The 30-second Giuliani v. Clinton commercial that practically writes itself

Narrator: In 1999 Suha Arafat, Yasser Arafat's wife, said, "Our [Palestinian] people have been submitted to the daily and intensive use of poisonous gas by the Israeli forces, which has led to an increase in cancer cases among women and children."

Although Hillary Clinton was sitting on the same stage and receiving a simultaneous translation of Mrs. Arafat's speech, she sat silent.

When the speech was finished the First Lady stood up and walked over to Suha Arafat. Hillary Clinton's response to the accusation that Israel was using poison gas?

In 1995, as Mayor of New York City, Rudolph Guiliani threw Yasser Arafat out of a New York City concert honoring the United Nations."

Two very different views of how to deal with terrorists and their supporters isn't it? America, time to choose.

Commercial #2: After 9/11, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani attended the funeral of every firefighter and every policeman killed, except when that was impossible because more than one funeral was held simultaneously. However, New York Senator Hillary Clinton attended only one.

Lots of other people have a different take on it. We see it as some uneducated petty mayor wading into foreign relations that he does not understand, usurping the plans of the state department and insulting foreign dignitaries. He could have set back plans that were years in the making.

As a mayor, was he somehow privy to more information than the thousands of members of our state department? As a mayor, how much thought did he put into his decisions and long-term strategic plans? How many experts were brought in to validate his plan? Or was it a dumb publicity stunt, meant to feed his ego? None of us elected him. Did he have a right to speak for me or our nation as a whole?

International relations go through good times and bad. Sometimes nations are our adversaries one year and our allies the next. Sometimes you must treat your adversaries with respect in hopes of improved future relations. Remember when China had our KC-130 surveillance plane? Remember when Libya was our sworn enemy. Remember when the USSR was our sworn enemy. If Giuliani had been president in the 80’s, he would have insulted Gorbachev and thrown him out of the US. Then where would we be now?

I did not like Arafat. The only good thing that I can say about him is that he was better than his successors. Diplomacy is hovever best left to the experts. Not idiot liberal NYC mayors.

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