Rudy Giuliani: "I do remember September 11"

Former White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said it without too much blowback months ago on Fox, and columnist Michael Goodwin rolled it out largely unnoticed last week in the New York Post. It wasn't until Rudy Giuliani decided to use the fantasy-world talking point about the Bush administration's perfect anti-terror record on Good Morning America that people - even, eventually, complaisant interviewer George Stephanopoulos - started to pay attention.

Now America's former Mayor, whose post-9/11 career is largely predicated on 9/11, is trying to explain why domestic attacks which occurred under Bush don't count as domestic attacks which occurred under Bush. According to Giuliani, he was clearly discussing attacks after 9/11, which weren't "major." According to a spokeswoman, he was clearly discussing attacks after 9/11, which weren't "islamic." Both of them are still mistaken.

It's possible, given Mr. Giuliani's somewhat fluid grasp of language, that "major" means something different than "significant," but a State Department report released in 2003 lists the 2001 anthrax attacks as kinda major-ish ("When people send anthrax through the mail to hurt people and invoke terror, it's a terrorist act" - John Ashcroft), and John Allan Mohammad, the DC sniper, who was executed in November, killed ten people and was convicted of capital murder in an act of terrorism. As far as "islamic" attacks go, we had Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber," who was charged as an al Qaeda associate.

His former Honor told Wolf Blitzer last night that interpreting "domestic attacks" to mean domestic attacks is unserious. "This is so silly. I did omit the words 'since Sept. 11.' I apologize for that. I should have put it in. I do remember Sept. 11. In fact, Wolf, I remember it every single day."

It goes, as they say, without saying. Giuliani, sadly, doesn't.