Today on Morning Joe, Rudy Giuliani slammed President Obama over his complaints that Congress had blocked criminal trials for 9/11 terrorists:
And the reality is, the explanation now is insulting. . . . The explanation [from Attorney General Eric Holder] is: ‘Congress forced me to do it.’ The reality is it made no sense ever to attempt to try [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] in New York—and 70 percent of the American people believe that, bipartisan majorities in Congress believe that, and the president once again has become a follower, which is what our president generally does, he follows—he follows France, he follows the Arab League, he follows the Congress, he follows public opinion.
The president’s explanation is not so much insulting as it is cowardly. His decision to try KSM at Gitmo is the right one, but the least he could do is stand by it, instead of shifting the blame to Congress. The uncomfortable truth is that closing the detention center was an Obama campaign promise—and he never predicated it on Congress’s embracing the policy with open arms. If legislators have not gone along, the failure is the president’s. It was his job to persuade them, and clearly his argument was not convincing. This sort of petty finger-pointing has become a characteristic of Obama’s presidency, which may explain why growing numbers of Americans find him deficient in leadership.
