After opponents jumped on the accuracy of his statement that he spent "as much or more" time at Ground Zero after 9/11 as recovery workers, Rudy Giuliani retracted the claim, saying he "misspoke." Libby Quaid reports for the Associated Press:
"I think I could have said it better," he told nationally syndicated radio host Mike Gallagher. "You know, what I was saying was, 'I'm there with you.'"The former New York mayor upset some firefighters and police officers when he said Thursday in Cincinnati that he was at ground zero "as often, if not more, than most of the workers."
"I was there working with them. I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense, I'm one of them," he told reporters at a Los Angeles Dodgers-Cincinnati Reds baseball game.
Read the whole story at the above link. Finally, a candidate who understands the First Law of Holes: when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. This is how one should deal with a gaffe: admit it, retract it, apologize where appropriate, and move on. All too often a candidate hesitates in doing this, taking bad advice to tough it out which invariably only makes things worse.
Now, Rudy could have defended the statement, because he was down there several times a day after 9/11, even after he left office. But that would only have kept the story rolling.
Think George Allen and "macaca." If the moron had simply immediately and sincerely apologized, the whole thing would have been defused. His 20-point lead in the polls would have be diminished, but not completely. Instead, he tried to explain it away, then justify or excuse it, and before he knew it he was so deep in the hole there was no digging out.
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Filed under:
2008 Presidential Race, Primaries, Republican, Rudy
Tags: gaffe, Giuliani, presidential campaign, Republicans
