During a press conference on Friday, Ed Henry -- the Fox News Channel's chief White House correspondent -- stated that former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani has been harshly criticized for claiming that Barack Obama does not love America.

Henry then compared that remark with one made by then-candidate Obama when he charged that then-president George W. Bush was “irresponsible” and “unpatriotic” for increasing the federal debt by $4 trillion during his two terms in the White House.

He then asked Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary: “Do you think the president has any regrets” about the comment he made during that campaign event in Fargo, North Dakota, on July 3, 2008?

“I don't know if 'sorrow' is the word that I would use,” Earnest responded.

Henry inquired: “You feel sorry for Rudy Guiliani?”

“I do,” the press secretary replied.

“But does the president have any regrets regardless of what Giuliani said?” the Fox News correspondent pressed. “As a candidate, senator Obama said that president Bush was unpatriotic.”

“I haven't seen the actual comments,” Earnest said.

According to a video of Obama's speech, he stated:

The problem is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion for the first 42 presidents.

Number 43 added $4 trillion by his lonesome so that we now have over $9 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay back, $30,000 for every man, woman and child. That's irresponsible. It's unpatriotic.

“I see a difference from Giuliani because he was talking about an issue,” Henry stated, “but nonetheless questioning the patriotism of the president of the United States.”

“I think that what the president was doing was he was questioning the specific wisdom of that decision,” Earnest responded, “and questioning whether or not that was in the best interest of the country.”

Henry again pushed back, noting that Obama didn't say Bush's actions were “unwise,” he said “that's unpatriotic.”

“But again, he was talking about that, he was not talking about a person,” Earnest said before adding:

I think there is a lot that the president also had to say in the State of the Union about the level of our discourse, and there is no doubt that we're going to have significant disagreements across the aisle, and that is ultimately what a democracy is all about, where we go in and we debate the issues. But the president ... said we should have a debate that's worthy of the United States Congress and worthy of the country, that there are significant challenges facing this country, and resorting to a politics in which we question each other's basic decency is not consistent with the reason that a lot of people got into public service.

According to an article by Michael Sargent on the dailysignal.com website: “The total federal debt now tallies more than $18 trillion.”

“Just six years ago, when President Obama took office, the total debt stood at $10.6 trillion, which means it now has increased by almost $8 trillion -- roughly 70 percent -- during his tenure as president,” Sargent stated.

As NewsBusters previously reported, an outraged Chris Matthews on Thursday railed against Giuliani's assertion, assailing the idea that anyone's patriotism would be questioned.

The Hardball anchor lectured: "Mr. Mayor, you should never go after someone's love of his country. It breaks the rules we live by. It divides us when we should be united. I urge you to take it back."

Also on Thursday, MSNBC's The Last Word With Lawrence O'Donnell convened a liberal panel to berate Giuliani and portray him as a key leader in the Republican Party that’s caused “the partisan divide that we have” in the nation.



One panelist, liberal radio show host Stephanie Miller, compared what the former New York City mayor told a gathering of Republican donors to using derogatory language toward African-Americans, gays, and women.

In addition, the participants in Friday's edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe program said Giuliani made a huge mistake in claiming Obama doesn't love America, referring to his comment as "stupid," "crazy," "tone deaf," and even "racist.”

Also on Friday, the New York Times played the race card by implying that the city's former mayor is a racist under the snotty, hostile headline “Giuliani: Obama Had a White Mother, So I’m Not a Racist.”

There's no telling how long the liberal left will continue to hammer “America's Mayor” over his comment, but at least we know what the lead story will be in every program on the MSNBC cable channel for the next few weeks.