Giuliani: Biden harbors doubts about Obama

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani today raised doubts about Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden's own trust in Barack Obama after Biden's comments last night at a fundraiser which the former mayor described as a "gaffe."

"He seems to be predicting some very serious incident that’s going to take place and he seems to think that the reaction isn’t going to be the right one," Giuliani said in a conference call with reporters. "This is an extraordinary statement."

Randy Scheunemann, McCain-Palin Senior Foreign Policy Adviser, joined Giuliani -- a former rival of John McCain during the Republican presidential primaries -- in attacking Obama's experience on foreign policy, saying Biden's comments mean that even Obama's runningmate doesn't think he's ready to be president.

The call was prompted by Biden's comments last night displayed in this story from CNN.

The campaign used the opportunity with reporters and Biden's comments to further its contention that Obama was not ready to lead and referenced Biden's own comparison of the way John F. Kennedy was tested early on in his presidency.

Scheunemann said Kennedy's willingness to meet with Soviets at that time led the world to think of him as weak, leading to the building of the Berlin Wall, among other things, and the same would happen to Obama.
The McCain campaign has repeatedly said meetings Obama has said he'd have with countries such as Iran, Venezuela and North Korea show he's inexperienced and weak.

"The reality is that Joe Biden is saying he’s scared of something," Giuliani said. "It gets us back to who is better prepared to be President of the United States of America."

Past attack lines came up as the question-and-answer portion of the conference call went on, as Scheunemann said Hamas, the militant group in Palestine, has endorsed Obama and Cuba's Fidel Castro's comment that Obama is "progressive."

Also, Giuliani took a shot at the media saying if a Republican made similar comments it'd be a bigger deal.

"If a republican made these statements it’d be on the front page of the New York Times tomorrow saying the Republican was using scare tactics," he said, finally driving home what seemed to be the point of the call itself: "It seems that Joe Biden is telling us, in his very convoluted way, that John McCain is more qualified to be president."

While you can make the argument that the campaign may or may not have taken Biden's comments out of context, it struck me that they would again bring up this "Hamas endorsement" issue after it's been months since the allegation first arose.

Here's an excerpt from a McCain campaign letter from the same story linked above:
"Barack Obama's foreign policy plans have even won him praise from Hamas leaders. Ahmed Yousef, chief political adviser to the Hamas Prime Minister said, "We like Mr. Obama and we hope he will win the election. He has a vision to change America."

We need change in America, but not the kind of change that wins kind words from Hamas, surrenders in Iraq and will hold unconditional talks with Iranian President Ahmadinejad."

This comes after more scrutiny from those who claim the McCain campaign is unfairly trying to paint Obama as a terrorist. Perhaps the "inexperienced" portion of the call hit home, but what do you think about this Obama/Hamas issue being brought up again?

Thoughts?