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Liberal blogs are calling Giuliani out on his FoxNews interview this week during which he criticized Clinton's handling of terrorism in the 1990s. They point to statements Giuliani made last year that Clinton should not be blamed for 9/11 as proof positive that Rudy is changing his tune in a desperate attempt to win over conservatives. But in their eagerness to catch Rudy in a flip flop, they are cherry picking statements and completely distorting the public record. In speeches to conservative audiences, Giuliani still insists that we shouldn't cast blame for 9/11 on decision makers of  the 1990s, because the true threat of terrorism wasn't clear at the time. However, he is criticizing Democrats who want to return us to the policies of the 1990s, after 9/11, when there should be no doubt about the magnitude of the threat we face.

Here's how he put it last month, at a speech to the Heritage Foundation: 

"The first World Trade Center bombing was in 1993. Then Khobar Towers in 1996. Then the Embassy Bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Then the attack on the U.S.S. Cole in 2000…We didn't get the magnitude of the threat. I don't blame people for that. I think it's important to repeat this. I think it's important to focus on it so we don't make the same mistake again. Hindsight is enormously powerful. Once the attack took place, then all these things become much clearer as part of the buildup to this war against us. So it would have been better if we had gotten it. It would have been better if we understood in 1993, this was not just a crime, this was an act of war, and we dealt with it that way. It would have been better. But maybe not possible just given the scope of information that government decision makers have to make. But once Sept. 11 happened, then I do blame people for not getting it. Then I do. Then you can't miss it any longer and you can't go back and once again repeat the mistakes of history."

Liberals can agree or disagree with him, but there's nothing inconsistent here.

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