Sgt. Hassan Akbar, who killed two soldiers and wounded fourteen in a grenade attack in Kuwait, two days before the invasion of Iraq, a direct precedent for the Fort Hood case that Giuliani now pretends is unprecedented.
Even limiting it to Islamic attacks on our soil, Mr. Giuliani, who now makes a living on the blood of 9/11 by pretending to be an expert on terrorism, is apparently unaware of, or just lying about, the following:- The Muhammed Atta fan who used his SUV to wound nine people in 2006 at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill to avenge Muslims, while George W. Bush was President.
- The man who called himself a terrorist after killing one person and injuring thirteen more in 2006 with his SUV in San Francisco, while George W. Bush was President.
- The Muslim shooter in 2006 who killed one and wounded five others in Seattle over his hatred for Israel, while George W. Bush was President.
- The 2002 terrorist attack on the El Al counter at Los Angeles International Airport that killed two and wounded four, while George W. Bush was President.
- D.C. sniper John Allen Muhammed convicted of terrorism in the deaths of ten people, while George W. Bush was President.
- And we must assume Mr.
Giuliani does not count the 2008 attack on the U.S. embassy in Yemen, technically our soil, because the 18-year-old American woman had not yet come inside when she was killed. And yes, George W. Bush was still President and in charge of protecting our embassies in 2008."
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