Rudy: Obama plan 'naive,' 'irresponsible'
Posted: Friday, November 02, 2007 12:21 PM by Domenico Montanaro
From NBC/National Journal’s Matthew E. Berger
WASHINGTON --
Giuliani said not negotiating with Iran may be the one area that he agrees with
Clinton and said the position of
Obama comes from lack of experience.
“I’ll use her words about it: ‘naïve and irresponsible,’ ” Giuliani said. “The idea of begging your enemy to negotiate with you is a fundamentally flawed position.”
He added, Obama “has very little experience, and he may be displaying that.”
Also, Giuliani picked up the endorsement of
Sens. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) and
Norm Coleman (R-Minn.). And he also defended Michael Mukasey’s nomination for attorney general. But he became most animated when asked about Obama’s assertion that he would negotiate with Iran without preconditions.
“If we learned anything from the 20th Century,” he said, “I think what we learned is you don’t beg to negotiate with dictators, tyrants and supporters of terrorists. What you do is you develop a position of real strength.”
He said he believed “that most of the Democrats will find this to be an irresponsible position,” but later said he was unsure about Clinton’s position on Iran, because she had changed it.
“In deference to Sen. Obama,” Giuliani said, “at least he sticks to his position.”
On Mukasey, Giuliani said he believed he would make “an exceptional attorney general” and called him a man of integrity. “I think it’s a shame this whole issue has been politicized, and it has been,” he said. “I believe ultimately he will be confirmed.”
Giuliani also defended the statistics he used in a New Hampshire radio ad about the survival rates for prostate cancer in the United States and England. He said the numbers were accurate for the time he had the disease and said that he actually
overstated the British numbers.
"Those figures are absolutely accurate for the time I had them,” he said. “In fact, they remain accurate today. Still, the point is very, very clear -- even if you want to quibble about the statistics.”
Bond will serve as a national chairman for Giuliani’s campaign. He brings conservative credentials for a Republican candidate that has not won many other Senate endorsements. Before today, Giuliani’s only other Senate backer was embattled Louisiana Sen. David Vitter. Bond said he believed Giuliani could fight terrorism and strengthen the military and intelligence.
“These are the programs that I believe are good sound conservative values,” Bond said, “and Rudy Giuliani has proven he can implement those programs. When all of that is said and done, I think America is hungry for a man who means what he says and does what he says he will do.”
Coleman and Giuliani are a more likely pair, given that both are former New Yorkers, former mayors and former Democrats. Coleman said he believed mayoral experience would be an asset for Giuliani.
“Now we have an opportunity to have a mayor in the White House,” Coleman said. “Someone who understands it’s about what you get done.”
Coleman also took a shot against Democratic lawmakers, saying, “[T]heir vision is that if we are nice to Ahmadinejad, he’ll be nice to us. The world doesn’t work that way.”
