America’s Mayor is campaigning in Great Britain this week, getting the Margaret Thatcher Medal of Freedom, meeting with Churchill’s granddaughter and being condescended to at 10 Downing Street, where a spokesman stiff-upper-lipped:
"Mayor Giuliani asked to pay a call on the Prime Minister, and given his experience in New York and counter terrorism, the Prime Minister thought it would be a good idea to see him."
Rudy got more enthusiasm from the granddaughter, who called him “Churchill in a baseball cap,” providing his campaign with a link of 9/11 and our national pastime to Dunkirk.
But his hosts may not have thought it cricket as Rudy flew in and started bashing America’s version of the Iron Lady.
“I don’t think,” he said, “Margaret Thatcher would impugn the integrity of a commanding general in a time of war, as Hillary Clinton did, or require an army to give a schedule of their retreat to the enemy, as the Democrats are suggesting.”
If Giuliani is hoping for an endorsement, implied or otherwise from Thatcher, he will be disappointed. She is posing with everybody these days, including Fred Thompson who popped in a few months ago.
This remark from a few days ago should pop the pompous Guiliani baloon:
ReplyDeleteRudolph Giuliani's membership on an elite Iraq study panel came to an abrupt end last spring after he failed to show up for a single official meeting of the group, causing the panel's top Republican to give him a stark choice: either attend the meetings or quit, several sources said.
Giuliani left the Iraq Study Group last May after just two months, walking away from a chance to make up for his lack of foreign policy credentials on the top issue in the 2008 race, the Iraq war.
He cited "previous time commitments" in a letter explaining his decision to quit, and a look at his schedule suggests why -- the sessions at times conflicted with Giuliani's lucrative speaking tour that garnered him $11.4 million in 14 months.
That's the kind of story that ends a campaign, especially one like Rudy's based on standing up to terrorism and hanging tough in Iraq.
It is hard to imagine how this gaffe will hold up to scrutiny in the heat of a national election.