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Giuliani: Bush Deserves Credit For Killing Bin Laden, Too
By
John Del Signore
Published May 2, 2011
Modified May 2, 2011
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By
John Del Signore
Published May 2, 2011
Modified May 2, 2011
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Breaking an agonizing twelve hour silence, Rudy Giuliani has at last commented on the killing of Osama bin Laden. Speaking to Politico this morning, the mayor of 9/11 Town praised President Obama for ordering the mission. He also stressed that Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, deserves some of the credit for the mission. But in an admirable display of modesty, Giuliani didn't explicitly identify himself as the one killed bin Laden—he says he was sitting at home reading with Fox News on for company when news of bin Laden's death broke.
"My immediate reaction (was) ... I hope they caught him," Giuliani tells Politico. "Once I found out he was dead I probably thought that's probably better we don't have to go through three or four years of a trial... and I felt that it shows the determination of our military. I'm sure there are people who haven't rested a day since that happened." Giuliani also said, "I admire the courage of the president to make a decision like this because if something had gone wrong everyone would be blaming him." Of course, Bush "deserves tremendous credit. This was only accomplished because we have developed a tremendous apparatus in Afghanistan and Pakistan."
Asked about how the news made him feel, Giuliani was far from sanguine, saying, "I feel satisfaction and some emotional relief, but I don't feel great elation. I watch a lot of the celebrating and it makes me feel a little strange, I don't know. Nothing erases the loss of all those lives."
Tagged
9/11
george w. bush
giuliani
Osama bin Laden
president obama
rudy giuiliani
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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