Democrats blasted Rudy Giuliani for saying Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama would invite Mahmoud Ahmadinjead to the inaugural ball.
Giuliani, the Republican presidential candidate campaigning in New Hampshire over the weekend, attacked the Democratic front-runners, Senators Obama (D-Ill.) and Clinton (D-N.Y.) for saying they would seek negotiations with the Iranian leader to end a suspected nuclear weapons program.
“This is the world we live in,” The Associated Press quoted the former New York City mayor as saying. “It’s not this happy, romantic-like world where we’ll negotiate with this one, or we’ll negotiate with that one and there will be no preconditions, and we’ll invite Ahmadinejad to the White House, we’ll invite Assad,” referring to Syrian President Bashar Assad, to the White House. “Hillary and Obama are kind of debating whether to invite them to the inauguration or the inaugural ball.”
An earlier AP story substituted “Osama” for “Assad.” AP ran a correction on Tuesday.
The Democratic National Committee ran the quote on its Web site, saying Giuliani “is becoming more weird and inflammatory.”
Clinton and Obama have said they will seek preconditions before meeting with rogue leaders.
