RUDY SPEAKS OUT ON TERROR – AT 6:20 P.M. ET:  Say what you wish about Rudy Giuliani, he displayed a superb ability dramatically to improve public safety during his two terms as mayor of New York.

Now he speaks out about terror, and the way we've missed signals.  He was asked by Jake Tapper whether he favors Eric Holder's decision to review the use of Miranda warnings.  From ABC News:

I do. I do. I support it, but I really at this point am
frustrated by the lack of urgency that is shown about these terrorism
matters. I mean, we've had three now where we've seen, you know, big
breakdowns: Fort Hood, Christmas Day, and now -- and now this one.

It's about time that we stopped thinking about it and we stopped
studying it. I don't know how often the attorney general said he was
studying things. How about we stop studying and we start doing things,
like we change Miranda, like we fix what appears to be a policy of
political correctness in which we missed every signal that related to
Major Hasan and promoted him in the military?

And here we missed some very big signals that Shahzad was giving us,
going back to Pakistan, remaining there for five or six months, bringing
in -- I've forgotten exactly how much cash he brought in from Pakistan,
but I think it was something like $60,000...

Rudy is correct.  It's refreshing to hear the unvarnished truth.  Our lack of urgency is pathetic.  And if anyone does show any urgency, he's immediately denounced by the ACLU as a threat to civil liberties.

Of course, if you go to the story you find the usual suspects erupting in hatred against Giuliani.  When he was mayor, and was significantly reducing crime, he was called a fascist. 

Democracies, as a rule, lose their sense of urgency between crises.  Former director of Central Intelligence Jim Woolsey said a few days ago that democracies have never successfully confronted evil before a major war.  We have to defy those historical odds, or pay a price many times greater than 9/11.

May 9, 2010