Posted on 03/07/2007 1:00:20 PM PST by garv
Forget about whether Rudy Giuliani is too moderate to win over the conservatives who dominate the nomination process in the Republican Party. The real story is whether the opera buff's nascent presidential bid will be crushed under the weight of the Pucciniesque life of the 107th mayor of New York.
We all know about the first wife who was his second cousin, the second wife who found out she was being divorced while watching television and the third wife who was barred by court order from the mayor's residence or from meeting Giuliani's children, Andrew and Caroline, there before the divorce was final.
Now come the public comments from Andrew that he won't be stumping for pops in Iowa, New Hampshire or anywhere else. Not only did he say "I have problems with my father," but he also added, "There's obviously a little problem that exists between me and his wife."
If past is prologue, the younger Giuliani's phone must have crackled with Rudy rage once his comments came to light. See, when Giuliani was mayor, he brooked no criticism - no matter how minor, no matter how constructive. Having been on the receiving end of one of Giuliani's withering verbal assaults, I know of what I speak.
The phone rang around 9 a.m. on Jan. 7, 1999. It was Giuliani's personal assistant, Beth Patrone. "Please hold for the mayor." He had never called me before. His skin-peeling tirades against reporters, politicians, community leaders, perceived enemies and those deemed too weak to fight City Hall were legendary. Now it was my turn.
Giuliani was spitting fire over my column in that morning's New York Daily News, in which I likened his second term to the sitcom "Seinfeld." The thesis was summed up in the first paragraph: "The show has been reincarnated as Mayor Giuliani's second term, which has turned into a term about nothing."
"Jonathan," he said.
"Good morning, Mr. Mayor," I said, "How ..."
For the next 10 minutes, Giuliani ripped me apart, calling my column "intellectually dishonest," among other things. He hung up when he couldn't find a favorable editorial that I'd written on his State of the City speech the previous year. But he called back, spouting off the headline and launching into another 10-minute monologue.
I tell this story because it points to other aspects of hizzoner's personality that were more troublesome.
Giuliani could be vindictive. He had no qualms about using government to settle a score. When the City Council overrode his veto of a bill to change the operations of homeless shelters in December 1998, Giuliani sought to evict five community service programs, including one that served 500 mentally ill people, in the district of the bill's chief sponsor, and to replace them with a homeless shelter.
What's more, he released a list of sites for other shelters that would be housed in the districts of council members who voted in favor of the override. (He backed down two months later, after much public outrage.)
Rather than take the high road earlier that year, Giuliani erupted when the Rev. Calvin O. Butts, a prominent Harlem minister who had endorsed Giuliani for reelection, said, "I don't believe he likes black people." In fact, Giuliani put a lockdown on city funding for projects affiliated with the politically connected cleric.
But it was his reaction to racially charged incidents involving the police that highlighted Giuliani's other affliction: tone-deafness.
Amadou Diallo was reaching for his wallet when undercover police officers gunned him down in a hail of 41 bullets in the vestibule of his apartment building in 1999. New Yorkers of all colors and political stripes trouped to police headquarters to be arrested in protest of not only the officers' actions but also of Giuliani's inability to grasp why everyone was appalled by what happened.
The visionary mayor who brought law and order to the ungovernable city and who became the face of a bloodied but unbowed nation on Sept. 11, 2001, was a difficult mayor. Many wonder whether the trauma of that day has mellowed Giuliani. We'll soon know. There's nothing like the stress of a presidential campaign to find out for sure.
Jonathan Capehart is a member of the Washington Post's editorial page staff.
And just what NYC needed to resuscitate the Big Apple from the morass that was the Dinkins Administration.
Meh, mixed feelings. Perhaps NYC could have been (begun to be) turned around by a personally NICER mayor. Perhaps, however, it was like The Joker said in the Batman movie, "This town needs an enema!"
Gee, how awful it would be to have a President that would tell off intellectually dishonest reporters...Yeah, that would really suck.
Contrast this to Romney's smooth handling of the smarmy reported who claim "I represent the people" to which he responded with a classic but polite put-down as follows: "No you do not. You represent the media. I represent the people."
NYC, fine. I'm not real comfortable with a President who reads the editorial pages and goes into a tirade or uses the power of his office to retaliate against his enemies.
Yeah he`s got his faults but I just loved the way he kicked Arafat in the ass. "Get tha hell outta my city ya bum!" Wish he was Mayor when those two other bums Chavez and Pres of Iran, Mahmoud Im-a-mad-idiot were here for their UN arse kissing. It drove me up the wall how those two got their rear ends kissed, police escorts, streets shut down, blocks closed around their hotels like they were Royalty. Screw that, Guliani would have set them up in the Bowery with crackheads where they belong.
By Jason Maoz
JewishPress.com | October 28, 2005
Ten years ago this week, the UN was marking its fiftieth anniversary with a series of events around New York City, including an Oct. 23 invitation-only Lincoln Center concert performed by the New York Philharmonic for a glittering list of dignitaries and diplomats. When Rudy Giuliani spotted Yasser Arafat and his entourage making their way to a private box seat near the stage that evening, the mayor immediately ordered the Palestinian leader off the premises.
Yes, most WAPO reporters are all those things but that's besides the point.
The reason liberals hate Giuliani is he proved all their theories wrong. He took their ideas of decay and threw them in the wastebasket.
They will never forgive how he made them look like jackasses. Now Rudy may not be the best guy in the world, but he's leagues ahead of the whining liberals who makeover NYC into a festering hole.
At that point, liberals told us NYC was ungovernable (so we should get used to it). The only salvation for us was they were taking care of the poor downtrodden masses who would cut our throats if we didn't provide the liberal solution.
Rudy ended all that. And then he ended them as a political force in NYC.
They were just laughingstocks after Rudy got down with their treasured projects.
How about a President that uses the power of his office to punish political enemies? Sound Familiar?
Sounds like a damn blessing after all these years of Bush just taking it and saying "Please, sir, may I have another?".
yes, he fights back - so the media describes him as "thin skinned", because he would dare speak up.
they prefer republicans who roll over.
anybody who thinks this isn't true of giuliani should research ny magazine v city of new york - rudy lost the case on first amendment grounds. Basically tried to deny NY magazine ad space on city buses because their ad poked fun at him.
and the problem with him fighting back against lying, scumbag reporters is...?
Sounds alot like Bill Clinton.
And thinner scalp.. When the combover went anything conservative went too..
Depends on who his enemies are? If they are enemies of America, then I say, Good!
They would be cheering him on if this hit piece were about Duncan Hunter, or Ann Coulter. Fighting back is seen as a good quality around here....some times.
There is a difference between fighting back and being the Mayor of a city of eight million and spending 20 minutes on the phone berating some moron columnist for the Daily News.
I could deal with that, but using government power to punish political enemies is a rather Clintonian personality trait. Taken as a whole the picture is of a petty, vindictive man. We all talk about McCain being unstable, I don't know if I want this guy to have the power of the Feds at his disposal.
Nahhhhh,,,,Bill Clinton didn't have a lisp.
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