“I am not a Rudy supporter and don’t plan on voting for him.”

on the other hand, if you are a Rudy supporter, please contact me because I don’t see why anyone really believes this guy/hack is the heir apparent. I could be wrong but convince me.

Rudy’s favorable traits are consistency and “balls.” He’ll take an unpopular position, and stick with it. He’ll dress as a woman. He’ll run around with a bald head. In short, he’s an executive - which is why I don’t care that “he never even served in the state legislature.” There is a reason Senators don’t win the presidency.

I abhor Rudy’s social policies (I’m pro-life and a gun nut). All the pundits seem to think either that (1) when joe public learns about Rudy’s social views, we won’t vote for him, or (2) social conservatives are losing influence. The pundits are wrong, for three reasons. First, Rudy has embraced federalism. A federalist president understands social issues are for the states to regulate, so he won’t impose his social views on America. Social conservatives are fine with that compromise. Second, Rudy pledged to appoint”strict constructionist” judges, which is beyond Scalia. Essentially, Rudy will appoint Thomas clones, which will kick abortion, gay rights, etc, to the states. Social conservatives are fine with that compromise too. Third, Rudy understands that if we don’t win the war on terror, social issues won’t matter.

9/11 only relates to Rudy’s charisma - mistakes related to radios don’t matter.

As far as I know, known of the other presidential candidates meet all three points (especially the first federalist one), except for Ron Paul (yes) and Newt Gingrich. Neither Ron nor Newt have the requisite charisma for the presidency. Of course, Fred Thompson will probably meet all three.

As opposed to Bill Clinton’s NON reponse after the first World Trade Center bombing?

On February 26, 1993 terrorists attacked the World Trade Center during the Clinton administration. The explosion caused 6 deaths, 1,042 injuries, and nearly $600 million in property damage. Bill Clinton never visited the World Trade Center sight after the attack, and during his weekly radio address, advised Americans to “not over-react” to the attack.

It was the first attack on U.S. soil since the attack on Pearl Harbor. The attack was planned by a group of conspirators including Ramzi Yousef, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, El Sayyid Nosair, Mahmud Abouhalima, Mohammad Salameh, Nidal Ayyad, Ahmad Ajaj, and Abdul Rahman Yasin. They received financing from al-Qaeda member Khaled Shaikh Mohammed, Yousef’s uncle, who was the mastermind behind the 9-11 attacks.

Ramzi Yousef was later found with an Iraqi passport in Pakistan. According to phone records, Mohammad Salameh made 46 phone calls to Iraq after the attack.

The FBI believed that Yousef was possibly an Iraqi intelligence agent who worked for Saddam. They believed that Saddam was likely behind the attack since the attack happened on the second anniversary of the end of the Gulf War, and the attack was his revenge for the war.

Abdul Rahman Yasin fled to Iraq after the attack. He was the only member of the al Qaeda cell that detonated the 1993 World Trade Center bomb to remain at large in the Clinton years.

In the spring of 1994, a Jordanian stringer working for ABC News spotted Abdul Rahman Yasin outside his father’s house in Baghdad and learned from neighbors that he worked for the Iraqi government. As recently as May 1998, FBI director Louis Freeh affirmed that Yasin was in Iraq.

Yet the Clinton administration made no serious attempt to secure Yasin’s extradition. Baghdad might well have refused to turn him over, but the US could have used Yasin’s presence in Iraq to isolate and condemn the Iraqi regime. It was as if the administration did not want to draw attention to aspects of the case which suggested an Iraqi link to the Trade Center bombing.

U.S. forces recently discovered a cache of documents in Tikrit, Saddam’s hometown, that show that Iraq gave Mr. Yasin both a house and monthly salary. According to Laurie Mylroie, who served as Clinton’s adviser on Iraq during the 1992 presidential campaign, Bill Clinton’s decision to hit Baghdad with cruise missiles on June 26, 1993, was made in part because he believed Iraq had been involved in the first World Trade Center bombing four months earlier.

http://www.meib.org/articles/0106_ir1.htm
http://www.techcentralstation.com/092503F.html

Can’t wait for Rudy to debate Hillary actually! The question is CAN HILLARY hold up the scrutiny??

Very true.

I recently watched a view of someone viciously heckling Romney about not being a true Christian, and Romney handled it with impossible and superlative skill, turning it into a plus for him while remaining likable the entire time.

This is a sharp contrast to someone like Howard Dean, who got red in the face and told a heckler George Bush is not his neighbor, and “You sit down! You had your say, and now I’m going to have my say!”

I am not a Rudy supporter and don’t plan on voting for him.

Probably, yes on that last.

If we aren’t preparing for the things that *will* happen sooner or later. Where is the preparedness *now*?

And why are we putting billions into a city that is *sinking*?

Terrorism? Well, if we can’t prepare for the ‘knowns’ then how, pray tell, are we going to handle the ‘unknowns’?

If VV starts at ‘preparedness’ then they can go take a jump as the Nation, as a whole was not prepared before 9/11 nor since. That is not only *not* serious, it is disingenous. How much was the Village Voice calling for terrorist preparedness before 9/11? Did they have splendiferous insight into all things nasty? If that is the sort of place they want to start, then they have stepped off the end of a dock.