Trying to win the toughness primary

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

WASHINGTON - “I didn’t call for a team of lawyers,” Rudy Giuliani wryly told a meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition in Washington Tuesday morning.

He was recalling the occasion when, as mayor, he ordered the New York Police Department to eject Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat from a UN-sponsored concert at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in Manhattan.

A team of lawyers, he joked, would have advised him “maybe you can partially throw him out; maybe he can sit further up” in the upper tiers of the concert hall so he wouldn’t be so visible.

Like much of what Giuliani said in his speech Tuesday there was an edge of sardonic humor to his “team of lawyers” quip.

The barb was directed at Mitt Romney, Giuliani’s rival for the Republican presidential nomination.

Check with lawyers first
In a debate last week on CNBC, Romney answered a question about whether he’d order a pre-emptive strike on Iran, without the consent of Congress, by saying, “You sit down with your attorneys and (they) tell you what you have to do, but obviously the president of the United States has to do what's in the best interest of the United States to protect us against a potential threat.”

In his speech Tuesday, Giuliani, without identifying Romney by name, mocked him for saying this.

But Romney needn’t have felt singled out for Giuliani’s scorn.

Giuliani also mocked former president Jimmy Carter, for his handling of the Iranian hostage crisis of 1980-1981.

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He ridiculed the entire field of Democratic presidential contenders, for not using the term “Islamic terrorists” because “they think it is politically incorrect.”

And he mocked Sen. Barack Obama, for saying that as president he’d meet without preconditions with envoys from Iran, Venezuela, and other foes of the United States.

As if lecturing the absent Obama, Giuliani explained that Reagan had deployed a new generation of offensive missiles in Europe before being willing to negotiate with Soviet leaders.

“I say this most respectfully, you’re not Ronald Reagan,” Giuliani told Obama.

Giuliani's vow on Iran
Giuliani was the most emphatic and repetitive of the five GOP candidates addressing the RJC Tuesday to say he’d use force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

“We’ve seen what Iran will do with ordinary weapons,” he said. “If I am president of the United States, I guarantee you, we will never find out what they will do if they get nuclear weapons — because they’re not going to get nuclear weapons.”

This brought a boisterous burst of applause.

He said it was “absolutely necessary that we’re clear the military option is not off the table.”

MSNBC video   Obama vs. Giuliani Oct. 16: Barack Obama responds to a jab from Rudy Giuliani about whether to meet with leaders of countries antagonistic to the United States. MSNBC

He left the impression of an unapologetic leader who was happy to offend those who he thought deserved to be insulted.

"Islamic terrorist,” he explained, is not a term that an American president should be shy about using. It is not an insult to all Muslims or all Arabs, rather “I am offending exactly who I want to offend,” he explained.

McCain sees experience deficit
Speaking after Giuliani, Sen. John McCain of Arizona pointed to a deficit of experience in some of his rivals for the nomination.

“I’ve been to Iraq many, many times. We have got people running for president that have never even been there, much less know about it,” he told the crowd.

Giuliani is one of those who has not been to Iraq, but his campaign officials have said it’s nearly impossible for a non- government official or member of Congress to go there.

Where Giuliani repeatedly mentioned the need to keep the military option clearly in view with Iran, McCain decided one statement was sufficient.

“There’s a lot of things we can do by joining like-minded democracies to bring abut strong sanctions, strong punishment to the Iranians for their behavior but at the end of the day, we can not allow the Iranians to acquire nuclear weapons,” he told the crowd.

Picking the president: The candidates Click to visit that candidate's MSNBC page or click the XML symbol for an RSS feed. John McCain                Barack Obama

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