Giuliani: ‘I Can Probably Be Talked Into’ 2012 Run

Rudy Giuliani called for a return to American exceptionalism Friday, telling a group of GOP lawyers gathered in the nation’s capital that Ronald Reagan fundamentally changed how Americans felt about themselves.

Before Reagan was elected, Giuliani said, much had been written about America’s decline and how it was a country of “limited possibilities” that had run its course.

“Sounds familiar, right? There are people who believe that today in America. In fact, some of them are running America,” Giuliani said in a speech to the Republican National Lawyers Association, where he appeared to received the group’s highest honor, the Ed Meese Award.

“The idea that we’re either no better than anyone else, we’re just another country with our set of problems or our set of assets, or maybe we’re not even as good as others. Ronald Reagan found that to be totally wrong, not a correct view of this country and he changed in a very short period of times how we felt about ourselves.”

“That’s the most important thing a leader does,” he added.

Ticking off a list of his accomplishments while serving as New York’s mayor, Giuliani said he was most proud of making the city a place where people wanted to live, a factor that later helped New York rebuild following the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

“I often think that a New York City with the depressed attitude that we had in the early ’90s would have had a much harder time overcoming as quickly the tremendous damage that was done to us by the attacks of September 11,” he said.

“It helped New York City that when we were attacked we were a strong city, a confident city, and optimistic city, a city that believed our best days were ahead of us. So the attack was a temporary interruption of that feeling and the city was able to get back on track very, very quickly.”

Giuliani, who was with Obama when he visited Ground Zero on Thursday, made no mention of the military operation that ended America’s lengthy search for Osama bin Laden.

But he did offer a stinging critique of the president’s foreign policy, slamming Obama for being inconsistent about regime change in the Islamic world. For example, Giuliani criticized the president for saying Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi must go while failing to call for the ouster of Iran’s leaders.

“Qadhafi is a very bad dictator. He is horrible to his own people,” Giuliani said. “But he doesn’t pose anywhere near the threat to the United States of America to the threat that Iran poses.”

“If we are going to be calling for regime changes around the world and regime changes, why not remove some of the most unfriendly dictators,” he added.

Giuliani took only one question following his half-hour speech. Asked whether he had decided to launch a 2012 White House bid, he said “not yet,” but that it’s a possibility.

“I will sure think about it. … It’s too early and I want to see how it all develops,” he answered. “My major goal is to elect a Republican in 2012. If it turns out that I’m the best one to do that, I can probably be talked into doing it or convince myself to do it,” he said.

“If I thought somebody else had a better chance of doing it, I would be a very enthusiastic supporter of somebody else,” he added.

{Capitol News Company, LLC/Matzav.com Newscenter}