Although Rudolph W. Giuliani is campaigning as President Bush’s staunch ally in the war on terror, his law office has lobbied Congress on behalf of legislation that the Bush administration calls a threat to antiterrorism efforts in the Horn of Africa.[more]
Mr. Giuliani was not personally involved in the lobbying last year on behalf of the company’s client, the American wing of a dissident Ethiopian political party known as the Coalition for Unity and Democracy, leaders of the group said.
But the firm, Bracewell & Giuliani, used Mr. Giuliani’s name in its pitch to win the assignment, and his clout was a reason it landed the job, said Seyoum Solomon, an Ethiopian-American from Maryland who helped negotiate the deal.
“He is a popular Republican, a good friend of the president and he might have some influence on the State Department,” Mr. Solomon said to explain the hiring decision.
The legislation sought by the dissidents proposes restrictions in American aid if Ethiopia does not agree to share power with opposition parties and take other steps promoting democracy. As part of its work, the Giuliani group set up a meeting at the White House last year at which the administration was urged to consider the viewpoint of a consortium of Ethiopian political parties that included Mr. Solomon’s group, as well as a more militant rebel organization.
The Ethiopian effort demonstrates the complications Mr. Giuliani confronts as he simultaneously runs for president and remains a name partner in a law firm that lobbies in Washington. He is the only Republican candidate who remains engaged in business pursuits.
The Bush administration supports the government in Ethiopia as a bulwark against terrorism and has characterized the legislation as a liability in that effort.
And know the candidate by who he surrounds himself with. War Room:
In an NPR radio debate going on right now, the Democratic candidates are taking turns explaining how the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran underscores the ways in which the Bush administration has failed the United States. "You cannot trust this president," Joe Biden says. "He is not trustworthy. He has undermined our security in the region. He has undermined our credibility in the world. He has made it more difficult to get cooperation from the rest of the world."
Norman Podhoretz has a different reaction. Podhoretz -- a "founding father of the neocon movement" who is currently serving as a senior advisor to Rudy Giuliani -- says the NIE is proof that we cannot trust ... the intelligence community.
As Think Progress reports, Podhoretz says he can't shake the suspicion 1) that the "intelligence community, having been excoriated for supporting the then universal belief that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, is now bending over backward to counter what has up to now been a similarly universal view ... that Iran is hell-bent on developing nuclear weapons"; 2) that "having been excoriated as well for minimizing the time it would take Saddam to add nuclear weapons to his arsenal, the intelligence community is now bending over backward to maximize the time it will take Iran to reach the same goal"; and 3) that "the intelligence community, which has for some years now been leaking material calculated to undermine George W. Bush, is doing it again."
"This time, the purpose is to head off the possibility that the president may order air strikes on the Iranian nuclear installations," Podhoretz writes.
If you're thinking that it would be a good thing to "head off" such airstrikes -- particularly if Iran is not, in fact, developing nuclear weapons -- well, you don't think like Podhoretz thinks. In an interview earlier this year, Podhoretz said that he hoped and prayed that the United States would bomb Iran -- really, he used those words, "hope" and "pray" -- even though doing so might "unleash a wave of anti-Americanism all over the world that will make the anti-Americanism we've experienced so far look like a lovefest."
Did we mention that Podhoretz is one of Giuliani's top advisors on foreign policy? Once Mitt Romney is done giving his "Mormonism" speech, perhaps Giuliani ought to be called on to give one on what Podhoretzianism means to him.
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