Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is getting roasted by the press for questioning President Obama’s patriotism Wednesday. Reporters and pundits alike express disbelief at the suggestion America’s 44th president doesn’t love his country. Even the White House has taken a poke at Giuliani.
“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 at private event that included Gov. Scott Walker, R-Wis., 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.”
The former mayor added: “[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.”
Media reaction to Giuliani’s suggestion that Obama is unpatriotic was immediate and furious.
“Sad to see what a lunatic Rudy Giuliani has turned into,” said Politico’s Ben White. “Enormous amount of fair game criticism of Obama but this he ‘doesn’t love his country’ stuff from Rudy is just pure garbage talk. Repugnant.”
The Daily Caller’s Matt Lewis characterized the former mayor’s remarks as “stupid.”
“Rudy Giuliani dives into Dinesh D’Souza’s anti-Obama dumpster,” read the headline to an article written by the Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart.
MSNBC reported, “Giuliani manages to sink to new depths.”
MSNBC’s Luke Russert used the occasion to remind his followers on Twitter that Giuliani once cross-dressed for a comedy act at a political roast.
MSNBC contributor Lizz Winstead called the former mayor “the worst.”
Forbes’ Halah Touryalai said: “Low. Weak. Then again, it’s Giuliani.”
“Giuliani just wants attention, but wtf?” asked CNN’s Chris Boyette.
The New York Times’ added Anand Giridharadas: “Guys, Rudy Giuliani is totally right. That is a horrible thing to say.”
Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall suggested conservative author Dinesh D’Souza and Giuliani team up to hold a “hate speech convention.”
CNN contributor Sally Kohn characterized the former mayor’s remarks as “sick and offensive.”
The Times of London’s David Byers asked: “Ah, so we’re back on the ‘Obama’s an-American’ stuff. You don’t have to scratch the GOP’s surface too hard, do you?”
“BREAKING: Rudy Giuliani still a terrible human being,” Inc. Magazine executive editor Jon Fine said.
CNN’s Roland Martin added: “The hell with Rudy. Giuliani’s ‘Obama doesn’t love America’ comments are beyond BS.”
Daily Beast senior editor Justin Miller said: “Rudy has gone from America’s Mayor to borderline-birther bigot.”
Independent journalist Glenn Greenwald had his own take: “This is why the 2008 efforts to depict Giuliani as some sort of sensible ‘moderate’ were absurd to those who knew him.”
Al Jazeera America correspondent Michael Shure accused Giuliani of being “unhinged.”
The former New York City mayor and one-time Republican presidential candidate clarified his remarks Thursday, on Fox and Friends.
“Well, first of all, I’m not questioning his patriotism,” said Giuliani, who earned widespread support during an administration that saw vast improvements in the Big Apple and became a popular national figure for his leadership during the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. “He’s a patriot, I’m sure. 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.”
Giuliani continued: “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.”
As the former mayor, whose efforts to spin his popularity into a 2008 presidential run quickly fizzled, explained himself Thursday morning, reporters asked potential 2016 Republican presidential candidates if they agreed with Giuliani’s comments.
“The mayor can speak for himself. I’m not going to comment on what the president thinks or not, he can speak for himself as well. I can tell you I love this country,” Scott Walker said in a CNBC interview.
Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana told Time magazine, “The gist of what Mayor Giuliani said – that the President has shown himself to be completely unable to speak the truth about the nature of the threats from these [Islamic State] terrorists — is true.”
The Republican governor added, “If you are looking for someone to condemn the mayor, look elsewhere.”
Questioning Obama’s patriotism is not new, nor is it restricted to Giuliani. It has been an issue since at least 2008, when Obama first ran for president.
In an article published in 2008 by CBS News, Kathy Frankovic reported: “Democratic presumptive nominee Barack Obama … has been dogged by false rumors that question his patriotism.”
Frankovic then cited a CBS News/New York Times survey that showed only 29 percent of respondents said they would describe the then-senator as “very patriotic,” while an overwhelming 70 percent of respondents said the same of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
“The doubts about Obama weren’t just from Republicans,” Frankovic reported. “In late April, Obama and Clinton were still engaged in their primary battles, and more Democratic primary voters (61 percent) thought McCain was ‘very patriotic’ than thought Obama was (39 percent).”
“Even groups that were very positive about Obama displayed a ‘patriotism gap.’ Forty seven percent of people with more than a college education said Obama was very patriotic, 83 percent of them said McCain was. Thirty nine percent of young voters thought Obama was very patriotic, but 57 percent of them thought that about McCain,” she wrote. “African-Americans, Obama’s strongest supporters, were just as likely to describe McCain as very patriotic as to say Obama was.”
Frankovic wrote about the Obama patriotism gap nearly seven years ago, but the dustup over Giuliani’s comments suggest the issue, and mainstream outrage about it, never really went away.
