Rudy on the "Nuisance" of Terrorism

The Kerry Spot has some great comments by Rudy Giuliani in response to John Kerry's view that terrorism is a nuisance that should be treated like prostitution or illegal gambling. If Rudy weren't so socially liberal, I would already be on his team for '08.

The full text of Rudy's press release is here. Here are two paragraphs that capture the essence, although it is well worth reading in full:

"As a former law enforcement person, he says ‘I know we’re never going to end prostitution. We’re never going to end illegal gambling. But we’re going to reduce it.’ This is not illegal gambling; this isn’t prostitution. Having been a former law enforcement person for a lot longer than John Kerry ever was, I don’t understand his confusion. Even when he says ‘organized crime to a level where it isn’t not [sic] on the rise,’ it was not the goal of the Justice Department to just reduce organized crime. It was the goal of the Justice Department to eliminate organized crime. Was there some acceptable level of organized crime: two families, instead of five, or they can control one union but not the other?

"The idea that you can have an acceptable level of terrorism is frightening. How do you explain that to the people who are beheaded or the innocent people that are killed, that we’re going to tolerate a certain acceptable [level] of terrorism, and that acceptable level will exist and then we’ll stop thinking about it? This is an extraordinary statement. I think it is not a statement that in any way is ancillary. I think this is the core of John Kerry’s thinking."