President Obama's Weekly Address - August 27, 2011

Coming Together to Remember

Actual Journalism... By a Comedian

ADDING... I love that Stewart called out guest Mike Huckabee on his bullshit when he at first tried to say that the Democrats shouldn't have added this legislation in with another bill (they didn't - it's a stand-alone bill) and then tried to sell the idea that the Democrats were politicizing the bill (they didn't - although they should have by pointing out that the G-9/11-O-9/11-P co-opts September 11th any chance they get). Watch the Huckabee interview here.

Update: Giuliani - "I misspoke."

Sure you did, Rudy.

Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani said Friday that he misspoke when he said he spent as much time, if not more, at ground zero exposed to the same health risks as workers combing the site after the Sept. 11 attacks.

"I think I could have said it better," he told nationally syndicated radio host Mike Gallagher. "You know, what I was saying was, 'I'm there with you.'"

..."He is such a liar, because the only time he was down there was for photo ops with celebrities, with politicians, with diplomats," said deputy fire chief Jimmy Riches, who spent months digging for his firefighter son. "On 9/11 all he did was run. He got that soot on him, and I don't think he's taken a shower since."

Harold Schaitberger, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, a union that fiercely opposes Giuliani, said he doubted Giuliani misspoke.
"I think he was simply showing what his true character is — a self-absorbed, self-deluded promoter who got caught and is now just simply trying to backtrack," Schaitberger said.

Giuliani the Great: I worked with Ground Zero responders.

I've been meaning to catch up on the last weeks events and have been taking notes furiously, but I couldn't let this one go without commenting on it.

"America's Mayor" Rudy Giuliani had the audacity to compare himself equally with Ground Zero 9/11 responders in terms of working at the site.

"This is not a mayor or a governor or a President who's sitting in an ivory tower," Giuliani said. "I was at Ground Zero as often, if not more, than most of the workers. I was there working with them. I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense, I'm one of them."

What a hack! No, Rudy, you weren't exposed to the same toxins they were, because you wore a respirator. The same kind of respirator that real 9/11 responders and rescue workers didn't wear because OSHA rules weren't enforced for fear of slowing down work.

Of course, the real 9/11 heroes, you know the ones who are now disabled because of lung problems and can't get medical treatment, are outraged.

Queens paramedic Marvin Bethea, who said he suffered a stroke, post traumatic stress disorder and breathing problems after responding to the attacks, said "I personally find that very, very insulting. Standing there doing a photo-op and telling the men, 'You're doing a good job,' I don't consider that to be working," said Bethea, 47.

Ironworker Jonathan Sferazo, 52, who said he spent a month at the site and is now disabled, runs a worker advocacy group with Bethea and called Giuliani's comments "severely" out of line. "He's not one of us. He never has been and he never will be. He never served in a capacity where he was a responder," Sferazo said.

Now, no one is saying that Giulani was manning a bulldozer, or cutting steel with a welder, but his claim that "I was working there with them" gives you the impression that that's what he wants you to think. The thought that Rudy was knee deep in rubble, arm sleeves rolled up, trolling through toxic dust with a big "S" on his chest is the disingenuous picture he's trying to paint.

Some people just have absolutely no shame. But what do you expect from a man that had his first marriage to his second cousin annulled and whose children from his second marriage are supporting Obama because they don't like his third wife. Nice family values, huh?