Guiliani Is Not Qualified To Be President

I will repeat that the reason for the Iraq War has no relevance to this debate, but since you did say that you wanted to be an informed voter, I will provide you with some information on WMDs in Iraq. I encourage you to seek out the truth and not listen to the normal media channels that typically do not provide the whole truth of a story. They only report what they want you to hear. You can find a chronology of key developments in Iraq's WMD programs at the Center for Defense Information, http://www.cdi.org.... This particular article published by Rear Adm. (Ret.) Stephen H. Baker, USN . The sources are also listed on the website. Back to Giuliani and the topic of foreign affairs. Going to Iraq does not mean you have diplomatic experience or more knowledge of "foreign affairs." I do agree that McCain may have more experience with war than Giuliani since he was actually a prisoner of war, but just about anyone can go to Iraq and view what is going on there. Even musicians, talk show hosts and actors have been granted access. Whether McCain or Richardson or anyone else for that matter has gone overseas has no bearing on whether Giuliani is qualified. I would like to remind you that the United Nations is headquartered in New York City. You don't think that as Mayor of the city that Giuliani didn't have access to those foreign leaders. Back to 9/11: It is documented and there is actually video footage of Giuliani in the trenches covered in ash on that day. You clearly did not read the article that I linked in the previous round that accounts for this. So I will take out a quote for you, "He (Giuliani) arrived at the World Trade Center just after the second plane hit, watched human beings drop from the sky and--when the south tower imploded--nearly got trapped inside his makeshift command center near the site. Then he led a battered platoon of city officials, reporters and civilians north through the blizzard of ash and smoke, and a detective jimmied open the door to a firehouse so the mayor could revive his government there. Giuliani took to the airwaves to calm and reassure his people, made a few hundred rapid-fire decisions about the security and rescue operations, toured hospitals to comfort the families of the missing and made four more visits to the apocalyptic attack scene." Normally I don't read Time Magazine, but this is not the only source that has accounted for Giuliani's actions in this matter. This to me is "In the Trenches." Most officials would be hidden in some secure location trying to manage the chaos by using the eyes and ears of those in the thick of it. Giuliani was in the thick of it! I don't know what your issue is with Pat Robertson's endorsement. You have mentioned it in every round. It is irrelevant as to whether Giuliani is qualified to be president. Many people will get out and endorse their favorite candidate in a public forum for various reasons- usually personal ones that have nothing to do with the candidate. Taxes: I have already explained this but it does sometime require a class in economics to understand. Feeding money to the government via taxes does NOT help the economy and it does NOT help any class of society. There are documented historical accounts as to how cutting taxes affects the economy in a positive way, putting more money in the pockets of the worker and in the government coffers allowing them to lower the deficit. You will have to give me more than a liberal talking point to show that raising taxes has historically helped the middle class, because I can't find one incident where this has held true. As for after school programs being hurt; cutting taxes usually means smaller government and does not always mean cutting programs and even if it did- no where is it documented that the first thing to be cut is after-school programs. Furthermore, even if taxes are raised- there is no guarantee that the program won't be cut anyway. I am not sure I understand what you mean when you say "Corporate America" is exempt from higher taxes. Do you mean businesses? If this is the case, who do you think employs and pays the middle class and working class? The Businesses! If you raise their taxes it means less jobs, lower wages and less benefits. Before raising taxes on individuals and businesses maybe we should tell the government to decrease the cut they take on gas and on cigarettes, for example. Do you know their profit from taxes on these products (that comes right out of your pocket) is higher than the profit received from the corporations who provide the product? And you still want to give the government more money?