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Giuliani’s unhinged attacks on Obama

By Quentin Langley

Let us suppose that you believe – as Rudy Giuliani presumably believes – that President Obama's policies are disastrously wrong for America. There are at least two explanations for the president's preference for such disastrous policies: either he wants the US to fail or he is misguided enough to believe that these policies are actually sensible. These are the same two explanations for any other political leader – Giuliani included – adopting policies which you think are disastrously wrong.

Decent people should generally give the other side the benefit of the doubt and assume good faith naivete. Too often this good faith is lacking with people all too happy to believe that George W Bush was in the pay of nefarious interests and that he personally plotted the 9/11 attacks.

To make the opposite assumption not only generally sounds unhinged – damaging the speaker more than the target – it also distracts from your main message. After all, if a set of policies is damaging then it is precisely as damaging if adopted foolishly as it would be adopted maliciously. It is always better to focus on why you think the policies are wrong than to allow the debate to go down a meandering path about people's motives. 

So how, then, should Giuliani's fellow Republicans respond. Senator Marco Rubio – whose Senate career was launched with significant help from Giuliani – managed a pitch perfect response.

I don’t feel like I’m in a position to have to answer for every person in my party that makes a claim. 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.

As Chris Cillizza pointed out in the Washington Post this response this hits all the right notes for someone seeking the Republican nomination for president (as Rubio probably is):

1. He manages to get in digs at the media and at the gaffe-prone vice-president.

2. He makes the right call on the president's motives.

3. He switches straight back to the policies.

Talent matters in a primary campaign. As I pointed out on this blog in 2011, Barack Obama's election demonstrates how talent – especially rhetorical talent – matters once again. Rubio has the same sort of charisma and will be a formidable candidate if he continues to combine that talent with good judgment. 

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2 responses to “Giuliani’s unhinged attacks on Obama”

  1. Liz Avatar
    Liz

    Interestingly, it looks like Giuliani is now conceding the basic point here: http://www.wsj.com/articles/rudolph-giuliani-my-bluntness-overshadowed-my-message-1424646358.
    I do think a fundamental problem here, though, is that very few Americans understand or vote on actual foreign policy. They’re more likely to vote on things that hew closer to identity– he’s a patriot who served his country (and I’m a veteran/flag waver/person who tears up at the national anthem/servicemember/military kid); he’s a cultured intellectual whose had a lot of international exposure and who recognizes America isn’t the be-all, end-all in the world (I dislike “my country, right or wrong” attitudes and people/I’ve lived abroad a lot/I consider myself a fellow cultured intellectual/I’m a hippie or a peacenik). That reality leads to things like this Rudyism. It’s also something Rubio will have to contend with, because there’s a limit to how substantive one can really get when operating at the presidential campaign level and talking foreign policy. Fortunately, a lot of that will be easier if running against a white woman (or man) than Obama, because the inevitable cries of racism (whether or not that is really at the root of any given comment) will not be on constant offer.

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  2. Brian Avatar
    Brian

    I agree, Liz, that people generally vote for candidates because of a personality connection – however the fundamental reason that people vote has more to do with issues, and what they feel is important in terms of the direction of the country. Its for that reason that motivation to vote at the end of a campaign that does not opt to engage on substantive issues tends to be lower. The Republicans – in this case only Rudy G. so far in an obvious way (though others have not offered the swift repudiation I would have expected for his comments), are setting the tone for a campaign that will neither serve to engage voters or invite new potential voters or voters on the fence to consider the Republican Party. If anything it reinforces the narrow minded views of an existing base of supporters, which maybe generates fundraising dollars, but even that is a stretch, while undermining any long term potential to build relationships. Party foul.

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