Olbermann Hammers Giuliani On Fearmongering

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann delivered another stinging special comment on Countdown last night -- this one directed at former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani for suggesting before New Hampshire voters on Tuesday that America will be at risk for another major terrorist attack if a Democrat is elected to the White House next year.

“But the question is how long will it take and how many casualties will we have?” Giuliani said. “If we are on defense [with a Democratic president], we will have more losses and it will go on longer. I listen a little to the Democrats and if one of them gets elected, we are going on defense. We will wave the white flag on Iraq. We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation and we will be back to our pre-Sept. 11 attitude of defense.”

When asked by a reporter for clarification after his speech, Giuliani declared flatly “America will be safer with a Republican president.”

This caused Olbermann to unload on Giuliani's massive ego as only our man Keith can… Here's an excerpt:

At least that Republican President under which we have not been safer… has, even at his worst, maintained some microscopic distance between himself, and a campaign platform that blithely threatened the American people with "casualties" if they, next year, elect a Democratic president - or, inferring from Mr. Giuliani's flights of grandeur in New Hampshire last night - even if they elect a different Republican.

How dare you, sir?

"How many casualties will we have?" - this is the language of Bin Laden.

Yours, Mr. Giuliani, is the same chilling nonchalance of the madman, of the proselytizer who has moved from even from some crude framework of politics and society, into a virtual Roman Colosseum of carnage, and a conceit over your own ability — and worthiness — to decide, who therein lives and who dies.

Rather than a reasoned discussion — rather than a political campaign advocating your own causes and extolling your own qualifications — you have bypassed all the intermediate steps, and moved directly to trying to terrorize the electorate into viewing a vote for a Democrat, not as a reasonable alternative and an inalienable right… but as an act of suicide.

This is not the mere politicizing of Iraq, nor the vague mumbled epithets about Democratic 'softness' from a delusional Vice President.

This is casualties on a partisan basis — of the naked assertion that Mr. Giuliani's party knows all and will save those who have voted for it — and to hell with everybody else.

And that he, with no foreign policy experience whatsoever, is somehow the Messiah-of-the-moment.

Olbermann then called Giuliani, who is a candidate for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, on why, if Republicans keep us so safe, do so many bad things happen when they are in power?

Which party held the presidency on September 11th, 2001, Mr. Giuliani?

Which party held the mayoralty of New York on that date, Mr. Giuliani?

Which party assured New Yorkers that the air was safe, and the remains of the dead, recovered - and not being used to fill pot-holes, Mr. Giuliani?

Which party wanted what the terrorists wanted - the postponement of our elections - and to whose personal advantage would that have redounded, Mr. Giuliani?

Which mayor of New York was elected eight months after the first attack on the World Trade Center, yet did not emphasize counter-terror in the same city for the next eight years, Mr. Giuliani?

And Olbermann ended by invoking Franklin D. Roosevelt and calling the opportunistic former NYC mayor on how low he truly is.

"'We have nothing to fear but fear itself' — and those who would exploit our fear, for power, and for their own personal, selfish, cynical, gain," said Olbermann. "There is no room for this. This is terrorism itself, dressed up as counter-terrorism."

Here's the video in its entirety -- and it is well worth seeing: