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.
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Do you honestly consider rudy a conservative, or someone who values all of the bill of rights?
Or is he just the expediently popular choice of the moment?
Let's not pretend.
~jla stops reading~
Perhaps you're not so wide awake as you let on to be.
You should probably read my posts before you ask me silly questions.
We'll all be weeping when Hillary wins in '08 (no little thanks to you guys).
What's the matter, couldn't find any good material in this month's Mother Jones?
well you did call rudy the gun grabber an american patriot.
Last time I checked, the patriots who founded this country had a thing against goverment gun grabbing.
The defintion might have changed in the past couple hundred years without anyone telling me though.
Can't refute the article, can you? :^)
You should.
The reasons the Voice, the NYCLU, Sharpton, Maddox, and all the commies, race hustlers, and misfits hate Rudy all reflect great credit on him - and the fact that he KICKED THEIR COLLECTIVE ASSES for eight years while saving the city in his spare time tells you what kind of a politician he is.
Because if he continued reading he would find valid points to refute his argument.
jla loves the Village Voice, which has regularly denounced Ronald Reagan as a greedy racist idiot - but jla thinks it's OK to quote people who slander Reagan, as long as they also slander Giuliani.
jla knows that he cannot argue that Reagan was an ambitious man - as all great Americans are. jla also knows that he cannot argue that Reagan didn't enjoy being President - because Reagan obviously enjoyed being President and that joy was evident in his face when he addressed the nation.
He is. Patriots can be wrong about things, too.
Giuliani foolishly believes that broad firearm ownership is detrimental to public safety - his stupid campaign to stringently regulate firearm ownership is therefore motivated out of a misguided concern for public safety - not out of hatred for America.
His dunderheadedness on this is yet another reason in a long list of reasons why he should not be President: he is wrong again and again on a wide variety of important policy issues.
Go ahead and support Giuliani.
I do not support Giuliani for President and never will.
But please keep lying about me - your allergy to facts becomes more apparent with each of your posts.
If this were true then you wouldn't assert that RR coveted power, especially that of a POTUS. He was the polar opposite, in word, and especially, in action.
"Gun grabbing" is a misnomer.
He had a clear vision of what America needed, and he wanted to become President to implement that vision.
So he actively pursued the Presidency of his own volition and against the wishes of the almost-entirely-Rockefellerized GOP of the mid-70s and triumphed.
He was ambitious and principled - not covetous and sneaky.
And he certainly enjoyed his Presidential authority - it enabled him to put policies that he believed were absolutely necessary for America's survival into action. He clearly relished standing up to Congress and fighting the good fight.
He never gave the impression that he was some unwilling mope dragooned into service - he was happy to be doing his job and he did it with zest.
Don't mince words with me. You very well, and unambiguously, implied that Reagan, and Jefferson, relished the power and prestige that came with being POTUS. Admittedly more in the latter's day and age.
Reagan wanted to be President. When he became President, he was happy he became President, he enjoyed his job and happily stood for reelection. Jefferson also wanted to be President, was delighted that he became President and happily stood for reelection.
They both proactively used their executive power and both declared their satisfaction with the results.
Neither of them ever claimed that the presidency was forced upon them and that they only served under duress.
What this has to do with covetousness is beyond me.
Speaking of Bill Bratton, Rudy is out in Cali meeting with him today. Their relationship is questionable and Rudy needs to make sure Bratton keeps his mouth shut during the campaign. Bratton could spill a lot of dirt on Sir Rudy.
So basically, the Village voice seems to really hate Rudy...
I think I'll stick to opposing him on the issues.
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