Rudy Giuliani: Fake Conservative

CBS News ^ | 6 February 2007 | Terence P. Jeffrey

[Spiff]

Rudy Giuliani: Fake Conservative

National Review: Liberal Views On Abortion, Gay Rights Will Doom Giuliani In GOP Primaries

"Murder and graffiti are two vastly different crimes," Rudy Giuliani once said. "But they are part of the same continuum, and a climate that tolerates one is more likely to tolerate the other."

Good point, Rudy.

Now, what about a climate — not to mention a Republican presidential candidate — that not only tolerates, but allows unelected judges to legalize the practice of delivering a child until only its head remains within its mother's womb so the child can be killed by sucking out its brains?

What about a climate where same-sex couples are given the same legal status as married couples, whether the resulting arrangements are candidly called "same-sex marriages," or are semantically papered-over with terms such as "civil unions" or "domestic partnerships"?

Apply the Giuliani Continuum to fundamental issues such as marriage and the right to life, and where does it lead?

Not where conservatives want America to be.

Rudy Giuliani's observation about the "continuum" running from graffiti to murder was quoted in a piece in the winter edition of City Journal by Steven Malanga. The title of Malanga's piece neatly encapsulates his argument: "Yes, Rudy is a Conservative — and an electable one at that."

I believe Malanga is wrong on both counts. Rudy is neither conservative, nor electable — at least, not as a Republican presidential candidate.

As Malanga seems to define it, a politician dedicated to good police work and free-market economics qualifies as a conservative. "Far from being a liberal," Malanga writes of Giuliani, "he ran New York with a conservative's priorities: Government exists above all to keep people safe in their homes and in the streets, he said, not to redistribute income, run a welfare state, or perform social engineering. The private economy, not government, creates opportunity, he argued; government should just deliver basic services well and then get out of the private sector's way."

But that's not enough. While advocating law and order, self-reliance, and capitalism is laudable, it does not entitle a politician to a free pass for advocating other causes that are deeply destructive of American society.

While it is always wrong to take an innocent human life — whether on a New York sidewalk or in a mother's womb — Giuliani is highly selective in applying this principle. In 1999, when he was pondering a run for the U.S. Senate, he was asked whether he supported banning partial-birth abortion. "No, I have not supported that," he said, "and I don't see my position on that changing."

"I'm pro-gay rights," he also said. Indeed, his position is so radical in this area that as New York City mayor he promoted a city ordinance that removed the distinctions in municipal law between married and unmarried couples, regardless of their gender.

"What it really is doing is preventing discrimination against people who have different sexual orientations, or make different preferences in which they want to lead their lives," Giuliani said, explaining the ordinance to The New York Times. "Domestic partnerships not only affect gays and lesbians, but they also affect heterosexuals who choose to lead their lives in different ways."

In other words, preserving a legal order that prefers traditional marriage and traditional families is "discrimination."

Giuliani's positions on abortion and marriage disqualify him as a conservative because they annihilate the link between the natural law and man-made laws. Indeed, they use man-made law to promote and protect acts that violate the natural law.

Given his argument that there is a "continuum" between graffiti and murder, you would think that Giuliani would understand the importance of the link between the natural law and the laws of New York City, let alone the laws of the United States. At the heart of Rudy's "continuum" argument, is the realization that when society refuses to enforce a just law it teaches people to disrespect the moral principles underlying just laws.

The late Russell Kirk argued in The Conservative Mind that the first canon of conservatism is "[b]elief in a transcendent order, or body of natural law, which rules society as well as conscience. Political problems, at bottom, are religious and moral problems. … True politics is the art of apprehending and applying the Justice which ought to prevail in a community of souls."

It is simply not justice to take the life of an unborn child. Nor is it justice to codify same-sex relationships so that, by design of the state itself, a child can be denied a mother or a father from birth, which is one thing legalized same-sex unions would do.

By advocating abortion on demand and same-sex unions, Rudy is doing something far more egregious than, say, defacing a New York subway train. He is defacing the institution that forms the foundation of human civilization.

That is not conservative.

Rudy will not win the Republican nomination because enough of the people who vote in Republican caucuses and primaries still respect life and marriage, and are not ready to give up on them — or on the Republican party as an agent for protecting them.

[Spiff]

Rudy Giuliani Supports Partial Birth Abortion...Republicans Don't.

[GEORGE] WILL: Is your support of partial birth abortion firm?
Mayor GIULIANI: All of my positions are firm. I have strong viewpoints. I express them. And I--I do not think that it makes sense to be changing your position....
ABC News February 6, 2000

---

TUCHMAN: Giuliani was then asked whether he supports a ban on what critics call partial-birth abortions, something Bush strongly supports.
GIULIANI: No, I have not supported that, and I don't see my position on that changing.
- CNN December 2, 1999

---

BLITZER: If you were in the Senate and [President Clinton] vetoed, once again, the [ban on the] so-called partial-birth abortion procedure, you would vote against sustaining that against the -- in favor of the veto in other words, you would support the president on that.
GIULIANI: Yes. I said then that I support him, so I have no reason to change my mind about it.
BLITZER: All right. So the bottom line is that on a lot of these very sensitive issues whether on guns, abortion, patients' bill of rights, taxes, you are more in line with the president and by association, with Mrs. Clinton, than you are against them.
- CNN February 6, 2000

---

MR. RUSSERT: A banning of late-term abortions, so-called partial-birth abortions--you're against that?

MAYOR GIULIANI: I'm against it in New York, because in New York...

MR. RUSSERT: Well, if you were a senator, would you vote with the president or against the president? [Note: President Clinton was in office in 2000]

MAYOR GIULIANI: I would vote to preserve the option for women. I think that choice is a very difficult one. It's a very, very--it's one in which people of conscious have very, very different opinions. I think the better thing for America to do is to leave that choice to the woman, because it affects her probably more than anyone else....

MR. RUSSERT: So you won't change your view on late-term abortion in order to get the Conservative Party endorsement?

MAYOR GIULIANI: It isn't just that. We shouldn't limit this to one issue. I'm generally not going to change my views
- NBC Meet the Press, February 6, 2000

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***Note: the version of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban that Giuliani opposed in 2000, that he said he supported Bill Clinton in vetoing the Republican-controlled Congress's legislation, contained the exception for the life of the mother that Rudy is now trying to pretend is a prerequisite for his support of it.

[kinoxi]

You don't like Rudy.

[Spiff]

(((STOP RUDY PING)))

Giuliani/Clinton/Dem vs. GOP Platform Comparison
Issue	Giuliani	Clinton	Dem Platform	GOP Platform
Abortion on Demand	Supports	Supports	Supports	Opposes
Partial Birth Abortion	Supports Opposed NY ban	Supports	Supports	Opposes
Roe v. Wade	Supports	Supports	Supports	Opposes
Taxpayer Funded Abortions	Supports	Supports	Supports	Opposes
Embryonic Stem Cell Research	Supports	Supports	Supports	Opposes
Federal Marriage Amendment	Opposes	Opposes	Opposes Defined at state level	Supports
Gay Domestic Partnership/ Civil Unions	Supports	Supports	Supports	Opposes
Openly Gay Military	Supports	Supports	Supports	Opposes
Defense of Marriage Act	Opposes	Opposes	Opposes	Supports
Amnesty for Illegal Aliens	Supports	Supports	Supports	Opposes
Special Path to Citizenship for Illegal Aliens	Supports	Supports	Supports	Opposes
Tough Penalties for Employers of Illegal Aliens	Opposes	Opposes	Opposes	Supports
Sanctuary Cities/ Ignoring Immigration Law	Supports	Supports	Supports	Opposes
Protecting 2nd Amendment	Opposes	Opposes	Opposes Supports bans	Supports
Confiscating Guns	Supports Confiscated as mayor. Even bragged.	Supports	Supports Supports bans	Opposes
'Assault' Weapons Ban	Supports	Supports	Supports
Frivolous Lawsuits Against Gun Makers	Supports Filed One Himself	Supports		Opposes
Gun Registration/Licenses	Supports	Supports		Opposes
War in Afghanistan	Supports	Supports Voted for it	Supports	Supports
War in Iraq	Supports	Supports Voted for it	Supports Weak support	Supports
Patriot Act	Supports	Supports Voted for it 2001 & 2006	Opposes	Supports

"Most of Clinton's policies are very similar to most of mine." - Rudy Giuliani

To: Spiff

Looks pretty accurate to me.

230 posted on 02/10/2007 2:56:00 AM PST by Jim Robinson ("Electable" gave us Ford, Dole, Arnie. Voting for the "unelectable" right-wing kook gave us Ronnie.)

[Spiff]

You don't like Rudy.

I don't like liberals. Especially liberals who seek to hijack the Republican Party.

[David Isaac]

"And heres to you, Mr. Robinson."

A nail is seldom hit on the head as well as the one hit by Jim R., in that post.

[kinoxi]

I think he would make an effective VP.

[WKB]

BTTT and Thanks to Spiff,JR and others for keeping
the Truth about Rino Rudy on the front page.
NOBODY no matter how much SPAM they produce has convinced
me that Rino Rudy is the ONLY person in America
than can beat Hilary.
Interesting how far one RR is from the other.

[Types_with_Fist]

Is there a downloadable version of that graphic? I'd like to save and use it if possible.

[freedomfiter2]

"Murder and graffiti are two vastly different crimes," Rudy Giuliani once said. "But they are part of the same continuum, and a climate that tolerates one is more likely to tolerate the other."

The legalization of abortion and the Nazi holocaust are part of the same continuum. Where does that put Rudy. No pro-choice candidate is ever fit to be President. Changing your stated position to run for office doesn't change your lack of ethics.

[Fierce Allegiance]

You don't like Rudy.

Conservatives don't like Rudy.

[tkathy]

Rudy is a fiscal conservative, like countless others who vote republican.

[Hydroshock]

I know I will not vote for Rino Rudy.

[Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit]

Can someone explain to me why a Guiliani Presidency will be more damaging to the country than a Clinton Presidency?

[Hydroshock]

He is also a flaming liberal. Republicans do not vote for that.

[kinoxi]

He's got name recognition. I like him as VP.

[Hydroshock]

He has an r by his name. (sarcasm off)

[Vaquero]

I like Rudy....he should be Mayor of NY....they need him there....or he would make a much better Senator from NY than we have now.....

...but his elitist anti-gun, pro-abortion, attitude has no place as the Republican candidate for president....

....maybe he should go back to being a Democrat...which is what he is.

[Spiff]

Is there a downloadable version of that graphic? I'd like to save and use it if possible.

Assuming you're using Internet Explorer - just right-click on it and select "Save Picture as...". It's actually two graphics though. The photo of Giuliani with the thumbs up is just added right after the first graphic. If you want, I can make you a PDF of this in a flyer format if that would be useful to you.

The website that it came from is the highly respectable National Right to Life Committee at www.nrlc.org. They have an amazing amount of information about abortion and an excellent legislative action center.

[Types_with_Fist]

Can someone explain to me why a Guiliani Presidency will be more damaging to the country than a Clinton Presidency?

Is that what we're shooting for here? Someone who is no more damaging than the Clintons?

[noname07718]

How about Repubs who attempt to hijack the Republican party (RINOS).