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.
Did she go to jail? Was she placed on probation? Is she considered a convicted felon in the eyes of the law?
I for one am sick and tired of simply settling for the lesser of two evil candidates the GOP puts in front of us. This time I'm voting on principal, I'm voting for a pork barrel big spending Republican. Vote Duncan Hunter!
"Do you really believe the outcome is the same if you have Hillary or Giuliani as President?"
Pretty much so, yes. Since Rudy has stated that his policies and the Clowntoon's are just about a complete match. Doesn't THAT sound any warning bells for you?
..like I said--because he's too liberal...
A backbencher, who is BIG on PORK, BIG GOVERNMENT, BIG on hobbling the stock market and American business, who gives BIG defense contracts to a pal, who can't do the job, so OUT SOURCES the technical work to some firm in INDIA, whilst screaming that AMERICAN WORKERS and JOBS have to be protected, and whose campaign manager is tarred with Abramoff? Gee, okay, you've convinced me; I guess I really HAVE TO support a rumpled, dour, nothing moves but his lips, when he talks in a monotone guy.
Don't knock it...those appear to be conservative virtues these days.
I have no idea why. Unless he did it on a bet for $10,000,000 and gave the money to charity, I can't think of a good reason.
Posting them do you and your pals no good at all; it just makes you look ridiculous and Rudy look better and better and BETTER! :-)
Right. Then why are you so upset?
We don't have his Congressional voting record to go by.
It's pretty PATHETIC when information about liberalism on a conservative forum is considered spam.
I didn't. I said Giuliani was fascist, in the classical sense of a method of governance and without regard to the murderous record of its most notable archetypes.
From Human Events:
Rudy's Strong Pro-Abortion Stance
As these comments from a 1989 conversation with Phil Donahue show, Rudy Giuliani is staunchly in favor of abortion:
"I've said that I'll uphold a woman's right of choice, that I will fund abortion so that a poor woman is not deprived of a right that others can exercise, and that I would oppose going back to a day in which abortions were illegal.
I do that in spite of my own personal reservations. I have a daughter now; if a close relative or a daughter were pregnant, I would give my personal advice, my religious and moral views ...
Donahue: Which would be to continue the pregnancy.
Giuliani: Which would be that I would help her with taking care of the baby. But if the ultimate choice of the woman - my daughter or any other woman - would be that in this particular circumstance [if she had] to have an abortion, I'd support that. I'd give my daughter the money for it."
Worse yet, Giuliani even supports partial birth abortion:
"I'm pro-choice. I'm pro-gay rights,Giuliani said. He was then asked whether he supports a ban on what critics call partial-birth abortions. "No, I have not supported that, and I don't see my position on that changing," he responded." -- CNN.com, "Inside Politics" Dec 2, 1999
It's bad enough that Rudy is so adamantly pro-abortion, but consider what that could mean when it comes time to select Supreme Court Justices. Does the description of Giuliani that you've just read make you think he's going to select an originalist like Clarence Thomas, who would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade -- or does it make you think he would prefer justices like Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy who'd leave Roe v. Wade in place?
Rudy's abortion stance is bad news for conservatives who are pro-life or who are concerned about getting originalist judges on the Supreme Court.
An Anti-Second Amendment Candidate
In the last couple of election cycles, 2nd Amendment issues have moved to the back burner mainly because even Democratic candidates have learned that being tagged with the "gun grabber" label is political poison.
Unfortunately, Rudy Giuliani is a proponent of gun control who supported the Brady Bill and the Assault Weapon Ban.
Do Republicans really want to abandon their strong 2nd Amendment stance by selecting a pro-gun control nominee?
From Human Events:
Rudy's Strong Pro-Abortion Stance
As these comments from a 1989 conversation with Phil Donahue show, Rudy Giuliani is staunchly in favor of abortion:
"I've said that I'll uphold a woman's right of choice, that I will fund abortion so that a poor woman is not deprived of a right that others can exercise, and that I would oppose going back to a day in which abortions were illegal.
I do that in spite of my own personal reservations. I have a daughter now; if a close relative or a daughter were pregnant, I would give my personal advice, my religious and moral views ...
Donahue: Which would be to continue the pregnancy.
Giuliani: Which would be that I would help her with taking care of the baby. But if the ultimate choice of the woman - my daughter or any other woman - would be that in this particular circumstance [if she had] to have an abortion, I'd support that. I'd give my daughter the money for it."
Worse yet, Giuliani even supports partial birth abortion:
"I'm pro-choice. I'm pro-gay rights,Giuliani said. He was then asked whether he supports a ban on what critics call partial-birth abortions. "No, I have not supported that, and I don't see my position on that changing," he responded." -- CNN.com, "Inside Politics" Dec 2, 1999
It's bad enough that Rudy is so adamantly pro-abortion, but consider what that could mean when it comes time to select Supreme Court Justices. Does the description of Giuliani that you've just read make you think he's going to select an originalist like Clarence Thomas, who would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade -- or does it make you think he would prefer justices like Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy who'd leave Roe v. Wade in place?
Rudy's abortion stance is bad news for conservatives who are pro-life or who are concerned about getting originalist judges on the Supreme Court.
An Anti-Second Amendment Candidate
In the last couple of election cycles, 2nd Amendment issues have moved to the back burner mainly because even Democratic candidates have learned that being tagged with the "gun grabber" label is political poison.
Unfortunately, Rudy Giuliani is a proponent of gun control who supported the Brady Bill and the Assault Weapon Ban.
Do Republicans really want to abandon their strong 2nd Amendment stance by selecting a pro-gun control nominee?
He was talking about when Clinton was finally railroaded into signing the welfare bill and lowering the capital gains tax.
It doesn't mean that EVERYONE here has to agree with his words.
The INNER CIRCLE DINNERR is a well established event, in N.Y.C. ( with comperable events in other cities, BTW ), in which politicos and parts of the MSM have dinner and perform skits FOR CHARITY! The INNER CIRCLE raises a lot of money and gives it to TWENTY different charities, every spring. Every single mayor, for decades, has performed in this event. Like the one in D.C., where the president comes on last, does jokes, so does the mayor of N.Y.C. come on last and does a song and sometimes dance and always jokes.
Besides the skit in the pink dress ( which was a Marilyn Monroe spoof ) he has also appeared at the ICD riding onto the stage on a HARLEY ( why don't you and your ilk ever post those...could it be that it doesn't serve your extremely biased view of things? ), and in other costumes as well.
Rudy repeated the skit on SNL and also on a cable T.V. show,raising $100,000 more for the Disaster Relief Fund, ONE MONTH AFTER 9/11!
He appeared with the Radio City Music-hall ( pictures of same have also been posted to FR ) to raise money for POOR CHILDREN'S CHRISTMAS PRESENTS.
No, he isn't a cross dresser. No, he didn't do any of these things because he's some kind of "weirdo", but rather, he put himself out there for a GOOD reason. So do many other men, in and out of politics.
I am not "upset" at all; though I do admit to being surprised at the abject, mordant stupidity of some posters here and at the ridiculous lengths that they will go to, to make themselves and FR look worse than DU.
LOL
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