Pipes: Rudy’s No W
Here’s Daniel Pipes on the difference between Rudy Giuliani and George W. Bush.
’Would You Buy a Used Hawk From This Man?“ runs the title of a Oct. 15 Newsweek smear of presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, suggesting that the mayor’s advisors, ”some of the Bush era’s most assertive neoconservatives,“ represent George W. Bush retreads. The article even quotes a foreign policy analyst accusing Giuliani of ”out-Bushing Bush.“
Ever in lock-step, Time magazine’s blog likewise asserted last week that Giuliani’s ”message seems to be that Bush’s policies for the region have worked pretty well, so let’s have more of the same.”
How odd. Actually, the opposite should be apparent about Newsweek’s six featured advisors - Norman Podhoretz, Martin Kramer, Peter Berkowitz, Nile Gardiner, Robert Kasten, and myself. First, we collectively had many disagreements with Bush administration policies and, second, we lacked impact on them. In other words, the real story is Giuliani’s fresh start in foreign policy, joined by a cast unconnected to the current president’s successes and failures.