Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s off-the-cuff remarks doubting President Obama’s patriotism Wednesday evening have kept the press’ attention in a way that his failed 2008 bid for the Republican presidential nomination never could.
Giuliani’s comments during a fundraiser for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker continue to generate headlines and intense media discussions, and the media are becoming more furious as the famously prickly politician refuses to offer an apology.
Giulani’s remarks on Wednesday were made in response to a question about what he looks for in a presidential candidate. Answering that question, Giuliani went on to suggest that President Obama doesn’t love the United States.
“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 told attendees at New York’s 21 Club, according to Politico. “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.”
He then said: “[W]ith all our flaws, we’re the most exceptional country in the world. I’m looking for a presidential candidate who can express that, do that and carry it out.”
In addition to the press frenzy noted by the Washington Examiner, the dustup included five separate questions during Friday’s White House press briefing, to which Obama’s spokesman gave a more-in-sorrow-than-anger response.
“It’s sad to see when somebody who has attained a certain level of public stature and even admiration tarnishes that legacy so thoroughly,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said as reporters peppered him with Giuliani questions. “I don’t take any joy or vindication or satisfaction from that.”
Elsewhere, as noted by the Washington Free Beacon, coverage of Giuliani’s remarks “dwarfed” coverage of a Politico report on the Clinton Foundation’s troubling associations with foreign donors.
“Despite the new revelations this week about the massive amounts of money the Bill, Hillary, & Chelsea Clinton Foundation has raised from questionable foreign governments and shady billionaires — something even Clinton’s defenders admit is a problem — the media hasn’t shown much interest in the story,” the report noted.
Meanwhile, the New York Times published an in-depth report Friday titled: “Giuliani’s Comments Part of a Complicated History on Race.”
For the Washington Post, Giuliani’s remarks could spell the end of his long career in politics.
“First off, a piece of advice. If you have to preface what you are planning to say with ‘this is a horrible thing to say,’ you probably shouldn’t say it,” the Post’s Chris Cillizza wrote Friday, explaining in a lengthy report that the one-time Republican presidential candidate has “marginalized” himself.
“Giuliani was once a very important — and intriguing — player in American politics: A tough-on-crime, take-charge guy tasked with running the biggest city in the country. Now, thanks to comments like this one on Obama, he is turning into something far more run-of-the-mill in the political world: A rank partisan willing to say the most outlandish of things to get attention,” Cillizza wrote.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla, a possible 2016 Republican presidential candidate, was also asked to weigh in Giuliani’s remarks. Like Govs. Scott Walker, R-Wis., and Bobby Jindal, R-La., Rubio declined to attack the former mayor.
“I don’t feel like I’m in a position to have to answer for every person in my party that makes a claim,” Rubio said Friday. “Democrats aren’t asked to answer every time Joe Biden says something embarrassing, so I don’t know why I should answer every time a Republican does. I’ll suffice it to say that I believe the President loves America; I think his ideas are bad.”
Prior to that, the New York Daily News published a supposed rebuttal, titled “What Rudy Giuliani knows about love — a response to his ‘doesn’t love America’ critique of Obama,” which dredged up the former mayor’s failed marriages and even his father’s criminal past.
The New York Daily News “rebuttal” was met in the press with many kudos.
Also, the New York Times published a story late Thursday with a headline that read: “Giuliani: Obama Had a White Mother, So I’m Not a Racist.”
The headline is a paraphrase of Giuliani when he explained his Wednesday evening comments the Times: “Some people thought it was racist. I thought that was a joke, since he was brought up by a white mother, a white grandfather, went to white schools, and most of this he learned from white people.”
“This isn’t racism,” he said. “This is socialism or possibly anti-colonialism.”
