farouk

George Stephanopoulos has “corrected” Rudy Giuliani’s statement that ‘no domestic terrorist attacks happened under Bush’.

The two key changes are as follows. First the title:

• Then:
  Rudy Giuliani: 'No Domestic Attacks Under Bush.... One Under Obama'
• Now:
  Rudy Giuliani Wrong in Saying ‘No Domestic Attacks Under Bush’

And then George added in a new paragraph.

Then:

“What he [Obama] 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,” Giuliani said. “Number two, he should correct the things that Bush didn’t do right. Sending people to Yemen was wrong, not getting this whole intelligence thing corrected.”

The former Republican presidential candidate is specifically taking issue with the fact that the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is being tried in a civil court instead of a military tribunal.

Now:

“What he [Obama] 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,” Giuliani said. “Number two, he should correct the things that Bush didn’t do right. Sending people to Yemen was wrong, not getting this whole intelligence thing corrected.”

Giuliani seems to have forgotten about the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and shoe bomber Richard Reid.

To keep the record straight on the details about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, I want to do a quick recap:

• In 2007, under Bush, two of Abdulmutallab co-conspirators were released from Gitmo and sent to Saudi Arabia. (source)
• Abdulmutallab was given a visa to the United States in June 2008, despite being on the terrorist watch list because he “attended a reputable school” and “had money” (source).
• This past summer House Republicans kept stalling a bill to give more money to the TSA for extra screening and bomb detecting devices. (source)
• Currently the appointed head of the TSA is held up in Senate by Republican Jim DeMint (source)

And somehow all of this is Obama’s fault.

I want to clear this up right now. I called for Janet Napolitano to either resign or be fired today and I still stand by that. Her comments yesterday showed an individual afraid to take any responsibility and we can not tolerate that. Will any of the blogs on the right try to hold Republicans accountable for their contributions to this? Any at all?

If we want to be serious about fighting terrorism we must stop using it as a political tool. If we don’t do that then al Qaeda will continue to have victories. It’s enough of these childish “it’s his fault” games. Both parties and administrations have some fault in this, and to deny that is to treat terrorism like a childish game.