Giuliani: Palin ready to handle 9/11 crisis

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Giulia..._911_0903.html

(Gold9472: Considering he wasn't, what does his opinion mean?)

David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Published: Wednesday September 3, 2008

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani expressed his belief on Wednesday that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin could have handled the events of 9/11.

"I'd be confident that she'd be able to handle it," Giulinai told Diane Sawyer on ABC's Good Morning America. "She's been a governor of a state, she's been mayor of a city, she's had executive responsibility."

Diane Sawyer then asked outright, "Is Governor Palin ready right now to be president?"

"Yes, absolutely," he replied. "She is as ready as the Democratic ticket combined. ... Barack Obama has never run a city, a state, an agency, or a military unit."

"Has John McCain?" Sawyer asked.

"How about commanding men in battle?" Giuliani replied.

In fact, McCain never commanded a military unit in battle. In a segment titled "McCain's First (And Only) Military Command," NPR's Scott Horsley explained that "in the summer of 1976, he was given command of the Navy's largest air squadron, based at Cecil Field in Jacksonville, Fla. It wasn't a wartime command. And McCain wasn't responsible for ordering bombs to fall."

McCain himself has pointed to that postwar command when discussing his executive experience. According to the Los Angeles Times, "These days, when the presumptive Republican presidential nominee is asked about his qualifications to lead and manage, he points to his command of that squadron as proof he has the right stuff to be president. 'I led the largest squadron in the United States Navy, not for profit, but for patriotism,' McCain said at a candidate forum in New Hampshire. 'I'm proud of that record of leadership.'"

Giuliani defended Palin in very similar terms on Face the Nation this past Sunday, saying that as a mayor and governor, "she had to make decisions" while "all Senator Obama has had to do is talk."

He further referred to Palin as "somebody of accomplishment" because "she's vetoed legislation," while Obama has "never run a city, he's never run a state."

This video is from ABC's Good Morning America, broadcast September 3, 2008.

Video At Source