Hardball Ignores Facts and Blasts Giuliani

Transcript from Hardball May 23, 2007:

MATTHEWS: …Rudy Giuliani—he seems to get away with a lot of factual mistakes. He was on David Letterman the other night. And I know David Letterman's not a newsman. It's not his job to fact check. But listen to this. Let's take a look at—here's the former mayor of New York, the most respected man in the Republican Part right now, if you look at the polls, and here's what he's saying about the Iraq Liberation Act, as if he knows what he's talking about, on David Letterman's show the other night.

RUDOLPH GIULIANI ®, FMR NYC MAYOR, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know, it's hard to say. I mean, it got the vote of a lot of Democrats who supported it, and actually, when Saddam was overthrown, praised the president for doing it. It was the policy of the Clinton administration to have regime change in Iraq. So in a way, George Bush carried out what Bill Clinton wanted to do and didn't get the opportunity to do.

MATTHEWS: Absolutely BS, Senator, absolute BS. You cannot say that we had—that President Clinton had the authorization to go to war with Iraq. You can't say he just didn't have an opportunity to go. No one told him to go until Bush got the authority from Congress, including you, in 2002. What is Giuliani getting applause for on complete nonsense like that? This is—the Iraq Liberation (INAUDIBLE) was something cooked up by the INC, the Iraqi National Congress, with McCain and Lieberman pushing it. It had nothing to do with an American war in Iraq, nothing to do with it.

[End Transcript]

However, for one, Former Mayor Giuliani did not say that President Clinton had the authorization to go to war with Iraq. He said that the Clinton administration supported "regime change in Iraq."

In fact, President Clinton, along with a majority in Congress, did.

Text from the Iraq Liberation Act states:

SEC. 3. SENSE OF THE CONGRESS REGARDING UNITED STATES POLICY TOWARD IRAQ.

It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.

Secondly, the Iraq Liberation Act, which Matthews refers to as "something cooked up by the INC, the Iraqi National Congress, with McCain and Lieberman pushing it," passed by unanimous consent in the Senate.

The House approved it with a vote of 360 – 38.

Democratic members of the House voting yea include: Richard Gephardt, Barney Frank, Charles Rangel, Charles Schumer, James Traficant, Henry Waxman, and Robert Wexler.

Nancy Pelosi and Frank Murtha abstained from voting.

President Clinton signed the bill into law on October 31, 1998.