Okay then. To all Rudy supporters, I will grant this: The Nation is a liberal equivalent of the Weekly Standard. However, some of the information within has been supported by other websites.
I want to know if any of the information in this article is DEMONSTRABLY false. If so, we need to know before the primaries.
Okay.
This is a pretty in-depth article, but I want to know if any of the information within is false. After all, it's from the Nation.
Fact-finding time!
I stopped right there.
In eight years, Giuliani's most famous comment about public education was that the school system should be "blown up."
Okay, I'll admit that Rudy isn't all bad.
If its in the Nation, it can generally be ignored. The Nation is so far to the left (stalinist), that they think Rudy is a Rush Limbaugh conservative.
Wrong. The New Republic is the a liberal equivalent of the Weekly Standard.
The Nation is far, far more to the left, than the Weekly Standard is to the right. In fact there is no right-wing equivalent that I can think of.
If you want to get in bed with the The Nation, that's fine. But material from The Nation belongs at DU IMO.
Why do you need to know? You aren't voting for Rudy in the primary. You think this is going to make his supporters here in Free Republic abandon him? If so, what are you smoking and where can I get some. :)
BTW, the Nation would not be the lefts Weekly Standard. More like the lefts New American, the bircher rag.
In May 2000 Giuliani looked like a control freak who had lost control of himself.
Most control freaks are lacking in self control. They try to control others because they blame others for their own lack of character.
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?
If the Nation doesn't like him then he must be doing something right.
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.
"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
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.
Barret is a Village Voice reporter and a leftie, which does not necessarily make what he writes factually inaccurate. It's tidbits like the one below that turned my stomach- and I voted for Rudy when I lived there.
"On August 3, 1999, Giuliani wrote a nasty letter to Crew and leaked it to the tabloids, together with a blind quote from an aide saying, "It seems he's got one foot out the door." This was the same day that Crew was burying his first wife, Angela, in a private ceremony in upstate Poughkeepsie. Crew had to respond to press calls before delivering his eulogy."
Rudy never did seem to understand that there is this thing called society which included these newfangled creatures called people with whom you do high-faultin' stuff like communicate. :) I liked some of his policies but his personality never rubbed me the right way.
Oh and this is my first post, hope I did it right.
I guess if you think that throwing more and more money at the public school system, (which now teaches children about global warming and other such liberal pet projects) is the way to go, then you will agree with The Nation and disagree with Rudy.
If you think that redistribution of taxpayer money, rather than bringing teaching standards up is the way to go, then you will agree with The Nation and disagree with Rudy.
If you can't see the liberal spin that permeates this entire article, then I cannot help you separate fact from fiction.
It is good that all these things are getting written now. They will be old news by the time the election rolls around. It is a natural part of the vetting process, and the reason why these candidates are out there early. The candidates like Gingrich and Thompson are hoping to jump in later because they want to avoid the scrutiny. Best to get it over with early and move on.
The article reluctantly acknowledges that New York City was improved under Giuliani's leadership. What they fail to point out is how seemingly an impossible task it was. Look at Washington DC for the past 30 years. Before Giuliani, the two cities were roughly parallel in debt, crime, decadence, etc. Imagine someone turning around Washington DC. That is the magnitude of what Giuliani accomplished, and that big picture really will not be degraded with a lot of personal scandal and inside baseball particulars.
Here's just one example of hyperbole:
'Sometimes it felt like he was trying to put the whole unruly, diverse city through obedience training, as he......, put up barricades at busy street crossings to modify pedestrian behavior'
I lived in New York at the time, and this was just one example of a simple common sense thing that needed to be implemented in order to avoid gridlock in the city.
It's kind of hard to explain, but imagine a four lane 5th Avenue going south, and a 2 lane 45th street going east. Now imagine a red light for 5th avenue (there is no independent walk light where all lanes are stopped.) So when the 45th street drivers are trying to turn right onto 5th avenue they were blocked during the WHOLE DURATION of their green light because of the pedestrians crossing on the south crossing, instead of the north one (where they didn't block traffic.)
It was a simple obvious solution, but someone had to get down to street level and implement it, and Guiliani did.
(and then all the newspapers started whining how he's a control freak...)