Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani's response to the fact checkers calling him out for lying about President Obama's supposed anti-police rhetoric was to repeat Al Sharpton's name over and over again. Apparently Mr. Noun-Verb-and-9-11 still hasn't figured out yet that people in glass houses (cough... Bernie Kerik) shouldn't be yelling too loudly about other people's "associations."
That didn't stop him from doing exactly that on this Sunday's Face the Nation when host Major Garrett quoted The Washington Post, who gave Giuliani's claim that President Obama launched anti-police propaganda their worst rating of Four Pinocchios.
GARRETT: We turn now to the former Mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani, who is also with us from New York.
Mr. Mayor, good morning.
RUDY GIULIANI (R), FORMER MAYOR OF NEW YORK: Good morning, Major. How are you?
GARRETT: Good.
Let's clear one thing up. You said awhile ago that President Obama contributed to a rhetorical atmosphere about hating American police. And "The Washington Post" fact-checked you on that. I cover the president every single day. I have never detected anything that comes along the line of propaganda urging the country to hate police. Do you want to recast that or take that back?
GIULIANI: Oh, not at all.
I think you missed one very important point. He has had Al Sharpton to the White House 80, 85 times. Often, when he's talking about police issues, he has Al Sharpton sitting next to him. If you would like to have poster boy for hating the police, it's Al Sharpton.
You make Al Sharpton a close adviser, you are going to turn the police in America against you. You're going to tell the police in America, we don't understand you. I saw this man help cause riots in New York. I have heard his anti-police invective firsthand. To have a man who hasn't paid $4 million in taxes, have a man who has spent his career helping to create riots, phony stories about police, to have that man sitting next to you speaks volumes.
You know, actions speak louder than words. You put Al Sharpton next to you, you just told everyone, I'm against the police.
GARRETT: But what about the president's rhetoric itself? Do you still believe the president's rhetoric, not...
(CROSSTALK)
GIULIANI: His rhetoric...
GARRETT: Go ahead.
GIULIANI: Well, look, who you associate with is part of your rhetoric.
If I was talking to you about ending the mafia, as I did in the 1980s, or fighting the mafia, and I had Joe Colombo sitting next to me, you would say I was a big hypocrite, wouldn't you? It wouldn't matter what my rhetoric was. Oh, I'm fighting the mafia. There's Joe Colombo.
I'm for the police and there is Al Sharpton? Every cop in America is going to say, give me a break. I get the point, Mr. President. His interference in the Gates affair, the fact that he pays great attention to these so-called racial incidents, some of which are not racial incidents, sends representatives to funerals of people who were killed in the commission of committing a crime, and I haven't heard him make very strong comments about the deaths of Ramos and Liu to that extent.
So, I think the "Washington Post" fact-checking was substantially inaccurate. And they missed the one big point, Al Sharpton.
Sadly Garrett didn't ask Giuliani if he believes the same standard applies to him, nor did he push him on his lie that Sharpton has been inciting riots, despite Fox's attempts to make it appear as though he did.