From The Post Chronicle, 5/22/07:
http://www.postchronicle.com/commentary/article_21282180.shtml
Fox News' Pro-Giuliani Conflict of Interest
By Cliff Kincaid
Rudy Giuliani's much-publicized but misleading put-down of Ron Paul
during the Republican presidential debate should have been tempered by
a report that Saudi Arabia, the country that spawned most of the 9/11
hijackers, has been one of Giuliani's lucrative foreign clients.
However, Fox News questioners Chris Wallace and Wendell Goler did not
bring it up.
Perhaps this can be explained by the fact that the same Associated
Press story that named Saudi Arabia as a Giuliani client listed News
Corporation, the parent company of Fox News, as another Giuliani
client.
This AP story, which was not disputed by Giuliani or News Corporation,
was carried on the Fox News website.
http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007May15/0,4670,GiulianiapossBusinessABRIDGED,00.html
This writer had raised questions about Fox News' co-sponsorship of the
debate, based on the fact that the company had a relationship with
Giuliani when he was mayor of New York City.
But now we know that the relationship has continued into the period of
time that Giuliani has been planning a presidential run.
It is an obvious conflict of interest.
It was during a discussion of foreign policy that Paul, a Texas
congressman, identified U.S. involvement in the Middle East,
especially in Iraq, as a factor in the 9/11 attacks.
Giuliani pounced on that, saying the claim was worse than absurd.
"Rudy's Wrath" was the headline as Fox News proclaimed Giuliani the
winner of the exchange.
However, the Fox News text-message poll, with 40,000 votes, gave Paul
25 percent over Giuliani's 19 percent.
Mitt Romney came in first with 29 percent.
Giuliani was the first Republican candidate to come on Fox News after
the debate and talk about his performance.
Co-host Sean Hannity wanted to focus on Giuliani's comments on 9/11
and his attack on Paul.
Later, Michael Steele, Maryland's former Lieutenant Governor, was on
Fox News, declaring that Giuliani had destroyed Ron Paul.
"It's done," Steele said of Paul's campaign.
It wasn't mentioned that Giuliani had campaigned for Steele when he
ran for a Maryland Senate seat.
The exchange with Paul over 9/11 might have been seen in a different
light if Hannity had asked Giuliani about why, according to the AP
report, his firm represented Saudi Arabia.
But that was a taboo topic.
Equally important, it turns out that Paul's point that the 9/11
attacks were linked to U.S. involvement in Iraq and the Middle East
was factually correct.
Osama bin Laden's 1996 "Declaration of War against the Americans
Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places" specifically mentioned the
situation in Iraq, blaming the U.S. for the impact of economic
sanctions on the Saddam Hussein regime.
Bin Laden accused the U.S. of "aggression" against Iraq and the record
shows that his anti-Americanism was motivated, at least in part, by
the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia.
Yet, Giuliani claimed "I don't think I've heard that before," in
reference to Paul's citation of some of these facts.
One would think that "America's Mayor" and "Mr. 9/11" would understand
the genesis of the attacks that took almost 3,000 American lives.
Despite the facts of the case, Fox News correspondent Steve Brown said
it was a matter of "Mission Accomplished" for Giuliani because of his
exchange with Paul.
Of course, "Mission Accomplished" has become associated with a war in
Iraq that has no end in sight.
Paul has been against the Iraq War from the beginning.
He made the point, as he had during the first debate on MSNBC, that
the war had cost the GOP control of Congress.
Senator John McCain tried to insist that Republicans had lost Congress
because they had been spending too much federal money.
He didn't explain why the public had replaced the Republicans with
bigger spenders from the Democratic Party.
Conceding Paul's point about 9/11, however, doesn't mean that the U.S.
should withdraw from the Middle East, as bin Laden demanded, or as
Paul advocates.
But U.S. involvement in the Middle East should be debated and
discussed.
The Texas Congressman noted that President Reagan inserted U.S. troops
into the civil war in Lebanon but that when 241 lost their lives in a
suicide bombing he withdrew them, citing the irrationality of the
region.
The unanswered question of the debate was what President Reagan would
do about Iraq.
Only more debates, with war critic Ron Paul, will smoke the candidates
out on this critical issue.
There is no issue more important than American involvement in the
Middle East.
At least in this regard, the Paul-Giuliani exchange was welcome and
long-overdue.
We need more of this, not less.
But Fox News seems determined to run Paul and other candidates out of
the race.
Steve Doocy of Fox News called Ron Paul the "Sanjaya" of the
Republican presidential debate, a reference to the American Idol
contestant many believe stayed in the national competition for too
long.
But this is reality turned upside down.
Fox News didn't want its audience to know the facts behind the
exchange. Especially with his controversial Saudi and other foreign
connections, Giuliani may end up looking like the real "Sanjaya" of
the race.
The bottom line is that Giuliani's applause-winning response to Ron
Paul was beside the point.
Giuliani should have been on the spot, but he wasn't.
Indeed, Giuliani was completely spared any tough questions about his
controversial dealings with foreign clients.
Neither Wallace nor Goler brought up the growing controversy over the
Giuliani law firm representing a Spanish company that is privatizing a
Texas road in the proposed "NAFTA Superhighway."
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Harry
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