Posted on 12/16/2007 9:06:18 AM PST by Ol' Sparky
Say it ain't so Rudy...
The late New York Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan was fond of saying that people are entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts. Fellow New Yorker and GOP Presidential Candidate Rudy Giuliani might do well to take that to heart.
During Wednesday's final debate in Des Moines before the Iowa caucuses, Giuliani was asked about abortion — never an easy question for a pro-choice candidate in a largely pro-life party. He's mostly managed to finesse the issue until now; professing his belief on the one hand, as he said at the debate, "that ultimately the government should leave that decision to a woman and her conscience," but on the other hand promising to appoint "strict constructionist" judges that would, presumably, overturn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that guarantees that decision is left to said woman and her conscience.
This time, however, Giuliani went off in a different direction after professing his core pro-choice view, saying: "I would like to see limitations on abortion. I brought those about in New York City. We reduced abortions."
Whoa, says, Kelli Conlin. She's the President of NARAL Pro-Choice of New York, has been there for 15 years, and served on Giuliani's transition team and many of his high-level councils while he was mayor. She can't recall a single limitation he imposed. In fact, she says, he couldn't have limited abortion if he'd wanted to. "Only the state has the power to limit abortions," she said in an interview. "It's all up to the state legislature, which is in Albany."
To the contrary, says Conlin, Giuliani was anything but inclined to limit abortion when he was Mayor. "In fact, one of his key signal achievements was signing a bill which really clamped down on those who would blockade clinics," she said. On signing that measure in 1994, "He basically said 'New York will not be an accommodating place for those who seek to make it difficult for women who want to access their right to choose."
It's true that the abortion rate in New York did drop while Giuliani was mayor, Conlin said, but that was a reflection of the fact that it was dropping nationwide. She says she's getting more and more frustrated with some of the former mayor's statements on his abortion position. "In fact, he was a real booster and champion for reproductive choice and health in New York when he was here, so it's just hard to listen to him backpedaling at this point."
The Giuliani campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Comment Deroy Murdock?
Rudolph the Red Handed Grifter
Had A Very Greedy Palm.
He had no interest in this issue.
He saw his primary tasks as reducing crime, collecting trash, reducing welfare rolls, and maintaining the city infrastructure.
I think those are reasonable priorities for a mayor.
Who cares about silly accomplishments or results?
He is a sinner!!
Go Mike Go! I like Mike!
Another bold-faced lie from Giuliani... they’re coming so fast now that I’m beginning to lose track of them all. He limited the number of abortions? He’s the guy who gleefully accepted the endorsement of NARAL, which means he had to practically come out for infanticide.
NPR is trashing Giuliani, or not.
Not true. He was interested enough to issue proclamations on the anniversary of Roe v Wade celebrating the decision. He was interested enough that he harassed and intimidated pro life protestors. He was interested enough that he marched in parades hand in hand with NARAL and Planned Parenthood.
My objection to Rudy is not that he's not pro life. It's that he's always been actively pro abortion.
It’s Rudybots like yourself that have given us Mike Huckabee. Adulterous, pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, gun-grabbing liberals will never have a chance of being elected President as a Republican.
ABORT Rudy!
Not in their view. In their view they are explaining to the faithful that Rudi, despite his comments, never actually opposed abortion so he’s still OK.
This article is filled with lies. I’ll pick just one: blockading a place is not legal, even abortion clinics. Rudy was preventing this from happening.
Don’t ever let the left’s media define GOP candidates in your mind.
Huh? The article says he signed a new law making it tougher on violators, not that he was enforcing existing law. He wasn't preventing anything.
Don’t ever let the left’s media define GOP candidates in your mind.
Don't ever let that "R" by the candidate's name lead to selectively excluding or misrepresenting facts.
To give him credit, Rudy never actually did very much to promote abortions. As mayor, he was not in a position to do so, because that is the governor’s job. But he also certainly never did anything to reduce them. Never.
He was frequently on the record as an EXTREME pro-abortionist. He never saw an abortion he didn’t like. He favored partial birth abortions during that controversy. And last spring he said, during his campaign, that a woman’s right to choose is a constitutional right, and that it is her constitutional right to have the government pay for it.
Sorry, but that is more extreme than many Democrats. A lot of Democrats in congress wouldn’t vote against the partial birth abortion bill, but relied on clinton to veto it. Rudy would have voted against it in a New York minute, and boasted about it afterwards.
And don’t let the left wing RINOs try to show Rudy as anything other than an amoral, corrupt greasy mayor of a Third World-majority city...
However, I have to say that some of the good things he did for NYC are starting to wear off.
I'm in Manhattan nearly every weekday, but this weekend I was in Manhattan on a Saturday night for the first time since the summer.
At Penn Station I watched a drunken bum with a 40 oz wander around harassing maybe a dozen women, and when the police finally showed up they tried to convince him to leave verbally - they approached it as if they were going to allow someone who was publicly drunk to wander off into the night with his bottle of malt liquor.
If he hadn't told a cop to shut up and then threw the 40 at him, he wouldn't have been taken into custody.
Also, I watched a bad episode of Jerry Springer on the NJ Coast Line immediately after.
The actors in the drama - for all the usual FReepers' edification - were entirely white.
They consisted of a drunken 20something man, his less intoxicated mother and the less intoxicated mother of his bastard child, along with apparently several more family and friends in varying states of drunkenness.
The man and his babymama began having a loud argument. The mother started yelling at both of them. The girlfriend accused the mother of butting into her business and the mother then brought up all the free childcare the girlfriend had been benefitting from under her regime. The girlfriend responded by throwing a wad of bills in the mother's face. I think the man responded by halfheartedly attempting to assault his girlfriend and was prevented by family members. All of this took place at the top of their lungs in a packed train.
The man got off the train at the next stop when the mother and girlfriend weren't looking.
Realizing later he was gone, they then went from car to car screaming out his name and intermittently dialing his cellphone and leaving tearful/enraged messages to him. They finally got off a few stops later. Meanwhile the rest of their crew was noisily singing an impromptu off-color version of the 12 Days of Christmas and one of them borrowed a lipstick from a puzzled and amused stranger, which he then used to decorate the face of a passed-out acquaintance.
It was like a traveling White Trash festival that would immediately go silent everytime a conductor walked in.
The worst train to take is either the 1:41 or 5:30 "drunk tank" commuter trains out of Penn Station back to New Jersey. I am sick and tired of these Jerry Springer/Tony Soprano rejects with their breath redolent of bad beer screaming and fighting until they finally get off at Metropark (I am on the train until Princeton Junction).
Don't get me started on how the barbarians are starting to get brazen again about making comments to subway riders/passersby.
He had no interest in this issue.
He saw his primary tasks as reducing crime, collecting trash, reducing welfare rolls, and maintaining the city infrastructure.
I think those are reasonable priorities for a mayor.
As do I.
If he hadn't lied about his accomplishments in office, this wouldn't even be an issue.
What if Rudy`s mom and Hillary`s mom had had a choice...My dark side says,hey there`s an idea.
Ronald Reagan did not leave a pro life legacy with his high court picks, but he did say this...why does it seem that all the pro abortion people have already been born.
Rudy G has never prevented a terrorist attack btw, so what`s with all the crapola that he would be good against the terrorists. Surely he is not comparing the sex shop workers to terrorists??
Of course not, not the sex shop workers - it was those evil ... Squeegee Men!!!.
According to Rooty the Squeegee Men were the equivalent of Osama bin Laden, Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan all rolled into one. To Rooty the Squeegee Men struck fear into the hearts and minds of all and even seeing one coming at you was like the Black Death approaching. So in his mind anyone who can beat back the hordes of the Squeegee Men can beat anything or anyone.
You're new here so you prolly didn't know that.
Oh and if you ever get the chance of talking to Rooty, DON'T mention Ferrets. He'll go absolutely, foaming at the mouth, mental on you. (he is very sick person)
That was great, Thanks!! :)
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