Posted on 01/29/2007 11:34:29 AM PST by jla
The Reflective Rudy; The Ex-Mayor Writes His Own Farewell to Donna
by Wayne Barrett
July 17 - 23, 2002 Edition
The Village Voice
PHOTO My company's biggest asset, though, is the rights to 9-11. Photo: Frances M. Roberts
http://images.villagevoice.com/issues/0229/barrett.jpg
GIULIANI PARTNERS LLC
5 Times Square
Confidential memo to file from R. Giuliani
July 15, 2002
In one week I bought a new 3100-square-foot Central Park apartment for $5.25 million and dumped Donna for $6.8 million, plus the old apartment, child
support, taxes, and legal fees. Not bad for a guy who made a measly $294,000 in 1992—my last year of private employment before becoming mayor. I'll make
$8 million this year just for delivering my already oldie but goodie, the stock September 11 speech. Without 9-11, I'd be lucky to get a date at the Guy Molinari Republican Club in Staten Island.
As pistol-packin' Papa used to say to the boys at the loan-shark bar—no pain, no gain! The best part of the settlement with Donna is, I get to keep my list of consulting clients secret. That's a scandal a name. Everybody I gave a contract bonanza to on my way out the door and more—my own personal favor-bank. I defied earlier court orders to disclose the list and settled the day it was due. Hell, the guys who sign up as clients now that the list will never become public may cover half the Donna tab. I'll be richer than Osama!
I was such a private-sector bust in the early '90s that I got drummed out of two law firms. The scorecard at my last firm listed me dead last of all the partners in
billable hours, 1740 hours under budget. Steve Hoffenberg, the ex-New York Post owner who's doing 20 years in federal prison, was the biggest corporate client
I could bring in, and he wound up implicating one of my partners in his fraud. Now I'm a rainmaker—actually, a tropical-storm maker—drawing corporations the way I used to draw women! And I'm a corporate rescuer, putting out financial fires, a regular NYGD! It's a laugh a minute.
The most fun I had with the divorce settlement was telling the reporters how private it all was, how I had tried to keep my private life private. Remember my own
personal May Day procession, when I took my new queen on a Mother's Day weekend walk through the Upper East Side, accompanied by half the press corps,
right after I first announced she was a very, very special friend? Remember me taking her to the Inner Circle, the Saint Patty's Day Parade, and the Millennium celebration when she was still a secret? Remember the $3000-a-pop, publicly subsidized weekends in salacious Southampton—with half a dozen cops in
Suburbans accompanying me? Remember me claiming I was playing golf with beard Andrew when I was really hot-tailing it out to Judi's summer townhouse?
And if I was bold before 9-11, how about putting my mistress in charge of Pier 94, taking care of widows and other survivors? How about putting her on the board of the Twin Towers Fund? How about bringing her to the announcement of Time's Person of the Year award or my knighthood ceremonies in London? Does it get
any more public than my flaunting? And isn't it fantastic that I got away with it?
In fact, after all this, it was still me who sued Donna for cruel and unusual punishment. Not only is the world my stage, but I was always the best actor in the family!
I even got Raoul—the only matrimonial lawyer to ever postpone collecting his fee—to go public with my favorite Donna putdowns. Calling her a "stuck pig" was priceless. How about "uncaring mother"? Or how about the War of the Roses parallel, with Raoul claiming we'd have to "take her screaming, scratching, and
kicking" out of Gracie Mansion, prying her "off the chandelier to get her out of there"? Almost as hilarious as my stripping her of her First Lady title and duties way back in May of 2000, and firing everybody around her.
I let her goddamn mansion go to pot so bad Bloomberg is digging into his own pocket to fix it up. Of course I never would've given her all that loot if I weren't already running for at least vice president. I never would've given her the satisfaction of a public win. I
would have fought the thing out at trial and taken my philandering hits like any proud stud but for the presidential picture.
Ever since I delivered my convention acceptance speech in front of my college girlfriend (oh, for one more shot at sweet Kathy Livermore), I've been getting ready to become the first Italian American president. Donna tried to intimidate me with that witness list of hers—throwing Barrett in there as well as Cristyne and every driver and cop who's no longer counting on me to feed his overtime. But I wouldn't have backed down if I wasn't sure I had a real chance at one of the two top jobs in 2004.
If Bush doesn't pick me for Cheney's spot, I might just hook up with McCain. Should we bushwhack the Boy President in the Republican primaries or just go third
party?
McCain and Giuliani or Giuliani and McCain? The cancer-comeback candidates? Two national war heroes? He was locked down in North Vietnam for years and I was locked down in Gracie Mansion. With his messy history, divorcing a wife after she was mangled in a car crash, even our marital records match.
Meanwhile, I'll just sit in my friend Mort Zuckerman's building and rake in the cash. I helped steer Mort two of the four Times Square tower sites, including the
one I'm in now, and my tax breaks helped him tie down my current partner, Ernst & Young, as anchor tenant.
That was after I saved him a multimillion-dollar
deposit on the Coliseum site. All he did was give me as many of his Daily News pages as he could control. I had a better relationship with him than I did with
Andrew and Caroline the eight years I was at City Hall.
I had the whole country stewing over whether my term should've been extended through the first three months of 2002. Mort and Murdoch claimed I was indispensable to the city's resurrection. But when no one would give me an extension never even given a president in wartime, I took off, flying all around the world, and no one noticed that I wasn't helping Mike at all. Not a policy whisper in Bloomberg's ear.
In fact I started charging so much per word the city couldn't afford my advice. All I wanted from Mike was continued control of the Twin Towers Fund, so I could keep alive my connection to the dead cops and firemen,
and all my archival records, so only I could write the triumphant history of my own administration. He delivered and I've kept quiet about him.
I got myself a white, square logo for Giuliani Partners—a perfect match. The only top guy from City Hall who hasn't landed here or somewhere else in six-figure
stratospheres is Rudy Washington. Imagine that. Heck, even the MTA doesn't have much use for tokens anymore.
It's been so much fun driving Wild Bill Bratton
crazy by telling the newspapers that one of the things I'm selling here is Compstat for corporations. I didn't even know what it was until Bratton brought me to
NYPD headquarters for a demonstration months after he had it up and running.
It's so great to steal from the only person in the administration I forced to eat more crow than Donna. It's also so great that I got all my old buddies reappointed at the Conflicts of Interest Board so no one will ever look at the dough that's coming to me now and see if it passes muster under the one-year ban on doing business with people your government benefited.
My company's biggest asset, though, is the rights to 9-11. I own the event lock, stock, and barrel. The HBO special, for example, was a Made-by-Giuliani production. That's why I've got Kerik and Von Essen working for me. Even my secretary was part of the show.
It was produced by my agent. If Bush wants to make his response to 9-11 the cornerstone of his campaign, he needs me because I embody it. Just like George
Washington embodied the Revolution and Lincoln the Civil War. It is my thing.
Not even Donna could take that away from me.
| Top of Page |
fyi
Thomas Jefferson and Ronald Reagan wept
However, a Village Voice hit piece is not a believable analysis on FR.
BUT HE CAN WIN!!!!
YOU'RE JUST AN UNAPPEASABLE RUDY HATER!!!
Remember back during the harriet miers backlash when everyone who refused to accept that Aunt Harriet was a strict constructionist and would make a good supreme court justice? The fanclub was lashing out HARD those days.
But we held out - refusing to settle for a person just because they could get through the senate. In the end, we got a much better justice in Alito.
The rudy fan club should get the message -hold out for something better instead of settling for someone on the qualification that "they can win!"
That's hardly impartial journalism.
YOU'RE JUST AN UNAPPEASABLE RUDY HATER!!!
LOL! Heaven forbid if we should mention his social liberalism, and his previous endorsements of DEMOCRATS in New York elections, turning his back on the GOP. I think it's payback time.
don't confuse me with facts.
There are enough factual concerns about Rudy without resorting to this.
But this is what will come out via the mainstream media AFTER rudy or a rino wins the republican primary.
The liberal media wants a rino to win the primary so they can rip into them once they're running against a democrat.
However, we also, IMO, should discuss Rudy from a conservative point of view on FR. That approach should be enough to convince people he's not the right guy for the nomination.
It's written as if it were a memo from Rudy. That makes if fiction, even if some or all of the facts are accurate.
I just don't think we should accomodate a liberal attack on Rudy. There is plenty to discuss about Rudy from a conservative point of view.
Don't shed one tear for Donna Hanover. Not one tear. Rudy has very serious character issues, but he comes of as a saint when compared to her.
he does get discussed from a conservative view. Spiff has a nice little chart of rudy's views, hillary's views, and GOP part platform views. But when he posts useful information, the cult of rudy claims he's "spamming".
They have their fingers in their ears and don't want to hear anything except how great rudy is and how he can win in 2008.
And they'll turn around and bash this post as being from the Village Voice. No need to go there.
He and his wife were no longer living together in the same household when he met Judith Nathan. Their marriage had been over for years in practical terms at that point - a well known fact in NYC. Not that Donna Hanover had any problem with openly dating Giuliani while he was still married to Regina Peruggi.
Neither is giving his main squeeze a patronage job handling money for the 9-11 widows and orphans.
She is a member of the charity's board - an honorary, uncompensated position. She was a corporate executive at Bristol Myers and had already served on the board of a number of other charitable foundations.
Do you honestly consider the Village Voice to be an impartial, unimpeachable source?
Yourself and others may settle for less, and even a fraudulent less at that. I won't.
Thomas Jefferson and Ronald Reagan were men of great ambition who enjoyed the power they wielded.
Let's not pretend.
Rudolph Giuliani also loves this great nation, just as Jefferson and Reagan did.
Saying that Rudolph Giuliani is not an American patriot is an ugly lie.
Calling him a fake is a lie as well.
Rudolph Giuliani is a Rockefeller Republican, tough on law and order, financially relatively conservative, but a complete social liberal.
He does not deserve to be President and I will not vote for him. Why?
Two reasons.
(1) I find it hard to personally respect a man who cheats on his spouse. If your own wife cannot trust you, I cannot trust you either.
(2) The most important thing is a basic respect for the inalienable right to life. Giuliani lacks that basic respect.
There is no need to make up stuff about the man, or call him a fake or an America-hater.
The truth is enough: he has demonstrated character flaws that show he is not worthy of the Presidency.
I don't really care if the Village Voice hates him, because the Village Voice only hates people for the wrong reasons.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
