Not that you needed a reminder that Rudy Giuliani is a contemptible jerk, but the former New York mayor has managed to find his way back in the news in the only way he can, which is to to say something appalling. I'm going to try to take this opportunity to explore something meaningful about the way we all look at our allies and opponents, but first, here's what Giuliani said at an event for Scott Walker:
"I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America," Giuliani said during the dinner at the 21 Club, a former Prohibition-era speakeasy in midtown Manhattan. "He doesn't love you. And he doesn't love me. He wasn't brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country."
O.K., so we've heard this a million times before, though usually from talk radio hosts and pundits, but less often from prominent politicians. Offered a chance to clarify later, here's how Rudy explained himself:
"Well first of all, I'm not questioning his patriotism. He's a patriot, I'm sure," the former mayor of New York said on Fox and Friends Thursday morning. "What I'm saying is, in his rhetoric, I very rarely hear the things that I used to hear Ronald Reagan say, the things that I used to hear Bill Clinton say about how much he loves America."
Obama is different from his predecessors in that respect, Giuliani said.
"I do hear him criticize America much more often than other American presidents," he told the morning show hosts. "And when it's not in the context of an overwhelming number of statements about the exceptionalism of America, it sounds like he's more of a critic than he is a supporter."
He's not questioning Obama's patriotism, he's just saying he doesn't love America. Got it-thanks for clearing that up. I'm not saying Rudy is foolish and immoral, I'm just saying he's a cretinous dirtbag. So no offense.
But what I'm really interested in is Giuliani's explanation that he "very rarely hear[s]" Obama say patriotic things, but he "do[es] hear him criticize America." It's safe to say a lot of conservatives feel the same way. They hear these criticisms of America all the time from Obama! But never a word of praise for this country!
It would be great if the next person who interviewed Rudy (or anyone else making the same claim) asked him to name some of these many criticisms of America that he has "heard" from Obama. Because my guess is that he wouldn't be able to come up with any. What he has heard, however, is other people saying that Obama criticizes America. If you spend a day watching Fox News, you'll probably hear that assertion a dozen times. The idea that Obama constantly criticizes America, like the fictitious "apology tour" assertion from Obama's first term, is something conservatives say over and over but almost never back up with any actual evidence.
If pressed, they might be able to come up with times when Obama has said that prior administrations have made mistakes, like the Bush administration enacting a policy of torturing prisoners. But these aren't criticisms of America per se, any more than Republicans are criticizing America when they say we shouldn't have passed the Affordable Care Act. If criticizing something the American government did means you're aren't a patriot, then the Republican Party is the most anti-American organization in the world today. Al Qaeda has nothing on them.
Perhaps even more revealing is Giuliani's assertion that he rarely hears Obama praise America. The truth is that like all presidents, Obama heaps praise on America constantly. For instance, here's a bit of vicious America-hating from his last State of the Union address:
I know how tempting such cynicism may be. But I still think the cynics are wrong. I still believe that we are one people. I still believe that together, we can do great things, even when the odds are long.
I believe this because over and over in my six years in office, I have seen America at its best. I've seen the hopeful faces of young graduates from New York to California, and our newest officers at West Point, Annapolis, Colorado Springs, New London. I've mourned with grieving families in Tucson and Newtown, in Boston, in West Texas, and West Virginia. I've watched Americans beat back adversity from the Gulf Coast to the Great Plains, from Midwest assembly lines to the Mid-Atlantic seaboard. I've seen something like gay marriage go from a wedge issue used to drive us apart to a story of freedom across our country, a civil right now legal in states that seven in 10 Americans call home.
So I know the good, and optimistic, and big-hearted generosity of the American people who every day live the idea that we are our brother's keeper and our sister's keeper. And I know they expect those of us who serve here to set a better example.
Look at any major speech Obama has given, and you'll find similar passages. But Giuliani isn't lying when he says he doesn't "hear" that. The words pass through his ears into his brain, but they don't register, because he decided long ago that Barack Obama is incapable of such thoughts.
And if you read that passage or any of a hundred like it directly to Giuliani, how would he respond? He'd probably say that, sure, Obama spoke those words, but they weren't an expression of his real feelings; they were artifice, meant to conceal the sinister truth lying deep within. The words tell us nothing. On the other hand, when Obama says something critical about a Bush administration policy, the words reveal his hatred of America.
To a certain degree we're all prey to this tendency. Once we've made our conclusions about who our political opponents are deep within their souls, we want to accept at face value only their statements that reinforce the view we already have of them. But you'll notice that Giuliani wasn't only stating his opinion about what lies in Obama's heart, he attempted to justify that opinion with a statement of fact. Giuliani's argument is that he concluded that Obama doesn't love America because he assessed that Obama so seldom says nice things about America. That's like saying that you think Tom Brady is a bad quarterback because he hasn't won any Super Bowls. Maybe you have some other reason why you think Tom Brady is a bad quarterback, or maybe you just don't like him, but if what you offer as the basis of your opinion is his lack of Super Bowl wins, there's no reason why anyone should take you seriously.
Not that there was much reason to take Rudy Giuliani seriously to begin with. But he's expressing beliefs that are not just common but absolutely rampant on the right.
