Rudy doesn't have a combover.
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.
I saw this piece in the Newark (NJ) Star Ledger this morning. I figured that Spiff or one of his minions would post it on FR. I didn't think that I would get a Rudy ping with this tidbit.
Rudy is a tough guy. It is what it is. And as that great poet and philosopher Popeye said "I am what I am and that's all I am."
I lived in NYC when Rudy was mayor. Met him a few times. We didn't discuss federal funding for Embryonic Stem Cell research. The 45 second conversation at Yankee Stadium generally involved some handshakes and comments about Andy Pettitte's great pitching performance. Seemed like a nice guy to me. He was a nice guy to everyone unless you were a criminal or a squeezie pest.
You are assuming that the Union Leader and the single-issue obsessives will get the better of Rudy -- that they'll look better than he will. Don't bet on it.
Correction. Rudy took NO CRAP. Which is a major reason I love him.
Retrospectively, Harry Truman is held in pretty high regard by the electorate.
We keep hearing that.
What if you're wrong?
You think people are being hard on Rudy here, you should have heard some of the things people here were saying about Bush during the 2000 primaries.
I think that George Bush means well, but has had it too easy all his life, he had wealthy parents who sent to the best schools, where he was well liked and relatively successful. When he got into the business world, he had enough money behind him to allow him to dabble in various undertakings without worrying about where his next meal was coming from if he failed. I don't think that it ever occurred to him that people would hate him for being who he is and he still can't believe that he can't turn them around.
What we've had in W. is a president who is right on all but a couple of our issues, but neither understands nor fights the Democrats. Give me a fighter any day....
GWB doesn't seem to understand that being nice to democrats is the same as being nice to islamofascists......they will both smile at you and then stab you in the back and stomp on you.
Yes, that's part of the problem. Another, I believe, is his particular understanding of what it means to be a Christian.
Another problem is the country-club Republican mindset, which Bush Senior embodies and GWB has absorbed far more of than his fans think. The country-club Republican is not only a moderate at heart, but sees all politicians (except those on the "extremes") as being in the same business and having more in common than not. They look down on those who want their politicians to fight. It's pretty clear that W. thinks this way too.
Yes.
Ah, you bring back so many happy memories, area!
Remember when all the horribly racist Korean deli boycotts ended once Rudy took office?
Remember when all pograms involving innocent Jews in Brooklyn ended once Rudy took office?
Remember Rudy on his radio show taking on a negligent mom when she dared to blame him for her son's criminal career? (What a difference from Bloomberg who will only take positive phone calls!)
Remember when Act-Up thought better of entering St. Patrick's cathedral and physically attacking the sacred host during a Mass?
Remember when all the harrassing homeless crack-headed freaks were run out of town?
Remember riding on clean, graffiti-less subways?
Remember walking home at night (say about 12:00am on a summer night) and not coming across one mugger?
I have met Guiliani three times. Admittedly, in public places. He was always gracious to those who approached him. I'm sure he's as tough as nails behind the scene and I say he's the best!
Rudy doesn't have a combover.
Not anymore..
Too moderate?
LOL!
That's not Rudy's problem!
The reason liberal hate Rudy (and not all of them do) is because of the (R) after his name.
Actually, in reading this thread, I get the notion that Rudy will be much tougher to defeat than the Duncan Hunter partisans think.
Why?
Because he's a tough guy, and one of the big perceived problems with Bush has been an insufficient toughness level.
Is Duncan Hunter as tough? Can he stand up to the bad guys? Frankly, I don't think there's anyone else in the Presidential candidate field with Rudy's degree of toughness.
In these tough times, a tough guy could go the distance.
And probably should.
D
The reaction to this hit piece might be indicative of what is going to happen with all mean-spirited criticism of Rudy: it's going to backfire. Because he is a whole person, and not a politician upon whom everyone has sat, whatever he does is going to ring true to his personality, and those who get it will continue to get it.
Sounds familiar...like Clinton.
I'd forgotten all that, Miss Marmelstein! What a good memory you have, and all the more glad I am that Rudy is the frontrunner. Thanks for the march down memory lane.
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