Rudy Giuliani charged yesterday that Bill Clinton was soft on terrorism when he was president, calling his tenure “the decade of denial.”
The Republican White House hopeful and former mayor warned that Hillary Rodham Clinton and other Democratic presidential candidates want to repeat the ex-chief executive’s mistakes of the 1990s.
Giuliani went after Bubba during a speech at religious broadcaster Pat Robertson’s Regent University in Virginia Beach and later while addressing the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, D.C.
He said Clinton didn’t aggressively respond to the 1993 World Trade Center attack, or to subsequent atrocities by Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda before 9/11. Giuliani singled out the bombings of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996 and the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000.
“The United States government – then President Clinton – did not respond,” Giuliani said. “Bin Laden declared war on us. We didn’t hear it.”
Giuliani said that calls by the Democratic presidential candidates to withdraw from Iraq will embolden terrorists.
“I think they are in denial. They can’t face this threat. They couldn’t in the 1990s,” Giuliani said.
Then, while addressing the Jewish group at B’nai Israel Congregation in Rockville, Md., Giuliani called Bill Clinton’s tenure “the decade of denial.”
But Democrats blasted Giuliani as a failure.
“How can a man who failed to prepare New York City for a second attack after the first one, who sent firefighters and emergency workers into Ground Zero without respirators . . . keep America safe?” the Democratic National Committee said.
And critics noted that Giuliani had previously said it was “just wrong” to blame Bill Clinton for 9/11.
Giuliani – who was warmly received by Robertson and 650 people – did not field any questions on hot-button “Christian right” issues such as abortion or gay rights.
“I’d say Rudy hit a home run. It was a virtuoso performance,” said Charles Dunn, dean of the Regent school of government.
Meanwhile, Bill Clinton gave a push to his wife’s dash for cash with an e-mail to backers asking for donations.
Clinton – whose e-mail was entitled “Having fun yet?” – said, “I hope you enjoyed ‘The Sopranos’ spoof Hillary and I did last week.”
Additional reporting by Ian Bishop