Posted on 05/29/2007 3:28:59 PM PDT by calcowgirl
Editor's note: The following selection is excerpted from the revised edition of "America's Mayor, America's President? The Strange Career of Rudy Giuliani," edited by Robert Polner.
The pudgy college kid liked to sit his girlfriend down and perform a one-man ode to his dream. Slowly and somberly, he invoked his own name, as if he were standing on the steps of the U.S. Capitol and taking the oath to become leader of the free world. "Rudolph ... William ... Louis ... Giuliani ... The Third ... The first Italian-Catholic President of the United States ..." he'd intone as if addressing a vast throng and not just one very patient female admirer.
Kathy Livermore knew plenty of ambitious young men from Manhattan College in the early 1960's, men who dreamed of becoming lawyers and bankers and business executives. But even the fiercest did not possess the furnace-like heat that radiated from within her boyfriend, Rudy Giuliani.
He knew what he wanted, and where he was going, and no amount of ridicule from his friends could upend his very sober and certain view of the world and his place in it.
"We'd joke about it -- 'Oh there's Rudolph William Louis Giuliani 3rd, the first Italian-Catholic President of the United States,'" Livermore recalled years later, chuckling. "He said it enough that it was part of him. He didn't say things lightly."
(snip)
[Giuliani's father] Harold Giuliani was an odd mix of bravado and frailty. ... The darkest details of Harold Giuliani's past did not fully emerge until 2000 when investigative reporter Wayne Barrett unearthed that he had been arrested in 1934 -- ten years before his son's birth -- for robbing a milkman of $128.82 at gunpoint. Under the alias "Joseph Starrett," Harold Giuliani pled guilty and spent 16 months at Sing-Sing.
(snip)
An early proving ground was his quest to join a fraternity, an essential part of the college's social life. Giuliani, the sophomore class's newly elected president, believed that he belonged at Alpha Sigma Beta, the frat that attracted jocks and class leaders. ASB accepted Giuliani as a pledge and subjected him to weeks of hazing, which included shining brothers' shoes, eating raw eggs, and waddling around the campus like a duck. But the frat blackballed Giuliani after the first round, infuriating him.
Giuliani didn't allow his dream to join a frat fade. He signed up with Phi Rho Pi, the college's smallest and least popular frat, and eventually became its president. As a fraternity leader, he had to deal with a split within the ranks between those who were often sober and straight-laced -- his constituents -- and those who liked to party. In other words, what the frat brothers referred to as the Tigers and the Pussies.
"Rudy was one of the Pussies," said Sal Scarpata, a pillar of the Tiger contingent. Giuliani often ran the meetings at which the fraternity's two sides debated plans.
(snip)
RACE FOR CITY HALL: The Republican Candidate; A Mercurial Mayor's Confident Journey
New York Times, October 19, 1997
Barry Bearak and Ian Fisher.(snip)
Manhattan College was a commuter school, and none of its fraternities had a house. Still, the groups were a good way to make lasting friendships. Mr. Giuliani had first pledged to high-status Alpha Sigma Beta, but he hated the hazing, especially ''getting beat up with a paddle.''
So he approached Phi Rho Pi, which had only a few members. They welcomed him and several of his buddies, agreeing to go easy on the humiliations.
As Phi Rho Pi grew, a rift opened. Sal Scarpato was the leader of a more boisterous faction that wanted more raucous parties, more tormenting of pledges. Mr. Giuliani was the champion of the better-mannered. They ran against each other for the presidency, and Mr. Giuliani won.
Mr. Scarpato said that before the vote, he got a very unexpected phone call from Harold Giuliani. As he remembered it: ''Rudy's father took the liberty of asking me to withdraw from the election.
''He said it was more important for Rudy to be the fraternity president, more important because Rudy was someone going places.''
Ping to more strange behavior in the early years.
Kind of reminds me of Bill Clinton - in his youth he dreamed of being President too.
Did Rudy’s dad put a horse’s heads in beds of Rudy’s opponents? Of course, Rudy’s own bed had a horse’s ass in it.
Phi Rho Pi? Hadn’t heard of it. How about:
Tappa Kegga Bru?
I Felta Thi?
Sounds like Mafia-tactics, NY political machine politics to me. One more reason NOT to vote for R. Guiliani!
Yeah, and the horse’s ass was Rooty...er..or was it Jooty?...Its a toss up!
LOL! Knowing what we know about Rooty-Tooty-Frooty, it could have been anyone.
Remember, it was his handlers who gave him the sobriquet "America's Mayor", and the Murdoch Media that pushed it.
-——eeny, meeny, miny, mo————LOL
Phi Rino Pi
Well, that picture was certainly a thread killer. Oops!
I had to turn off my computer until my new messages moved the image down on my computer screen to where I didn’t have to see it (when checking my pings). That one was pretty bad, TD. I know ya didn’t mean to have that effect, but...
“I Felta Thi?”
Yeah : )
Just taking a second to note that your Tagline is absolutely spot on.
Thanks. :-)
Thanks! It’s in there, from a different publication:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1833322/posts
Rudy Giuliani Linked to “NAFTA Superhighway”
The Post Chronicle ^ | 5-14-2007 | Cliff Kincaid
Posted on 05/14/2007 9:33:05 AM PDT by jmc813
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