California Conservative

Rudy Giuliani sat down with Sean Hannity Monday night and revealed what we’ve all expected: that Rudy’s running for president in 2008. Follow these links to view the interview.

One of the things that I took note of was this exchange:

HANNITY: Let me ask about Iraq. You have been very supportive of the president and the Iraq war. Is there anything you would have done differently? Do you think there’s been any mistakes made?
GIULIANI: Sure. The president has explained mistakes made.
HANNITY: If were you the president.
GIULIANI: I think he could go back and as we develop positions and explain things i think it’s quite appropriate to explain well I might have done it this way or more troops, I might have done it some other way. But here’s reality. We’re at war. And when we’re at war because they’re at war with us. I mean sometimes when you listen to these debates in congress and listen to politicians debating you get the impression the they we’re in control of whether we’re at war or not. it doesn’t matter what we think. They want to come here and kill us. And they did on September 11th. And they did a long time before September 11th. Way back in 1993 they came to this city and killed people. So we’ve got to put Iraq in the context of a much broader picture than just Iraq. And getting Iraq correctly, in other words, getting stability there is real important. And I support what the president has asked for support to do and what general Petraeus has asked for support to do. Not because there’s any guarantee it’s going to work. There’s never a guarantee at war. But if we can come out with a correct solution or better solution that Iraq it’s going to make the war on terror go better. We got to get beyond Iraq.

This is an impressive exchange because it tells us that Rudy understands all that must happen if we are to defeat the Islamic extremists. There simply isn’t another option. In his response, Mayor Giuliani explains that this isn’t just about Iraq, that this is a war that the Islamic extremists will wage on us whether we admit that there’s a war or not.

This is also a sharp jab at the Clintons. Notice how he mixed the 1993 World Trade Center bombing into his answer, saying that Islamofascists had declared war on us long before they got our attention on 9/11. This is an indictment of the Clinton administration’s indifference to terrorism, something that won’t go unnoticed.

Rudy still needs to win over alot of social conservatives but I think that’s doable, especially since he told the South Carolina GOP executive committee that he’d nominate justices like Scalia, Alito and Roberts. Fiscal conservatives will like Giuliani’s tax-cutting record. All conservatives will appreciate Giuliani’s crime fighting record. Here’s another exchange that’s worth noting:

HANNITY: How do you feel about the borders? It’s one of our most important security issues. There’s talk about building a fence. Do you support that? Do you support amnesty? Do you support guest worker?
GIULIANI: I support security at the border. I think its enormously important in the post September 11th period. We have to know who is coming into this country. We have to be able to identify them and figure out who they are. I do think that with the fence…the fence honestly has to be a technological fence. The head of my party, the new head, Mel Martinez who is a Senator from Florida, a great guy, he was being interviewed and they asked him about a fence. Do you think a fence should be put up. He said sure. He said except the only people that will pull put it up will be the illegal immigrants. I thought what the point that Mel was making was we need a technological fence.

Talk of a “technological fence won’t sit well with conservatives but he’s at least being honest about what he believes. There are some hurdles that Giuliani will have a difficult time overcoming but I think people would be foolish to write him off for the GOP nomination. The nomination process is how we’ll measure each candidate. I wish Rudy the best of luck.

Technorati Tags: Rudy Giuliani, Election 2008, Hillary, Bill Clinton, Islamofascists, Illegal Immigration, Chief Justice Roberts, SCOTUS

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 6th, 2007 at 1:37 am and is filed under Announcements, Author: Gary Gross, Election 2008, Homeland Security, Immigration, Iraq, Mexico, Middle East, Taxes, Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.