Posted on 01/31/2007 8:47:58 AM PST by Reagan Man
Rudy Giuliani runs for President, if he runs, from the same place where George Bush still tries to run his war in Iraq - from the rubble and ashes of Sept. 11.
Giuliani doesn't run from any city he still governs, or any state, or even from the U.S. Senate. He runs from a place called Sept. 11, and you would, too.
Giuliani runs, if he runs, from a job to which he was never elected, just appointed. Or perhaps anointed. It's the job of America's Mayor, and it is the best job he is ever going to have, one with which he can have a longer run than a Supreme Court justice if he plays his cards right.
When you are the mythical mayor of America, instead of a declared candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States, it means nobody wants to talk about what kind of mayor of New York City you were before Sept. 11, 2001. That is a real good thing for Giuliani.
There are a lot of reasons why Giuliani should quit while he is ahead in some of the polls, but the best is this: the inevitable collision between some of the myths that have grown up around him in the last six years and the facts.
If the other guys in the race just let him run on Sept. 11, let that be the only thing in play - "It really is all people see," one veteran Democrat said last weekend in New Hampshire - then he wins the nomination. Only it doesn't work that way, not in a world where everything is in play, and where the whole process, with each passing election, becomes dumber than Britney Spears.
The only thing Giuliani has run since leaving office is the booming franchise of Giuliani. He has written a huge best seller and made a small fortune giving speeches all over the world. He has run a lucrative consulting business, one that enables him to fly down to a place like Mexico City for a few days, explain to them how they can reduce the crime rate and then he pockets big change.
Only now he sounds as if he is talking himself into making a run for the nomination it is hard to see him ever getting, one that is hard to see him ever getting from the yahoos in his party, even if he is ahead in some polls the way Hillary Clinton is ahead, mostly for being famous.
But Giuliani ought to ask himself how he gets the nomination of a right-wing, red-state party with his positions in favor of stem-cell research and gun control and gay civil marriages and abortion. If he really does make his run, how do those views play on the Dick Cheney news channels, or in the Church of the Religious Right?
Giuliani ought to ask how long he will be on the stump before everybody starts banging away at him with Bernard Kerik, his police commissioner and former business partner, someone Giuliani thought would be a tremendous head of Homeland Security after turning the job down himself. Kerik is another one who wants you to think he cleaned up crime in New York City all by himself, another guy with a badge who thought the law applied to everybody except him.
Kerik will be in play the way Giuliani's second wife, Donna Hanover, and the way she found out about the breakup of her marriage on television, will be in play. So will the whole subject of race relations in the city during Giuliani's time running it. And even the conditions under which the rescue workers worked at Ground Zero.
Did Giuliani find the best in himself during those first days after the planes flew into our buildings? He did. He did his job and, in doing that job, got carried along by the best in the city, as if he was one of the ironworkers who came walking over the bridge from Stuyvesant High School that first afternoon, coming from everywhere, carrying their tools in leather bags, the ones who told the police, "We're here to work."
And when the police asked them how that day, the ironworkers said, "We cut steel, you're gonna need us." And kept walking towards the ruins of the World Trade Center.
When people see Giuliani now, they see that. They see it all, with Giuliani in the foreground. They see the city getting up, slowly at first, then defiantly. The life of the city changed forever that day. So did Giuliani's. No longer was he a man with a complicated life running the world's most complicated city. He was seen as a hero.
America's Mayor. He runs, if he runs, from there. And if it was only that, if how you did that day and in the days to follow, he wins. It isn't the only issue. There are a lot of them with Rudy Giuliani and always were and always will be.
He never ran for the Senate in the end; he never ran for governor. Now the yes-men he's always had around him tell him he can get the nomination for President. It would be easy if it were all Sept. 11, 2001. The problem for Giuliani is Sept. 10.
Well, even a broken clock is right twice a day. The article is pretty much on the mark. Sounds pretty accurate to me. I think you find the article more objectionable because it takes Rudy to task. If there are any falsehoods, spell them out.
Take notice - I will refer your comments to the management of this site.
You're completely out of control.
Oh, please. She found out about the breakup of her marriage when she made Giuliani move out of Gracie Mansion.
And Hanover pretending to be shocked that Giuliani was having an affair with Chrystyne Lategano is hilarious, since she began her relationship with Giuliani as his mistress during his marriage to Regina Peruggi.
Which explains why it's so emotionally charged and hysterical.
(ducking!)
After the way I was attacked last night, nothing surprises me from you people.
I'm really starting to love these threads.
I think that makes me a bad person.
Except for the parts that are fabricated.
The obvious falsehoods are the statement that Giuliani wants to hide his pre-9/11 as mayor of NYC when Giuliani is proud to discuss his very effective mayoring before 9/11.
And he should. I personally lived NYC's transformation from a degenerating Dinkins rathole into a safe, clean business-friendly city under Giuliani.
It was impressive to behold.
Another falsehood is the statement about Donna Hanover finding out about the "breakdown" of her marriage on TV - a statement any NYer would find laughable.
Sorry boy, but this is not news and it's not even so much wrong as misinterpreted.
I'm not sure what a "rudynazi" is, but I am sure there is more to this man than September 11, 2001.
If you want to know Rudy when before he was famous and get an idea what he's made of, read the book Manhunt. It's about the arrest, conviction and imprisonment of an active duty career CIA man who went a little too far over the line, even for the Tom Clines & Poindexter crowd. Rudy's office proved his case, tracked the man down and arrested him, over the protests of the Washington powers at the time and at risk of his own career, possibly his own life.
I knew I liked Rudy about 1988 - September 11 2001 simply demonstrated to the world what he was made of inside.
Who you gonna vote for? That slimeball McCain?
I don't know why it would, since Giuliani is a serial adulterer who has generally treated the women in his life like garbage.
I would think the bulk of Giuliani's support comes from the country-club Republicans who like Giuliani's liberalism on social issues, his pro-business, pro-commerce attitude on economics and his strong stance on defense and law and order.
(LAUGHTER)
The article is an opinion piece from a rabidly anti Republican and highly liberal newspaper.
That's all I stated and it is the truth.
Let me see if I can't surprise you.
Does the word "banned" mean anything to you.
I'm on the job.
OK...this is totally off-topic, but I would say that while it doesn't seem logical, keep in mind the female appeal Clinton had throughout his presidency. And, consider how Clinton has treated women.
That said, I have no idea what the proportions are of female vs. male Giuliani supporters here.
Rudy was elected mayor in a city that is probably 90% democrat. And he cut the murder rate by about 75% and took NYC from near bankruptcy to where the finances are sound.
Most people do not want the ideology of the left or right. They want low crime, good schools, low taxes, the trash picked up, and decent highways. That is all.
In short, most of the USA wants someone like Guiliani.
I'm gonna vote for a conservative. Rudy is a liberal to his core values and beliefs. Besides, its the liberal media promoting this guy as #1 Republican for 2008. Rudy is their guy. He's not our guy. If people choose to support Rudy, that is their right and their business. I can't force anyone to vote or not vote for a specific candidate. But I will not support or vote for Giuliani. There are plenty of good conservatives around. We need to choose one of them and back him with a maximum effort. And stay far away from supporting liberals. That serves no good purpose.
Women loved BJ, too, as inexplicable as that is. They're just more liberal in general, it would seem.
That should be more than enough to criticize him on a policy basis.
On a personal level, he has shown a decided lack of character when it comes to personal relationships - he has cheated his way out of two marriages.
That should be more than enough to criticize him on a character basis.
There is no need to invent lies about the man or circulate leftist oped hitpieces about him.
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