Giuliani demands MoveOn’s New York Times ad rate By Sam Youngman
September 13, 2007 Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) said Thursday that he is asking The New York Times for the “same heavily discounted rate they gave MoveOn.org” for his campaign to run an ad in Friday’s paper.
Giuliani, calling MoveOn.org’s controversial “General Betray Us” ad “abominable,” said his campaign is asking the paper for a comparable rate for an ad to run following President Bush’s speech on Iraq.
The former mayor said his ad “will obviously take the opposite view” from MoveOn.org, which argued in its ad that Gen. David Petraeus is “cooking the books” on Iraq and cherry-picking facts that support his recommendation to keep a large number of troops in Iraq for some time.
Giuliani continued to include Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) in his criticisms for her comments that it would take “a willing suspension of disbelief” to accept at face value Petraeus’s report on the situation in Iraq. Giuliani interpreted Clinton’s remarks at a hearing earlier this week as questioning the general’s integrity.
“We think that her attack on Gen. Petraeus was a follow-up to the MoveOn.org/Times attack,” Giuliani told reporters in Atlanta.
Giuliani reiterated that he agrees with Petraeus’s assessment of the Iraq war, and called MoveOn.org’s ad attacking “an American general in a time of war” unprecedented.
“It’s time for Americans to really insist that American politicians move beyond character assassination,” Giuliani said. “And this is exactly what they tried to do with Gen. Petraeus. Well, it’s one thing when politicians do it to each other. It’s another thing when it’s done to an American general who has put his life at risk to protect us.”