Posted on 03/10/2007 9:24:06 PM PST by Angel
The deluge of commentary on Rudolph Giuliani’s presidential prospects has forced me finally to break my long silence about the man. Somebody’s gotta say it: He shouldn’t be president, not because he’s too “liberal” or “conservative,” or because his positions on social issues have been heterodox, or because he seems tone-deaf on race, or because his family life has been messy, or because he’s sometimes been as crass an opportunist as almost every other politician of note. Rudy Giuliani shouldn’t be president for reasons more profoundly troubling. Maybe you had to be with him at the start of his electoral career to see them clearly.
Throughout the fall, 1993 New York mayoral campaigns, I tried harder than any other columnist I know of to convince left-liberal friends and everyone else that Giuliani would win and probably should.
In the Daily News, the New Republic, and on cable and network TV, I insisted it had come to this because racial “Rainbow” and welfare-state politics were imploding nationwide, not just in New York and not only thanks to racists, Ronald Reagan, or robber barons. One didn’t have to share all of Giuliani’s “colorblind,” “law-and-order,” and free-market presumptions to want big shifts in liberal Democratic paradigms and to see that some of those shifts would require a political battering ram, not a scalpel.
I spent a lot of time with Giuliani during the 1993 campaign and his first year in City Hall, and while a dozen of my columns criticized him sharply for presuming far too much, I defended most of his record to the end of his tenure. He forced New York, that great capital of “root cause” explanations for every social problem, to get real about remedies that work, at least for now, in the world as we know it. I saw Al Sharpton blink as I told him in a debate that twice as many New Yorkers had been felled by police bullets during David Dinkins’ four-year mayoralty as during Giuliani’s then-seven years and that the drop in all murders meant that at least two thousand black and Hispanic New Yorkers who’d have been dead were up and walking around.
Giuliani’s successes ranged well beyond crime reduction. As late as July, 2001, when his personal and political blunders had eclipsed those gains and he had only a lame duck’s six months to go, I insisted in a New York Observer column that he’d facilitated housing, entrepreneurial, and employment gains for people whose loudest-mouthed advocates called him a racist reactionary. James Chapin, the late democratic socialist savant, considered Giuliani a “progressive conservative” like Teddy Roosevelt, who was a New York police commissioner before becoming Vice President and President.
Yet Giuliani’s methods and motives suggest he couldn’t carry his skills and experience to the White House without damaging this country. Two problems run deeper than the current likely “horse race” liabilities, such as his social views and family history.
The first serious problem is structural and political: A man who fought the inherent limits of his mayoral office as fanatically as Giuliani would construe presidential prerogatives so broadly he’d make George Bush’s notions of “unitary” executive power seem soft.
Even in the 1980s, as an assistant attorney general in the Reagan Justice Department and U.S. Attorney in New York, Giuliani was imperious and overreaching. He "perp-walked" Wall Streeters right out of their offices in dramatic prosecutions that failed. He made the troubled daughter of a state judge, Hortense Gabel, testify against her mother and former Miss America Bess Meyerson in a failed prosecution charging, among other things, that Meyerson had hired the judge’s daughter to bribe her into helping “expedite” a messy divorce case. The jury was so put off by Giuliani’s tactics that it acquitted all concerned, as the Washington Post recalled ten years later in assessing Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr’s subpoena of Monica Lewinsky’s mother to testify against her daughter.
At least, as U.S. Attorney, Giuliani served at the pleasure of the President and had to defer to federal judges. Were he the President, U.S. Attorneys would serve at his pleasure -- a dangerous arrangement in the wrong hands, we’ve learned -- and he’d pick the judges to whom prosecutors defer.
As mayor, Giuliani fielded his closest aides like a fast and sometimes brutal hockey team, micro-managing and bludgeoning city agencies and even agencies that weren’t his, like the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Board of Education. They deserved it richly enough to make his bravado thrilling to many of us, but it wasn’t very productive. And while this Savonarola disdained even would-be allies in other branches of government, he wasn’t above cutting indefensible deals with crony contractors and pandering shamelessly to some Hispanics, orthodox Jews, and other favored constituencies.
Even the credit he claimed for transportation, housing and safety improvements belongs partly and sometimes wholly to predecessors’ decisions and to economic good luck: As he left office the New York Times noted that on his first day as mayor in 1994, the Dow Jones had stood at 3754.09, while on his last day, Dec. 31, 2001, it opened at 10,136.99: “For most of his tenure, the city’s treasury gushed with revenues generated by Wall Street.” Dinkins had had to struggle through the after-effects the huge crash of 1987.
Remarkable though Giuliani’s mayoral record remains, it’s complicated further by more than socio-economic circumstances and structural constraints. Ironically, it was his most heroic moments as mayor that spotlighted his deepest presidential liability. Fred Siegel, author of the Giuliani-touting Prince of the City, posed the problem recently when he wondered why, after Giuliani’s 1997 mayoral reelection, with the city buoyed by its new safety and economic success, he wasn’t “able to turn his Churchillian political personality down a few notches."
I’ll tell you why: Giuliani’s 9/11 performance was sublime for the unnerving reason that he’d been rehearsing for it all his adult life and remained trapped in that stage role. When his oldest friend and deputy mayor Peter Powers told me in 1994 that 16-year-old Rudy had started an opera club at Bishop Loughlin High School in Brooklyn, I didn’t have to connect too many of the dots I’d been seeing to begin noticing that Giuliani at times acted like an opera fanatic who’s living in a libretto as much as in the real world.
In private, Rudy can contemplate the human comedy with a Machiavellian prince’s supple wit. But when he walks on stage, he tenses up so much that even his efforts to lighten up seem labored. What drove him as mayor was a zealot’s graceless division of everyone into friend or foe and his snarling, sometimes histrionic, vilifications of the foes. Those are operatic emotions, beneath the civic dignity of a great city and its chief magistrate.
Of course, I know more than a few New Yorkers who deserve the Rudy treatment, but only on 9/11 did the city really become as operatic as the inside of Rudy’s mind. For once, New York re-arranged itself into a stage fit for, say, Rossini’s “Le Siege de Corinth” or some dark, nationalist epic by Verdi or Puccini that ends with bodies strewn all over and the tragic but noble hero grieving for his devastated people and, perhaps, foretelling a new dawn.
Giuliani called the Metropolitan Opera only a few days after 9/11 and insisted its performances resume. At the first of these, the orchestra, striking up a few well-known chords, brought the entire cast, Met administrative, secretarial, and custodial staff (who'd come up onstage), and the capacity audience to their feet to sing “The Star Spangled Banner” with unprecedented passion. A few days later Giuliani proposed that his term be extended on an “emergency” basis beyond its lawful end on January 1, 2002. (It wasn’t, and the city did as well as it could have, anyway.)
Should this country suffer another devastating attack before the 2008 primaries are over, Giuliani’s presidential prospects may soar beyond recalling. But the very Constitutional notion of recall could soar away with them. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and Giuliani was right for his time and on a stage with built-in limits. But we shouldn’t have to make him the next President to learn why even a grateful Britain dumped Churchill in its first major election after V-E day.
I guess you didn't get the point...
Nominating Rudy IS supporting Hillary...
The only way she can win is to split the Republican vote and I know of no better way to do that than nominate a pro-abortion gun-grabber.
"Well, don`t vote in November for Rudy if he`s the nominee. Hillorat will be so happy. And, the pro-life and pro-gun causes certainly will be advanced in the Ms. Clinton administration, right?"
I think you got it backwards FRiend. See the letter below you'll be getting from President Rodman if you decide to support Rudy...
Dear RINO Rudy Supporters,
I want to thank you for your wonderful support in helping to get me elected POTUS. Bill and I are so thrilled to be back in the White House again. Your active support for Rudy, and getting him nominated, was the key to me winning. Without your help Bill and I would not be here today.
Affectionately Yours,
President Hillary Rodman
P.S. I plan to nominate Rudy to the Supreme Court as soon as there is a vacancy. He will help us tilt the court back in our favor to assure that millions more unborn babies will never see the light of day. After all, it's every woman's right!
P.S.S. As you may recall, my campaign slogan was, "We're Going to Take Things Away From You on Behalf of the Common Good". ALL YOUR POSSESIONS BELONG TO ME---YEEHAAAA!!!!
we had better hang it all up and cash it in as a nation.
for the "good"
No, I understood it prefectly. It's BS. I don't care what lies the left employs the epithet against anyone to the right of them same doesn't mean that the two targets are the same. Yours is a false analogy.
You don't understand what fascism is or how it is sold. Need I remind you how the European fascists of the 30s came to power by election? They were selling public order and safety. That's Rudy's appeal.
Anyone who robs people of their right of self-defense to be replaced by a system of police chasing down minute violations of laws subject to selective enforcement is a fascist. No matter how effective that system might have been, no matter how much better you think the city has become, that's what it is: fascism.
But, that doesn't mean he's like Hitler.
I didn't say he's like Hitler; I said he's a fascist, just like Arnold. They're two peas in a pod:
Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do and how you do it. Rudy Giuliani
Thanks! At times lately I think I've accidentally logged into DUng... ;^)
A MAJOR thumbs up!
He even tells you why: "One didn’t have to share all of Giuliani’s “colorblind,” “law-and-order,” and free-market presumptions to want big shifts in liberal Democratic paradigms".
So Sleeper and the rest of the New York Left hate Rudy for three things:
1) Colorblind policies
2) Emphasis on law and order
3) Presumption in favor of free markets.
Hey Carry-Okie--from one okie to another--you make me proud! Great post!
Are you saying that people carrying handguns would have produced the same decrease in violent crime that Giuliani's law enforcement policies achieved? I understand perfectly well what fascism is and how it's sold. I know more about it than you do. No amount of exaggeration and hysteria will change the fact that he is not a fascist. NYC did not become a police-state. I don't support Giuliani for President, but if he's elected, this country will not become a police state. The statement you quote is out of context. I'd like to see the rest of what he had to say. Prior to becoming President, Reagan had a reputation as Governor of California that was seen by his enemies as fascist. He was a hard-line law and order advocate who's anti-crime policies were for "public order and safety." He used force against Anti-Viet Nam war demonstrators. He was compared to Hitler. Reagan was not a fascist. Giuliani is not a fascist.
No, better.
I understand perfectly well what fascism is and how it's sold. I know more about it than you do.
I doubt that seriously.
I don't support Giuliani for President, but if he's elected, this country will not become a police state.
I don't believe that. One act of terrorism and he'll have all the weapons he needs. His antipathy to the Fourth and Fifth Amendments as a US Attorney is all I need as evidence of his propensities.
Prior to becoming President, Reagan had a reputation as Governor of California that was seen by his enemies as fascist.
As a person who was living in a city adjoining Berkekey at the time of People's Park demonstrations I can say unequivocally that the reputation and the reality were two different things. Really, you don't know what you are talking about if you make that comparison. Reagan was unbelievably tolerant against deliberate violent provocation by dedicated and well funded communists, something Rudy never faced. These people belonged to organizations that had used bombs and were photographed carrying automatic weapons.
Reagan was not a fascist. Giuliani is not a fascist.
No sale, and I know a damned sight more about Bratton's "Broken Window" theory than you realize.
The left loves him. N.A.R.A.L., the National Abortion Rights Action League, even had Rudy as their speaker at their "Champions of Choice" Lunch. Rudy marches with the Stonewall organization in their gay "pride" parades.
I lived for 8 years with Giuliani as my Mayor. I did not live in a police state. Only Liberals thought that Giuliani was a fascist running a police state in NYC. The Conservatives I know loved him. Only Liberals I know hated him. They called his quality of life crime policies fascist. He was a fascist for cleaning up porn shops and the street crime it attracted. A fascist for not allowing homeless street people to sleep on the city streets, the subways and in train and bus terminals. A fascist for saying that taxpayer money should not go to support the anti-Christian Brooklyn Museum exhibit. A fascist for cracking down on street drug activity. There are many more examples. The idea that he would use a terrorist act as an excuse to become a dictator is the same line we get from his enemies on the Left. Your version of reality is in line with his DemonRat enemies. I thought he was a RINO Liberal? Now, he's a would-be fascist dictator. Which is it?
That's a funny line; intentional or not. LOL
FR polls are not only meaningless, but utter piffle.
In many respects they are. A better way to have dealt with it would have been liability law.
I thought he was a RINO Liberal? Now, he's a would-be fascist dictator. Which is it?
Excuse me, but fascism IS SOCIALIST; it is a creature of the left, not conservatism. The NAZIs were the National Socialist Workers Party. They believed collective rights superceded individual rights. They believed in gun control. They believed in neo-pagan nature worship. Many of their top leaders were gay.
RINO Rudy supports all of those things. That fits too.
The Left loves Giuliani? Go to DU or some other Leftist forum and tell them that. They will think that's ridiculous. All Mayors and other public officials in NYC march in parades. That does not mean they agree with the organizers of it. There are public officials who march in the St. Patrick's Day parade in spite of the fact that they disagree with the policy that forbids Irish gay groups from marching. It's just standard politics.
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