The Full Rudy: The Man, the Mayor, the Myth

The Nation ^ | 05/30/2002 | Jack Newfield

[garv]

In your defense I saw this article some time back and chose not to post it because of the source, but Jack Newfield, while a flaming lib was a well-known columnist in NY and wrote for a number of publications more mainstream than the Nation.

Personally, I think we should post and evaluate these articles regardless of the source. Within the past few weeks I've read a couple pieces by strident leftists gleefully hoping for a Giuliani nomination. Evidently they feel that his personal life and social positions will destroy the GOP's "family and traditional values" appeal.

Unfortunately, I think they're right.

[carton253]

Oh, excuse me... because when I read your post... it read like it had been written by one who was clearly offended.

[Non-Sequitur]

I want to know if any of the information in this article is DEMONSTRABLY false. If so, we need to know before the primaries.

So far you're spot on. People are attacking the messanger and not refuting the message.

Liberal rag or not, is the information true? Did city spending spiral out of control while Giuliani was mayor? Were his polls as bad as the story says they were in 2000? Are the quotes attributed to him accurate? And most of all, has he been as politically expedient in terms of party affiliation as has been claimed?

[Valin]

If the Nation doesn't like him then he must be doing something right.

[dirtboy]

Most of the "negatives" in this article I consider to be positives for Rudy, such as wanting to blow up the existing school system. If the Nation hates it, it can't be all bad.

However, this IMO is the most interesting part of the article:

In Giuliani's first year as Mayor, 1994, his politics were fairly liberal. He supported gay rights and gun control, he was pro-choice and he was pro-immigrant. He named Joan Malin, a holdover from the Dinkins administration, to be his director of homeless services. Giuliani stunned most observers by breaking with the Republican Party and endorsing liberal Democrat Mario Cuomo for re-election as governor in 1994, over Republican George Pataki.

Cuomo lost, but on that same day the Republicans won a majority in the US Senate and gained fifty-three seats in the House, setting the table for Newt Gingrich to become Speaker. Giuliani, the chameleon who even confused his own mother, quickly lurched to the right. He read the November 1994 election as a sea change in American politics. He wanted to swim with the new tide.

This confirms what I believe is in Rudy's core: nothing. He is first and foremost a political opportunist who will say what needs to be said to win an election and will then go with whatever direction the political winds are blowing. Which we are seeing now with his swing away from gun control. But I see nothing in his soul to keep him on that course if he wins the Oval Office - and the last president with no moral compass, Bill Clinton, was a disaster for the office, just as Bush's conservative blind spots (mostly on spending and amnesty) have severely hurt the GOP cause.

It is one thing to compromise to build a coalition to gain power. It is another to compromise values to gain power. And the worst is when there are no values to compromise, just a lust for power.

[pissant]

Nope. Happy to clear that up though.

[Ultra Sonic 007]

Thanks. That's what I'm after.

[silverleaf]

I am not a "Rudy supporter", not yet.

But I stopped at the part about his divorce lawyers "savagely attacking" Donna Hanover.

I have done some background reading on Donna Hanover. Ouch. She ran Rudy through the wringer and then some. This is not a graceful or dignified woman. Playing the victim while attenuating their divorce, using Gracie mansion and the Giluiani childrne as props- not the actions that made me feel sympathy for her.

When Rudy was stepping out on her- why did she stay married to him? Ambition and malice. Not an attractive combination of character features. Had Rudy not developed cancer, Donna planned to star off Broadway as a talking vagina ("The Vagina Monologues") - just to get in Rudy's face. What a sweet example of style for the City of NY and for her children.

I think it is somewhat to Rudy's credit he has largely failed to publicly expose the hell (mutually incited) of their family life. Or mention whether he ever asked her for a divorce (all the scandal mongers like to say he announced their separation without consulting her) and was refused and was instead subjected to every humiliation a bitter wrathful wife could find. Because this is the path Donna chose after Rudy went public with his divorce request. She stalled the divorce proceedings and abused their family life and image of the office of the NY Mayor until SHE was ready to file for a divorce from HIM.

So puh-leeze, let's admit there were at least two sets of vicious lawyers involved here. Read the divorce proceeding transcripts (the ones publicly available) and you may get some better insight into life with Donna Hanover. Like how she demanded $1400 per month support for her dog. There are always at least two sides to a story!

[Alberta's Child]

New York City DID have a huge deficit -- even before the end of Giuliani's second term in 2001. The city's fiscal fortunes are closely tied to its Wall Street brokerage houses, so tax revenues dropped precipitously after the stock market crashed in 2000.

While The Nation is a left-wing rag and has no credibility as a publication, it's worth noting that Jack Newfield -- the author of this piece -- was a regular beat reporter who covered the city for one of New York's two daily tabloids (I believe it was the NY Post) for years. He's put his own spin on the Giuliani administration here, but I don't see anything factually wrong in the article.

Ironically, he never even mentions some of the biggest reasons why CONSERVATIVES never liked Giuliani.

[sitetest]

"Rudy Giuliani was a C-plus Mayor who has become an A-plus myth."

Nah... I'd give him a solid B. Even a B+. New York City improved a lot under his administration, even if it didn't quite become the Eden that some of his supporters allege.

It just doesn't make him worthy of a vote for president. That's all.


sitetest

[garv]

In terms of party affiliation, here's a quote from Rep. Peter King (who recently endorsed Giuliani) from 1998.

More recently, Liz Trotta had this to say in the Washington Times (8/25/98): “Thirty years ago, Rep. Peter King, a GOP congressman from Long Island worked alongside Mr. Giuliani when they were interns in Richard M. Nixon’s law firm. In those days, Mr. King recalled, the mayor was a “radical left” supporter of activists like Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown. “He didn’t think much of Republicans then,” said Mr. King, “except maybe Rocky” — former Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York. Citing the mayor’s stands on abortion and homosexual rights, Mr. King described Mr. Giuliani as “too liberal” and “too temperamental” to be a GOP presidential choice.

[neocon1984]

One true way to know the measure of a man or woman is by their enemies. IMO, if The (Stalinist) Nation is so opposed to Rudy, then my misgivings about some of his liberal positions are partly assuaged.

[Gop1040]

"The Nation is a liberal equivalent of the Weekly Standard."

I can stomach conservative hit pieces but, The Nation??? If you've ever seen and heard that smug, snippy, and elitist editor of The Nation (Katrina vander Heuvel) on Fox, CNN, or MSNBC, you'll want to throw a brick at the TV. She's an avowed socialist and a closet communist. Why post this trash?

[veronica]

I haven't actually heard of the Nation before.

Well, then you must be quite the naif, about politics anyway.

[zarf]

I'd give him a solid B as well.

His fault is that he over reaches as he did with the hot dog vendors.

He will, without a doubt, overreach as president as he always does and eventually get spanked.

However, he's an SOB and I think an SOB is the only person who will get anything done regarding entitlement reforms, against intransigent unions blocking school choice etc...

[Alberta's Child]

Excellent point. I would also add that Rudy Giuliani was just as liberal in 1999-2000 as he had been in 1993 -- because he had his eye on the 2000 U.S. Senate race.

I wouldn't trust this jack@ss to lead me out of a burning house.

[veronica]

The Duncan Donuts crowd went bonkers when I posted ONE anti-Hunter article from a left-wing source, just an example of what is out there about him (his connections to Randy Cunningham). Yet we are challenged regularly to defend Rudy against old charges from leftwingnuts. *sigh*

[trisham]

I've read up to post 34, and have seen no proof that anything in this article is incorrect. Slams against the Nation and Hanover, but nothing to refute its claims.

[Ultra Sonic 007]

Katrina vander Heuvel

I have honestly never heard of this woman.

I looked at the Nation's front page, saw liberal ads, and assumed it was a Left-leaning publication.

[Ultra Sonic 007]

The Duncan Donuts crowd went bonkers when I posted ONE anti-Hunter article from a left-wing source, just an example of what is out there about him (his connections to Randy Cunningham). Yet we are challenged regularly to defend Rudy against old charges from leftwingnuts.

Did they refute it with factual information? I distinctly recall that being the case.

I would like that to be the case here.