My column in this week's Tribune, on the primaries.
After a year, the final decisive round of the great Primary Circus is upon us. Last week the best-qualified Democratic candidate for the presidency dropped out. Bill Richardson had been a congressman, ambassador to the UN, Energy Secretary and Governor of New Mexico, in between being a negotiator with the North Koreans. His thoughtful policies, on global warming, and pulling out of Iraq for example, were clear and explicit, unlike the evasions and temporizing of most of the other candidates.
While the headline writers stressed Barack Obama’s race and Hillary Clinton’s gender, they all overlooked the fact that Richardson was Hispanic – half Mexican, which was in itself groundbreaking. However, he lacked one essential qualification: money. The media and the TV networks that are the prime beneficiaries of the hundreds of millions of dollars that the candidates raised would not accept him as a major candidate without corporate backing on a huge scale. The sums that the Labour Party deputy leadership campaigns raised would not buy a single TV spot in an American primary. Indeed, they are literally a thousandth of the amounts that the American front-runners solicited. They represent a massive IOU to corporate America on the part of the Democrats.
When I spoke to him recently, the Senate’s only avowed Socialist, Bernie Sanders, gave his preference as John Edwards first, Obama second, and Hillary Clinton last. While the unions and many more progressive Democrats are indeed supporting Edwards, who is voicing what one might call “Old Democrat” values, the media have concentrated on Hillary and Obama. That could reflect their charisma, but it only takes a soupcon of paranoia to wonder whether an underlying reason is to ensure a Democratic candidate almost guaranteed to excite negative feelings among voters. For example, while the Iowa caucuses, which mobilize Democratic activists, voted for Obama, the New Hampshire vote, which is open to anyone who registers as a Democrat, reversed what they told the pollsters before about supporting him. That does suggest a large degree of latent racial prejudice, observed before, where conflicted white voters claim to be voting for a black candidate when polled, but in the safety of the voting booth cannot bring themselves to do so.
Even so, while Obama is clearly a fresh voice, one should not be too dewy-eyed about him – he has shown distressing signs of learning from the Clinton school of political contortionism. Hillary herself excites paroxysms of vituperation and misogyny from conservatives, to the extent of gaining a feminist backlash. The irony is, of course, that her own policies on almost every issue are actually very conservative, reflecting her funding base from Wall St. Hillary Clinton’s career suggests that for her, it is the advancement of one woman that matters, and that the uninsured mothers on welfare will have to sink and swim without too much in the way of sisterly support.
However, what could induce even the most jaundiced anti-Clintonista to vote for her in general election is the Republican ticket. Most of them were bad to start with, but their efforts to win the support of the Evangelical and wacko right have most of them choking on their own words. What will be even more nauseating will be watching them regurgitate their more recent verbal mastications as they try to retriangulate back to the centre after securing the nomination with the wacko votes. Outstanding in this respect is John McCain, who five years ago was the victim of Karl Rove’s dirty tricks, and who showed some independence and integrity, which he has now traded for the support of the Republican leadership, which is of course concerned about the prospects off the rest of the field.
Who can blame them? Think of Rudolf Giuliani who preached Catholic family values while announcing his impending divorce at a press conference, without telling her, and who busily disappearing up his own rectum as promises to stack the Supreme Court with anti-abortion and anti-gay justices even though not holding those positions himself. Mike Huckabee, a creationist, has equally faith-based views on economics, wanting to abolish income tax, while Mitt Romney, a Mormon, does a jig on a Moronic angel pinhead as he explains his vision of a faith based America that evades some major points of his theology. In this context, the campaign of Ron Paul, the libertarian Texas Congressman, is almost refreshing. He does not triangulate at all. He puts his programmes up on a pole and rallies supporters by the hundreds of thousands. Ordinary Americans have given his campaign an amazing amount of money. He does not get corporate support, and Murdoch’s Fox excluded him from their screens and debates, thus alienating a vociferous group who had hitherto slavishly supported Fox News through its decade of distortion and libel of Democrats. His grass roots campaign certainly pulls in the wackos but his populist, anti big government, not to mention anti-war, policies reveal a fissure line in the working class white vote that an astute Democrat could appeal to.
One of the purposes or at least an effect of recent Primaries has been for Democratic candidates to render each other unelectable. This year the effect will be stronger on the Republican side, where ideology rather than pragmatic policies are the chosen grounds for challenge. In end, the race is for the Democrats, which after two disastrous Bush terms has to be a step forward. To paraphrase what an American Secretary of State said about the UN, a Democratic victory may stop us going to Hell, but is unlikely to advance us far towards Heaven.
Showing posts with label Rudy Giuliani. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rudy Giuliani. Show all posts
Friday, January 18, 2008
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Giuliani's Napoleon complex
The presidential candidate overcompensates for his lack of military experience by talking tough on national security and scorning the law.
Ian Williams
GUARDIAN Comment is Free
October 15, 2007 9:30 PM | Printable version
At a primary debate in Michigan, presidential candidate Mitt Romney suggested, as obliquely as possible, that before starting another disastrous war, this time with Iran, he would want legal advice.
"You sit down with your attorneys and they tell you what you have to do, but obviously, the president of the United States has to do what's in the best interest of the United States to protect us," Romney said when he was asked if he would go to Congress first. Naturally, he blithely added that no option should be taken off the table against Iran.
Of course New York's own suburban Bonaparte was quick to jump on this seemingly unmilitary pose for a would-be commander-in-chief. Giuliani told ABC News: "That's one of those moments in a debate where you say something and you go like this," he said, quickly putting his hand over his mouth "[oops,] wish I can get that one back."
"Basically right out of the box, first thing, you're faced with imminent attack on the United States, I don't think you call in the lawyers first. I think maybe the generals, the ones you call in first, they're the ones you want to talk to," Giuliani added.
In case anyone forgot, Rudy forwent a career as a general by getting a draft deferment while he studied to be a lawyer. He clearly should have studied harder, perhaps trying a term paper on the 1973 War Powers Act, which mandates that the president needs congressional approval before taking the country to war.
However, no one can accuse him of inconsistency. His disregard for the law, or perhaps his assumption that "La Loi, c'est moi" was apparent during his career as New York's mayor where, if he consulted lawyers, he should have fired them, since so many of his arbitrary diktats were overturned in the courts - especially when it came to first amendment issues.
Of course, with his endorsement of the war on terrorism, he would consider that Congress has already given the emperor, first consul, president or whatever all the powers he needs. On the campaign trail he has already indicated that he could see no difference between al-Qaida and Iran. "Their movement has already displayed more aggressive tendencies by coming here and killing us," he told supporters in New Hampshire, blithely ignoring the fact that if there is one group that the ultra-Sunni Osama bin Laden hates more than Americans it is the Shia Iranians.
Taxed with this technical detail he responded: "They have a similar objective, in their anger at the modern world."
It is an interesting point, since the same logic would surely recruit to his notion of al-Qaida the anti-Darwin, anti-gay, anti-divorce, anti-family planning, nativist and anti-civil liberty crowd that he is wooing for his primary election.
They are bound to love his refusal to rule out using tactical nukes against Iran in the cause of anti-terrorism and nuclear non-proliferation, and that his insouciance about international law matches his scorn for the US constitution.
Ian Williams
GUARDIAN Comment is Free
October 15, 2007 9:30 PM | Printable version
At a primary debate in Michigan, presidential candidate Mitt Romney suggested, as obliquely as possible, that before starting another disastrous war, this time with Iran, he would want legal advice.
"You sit down with your attorneys and they tell you what you have to do, but obviously, the president of the United States has to do what's in the best interest of the United States to protect us," Romney said when he was asked if he would go to Congress first. Naturally, he blithely added that no option should be taken off the table against Iran.
Of course New York's own suburban Bonaparte was quick to jump on this seemingly unmilitary pose for a would-be commander-in-chief. Giuliani told ABC News: "That's one of those moments in a debate where you say something and you go like this," he said, quickly putting his hand over his mouth "[oops,] wish I can get that one back."
"Basically right out of the box, first thing, you're faced with imminent attack on the United States, I don't think you call in the lawyers first. I think maybe the generals, the ones you call in first, they're the ones you want to talk to," Giuliani added.
In case anyone forgot, Rudy forwent a career as a general by getting a draft deferment while he studied to be a lawyer. He clearly should have studied harder, perhaps trying a term paper on the 1973 War Powers Act, which mandates that the president needs congressional approval before taking the country to war.
However, no one can accuse him of inconsistency. His disregard for the law, or perhaps his assumption that "La Loi, c'est moi" was apparent during his career as New York's mayor where, if he consulted lawyers, he should have fired them, since so many of his arbitrary diktats were overturned in the courts - especially when it came to first amendment issues.
Of course, with his endorsement of the war on terrorism, he would consider that Congress has already given the emperor, first consul, president or whatever all the powers he needs. On the campaign trail he has already indicated that he could see no difference between al-Qaida and Iran. "Their movement has already displayed more aggressive tendencies by coming here and killing us," he told supporters in New Hampshire, blithely ignoring the fact that if there is one group that the ultra-Sunni Osama bin Laden hates more than Americans it is the Shia Iranians.
Taxed with this technical detail he responded: "They have a similar objective, in their anger at the modern world."
It is an interesting point, since the same logic would surely recruit to his notion of al-Qaida the anti-Darwin, anti-gay, anti-divorce, anti-family planning, nativist and anti-civil liberty crowd that he is wooing for his primary election.
They are bound to love his refusal to rule out using tactical nukes against Iran in the cause of anti-terrorism and nuclear non-proliferation, and that his insouciance about international law matches his scorn for the US constitution.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Rudy Finest Hour? Full text from Guardian
Rudy Giuliani's 9/11 paranoia Guardian
The former New York mayor's arrogance and authoritarianism are so strong that he makes Napoleon look modest.
Ian Williams
September 11, 2007 7:30 PM
If the present incumbent is anything to go by, Rudy Giuliani is indeed White House material. He has just that required peevish paranoia that ends up being very ineffectual. September 11 and stopping freelance windscreen washers in Manhattan are Giuliani's major claims to the presidency.
To be balanced, once he set the cops on the case, they did stop the bridge and tunnel shakedown from the bucket and rag-wielding brigade.
Unlike Mike Bloomberg, Giuliani was never seen on the subway, or without his security detail. Touchingly suburban, in Manhattan he blamed pedestrians for traffic jams and gridlock. In the run-up to the (hopelessly over-hyped) million youth march in Harlem, which he tried unsuccessfully to ban, he had barriers as strong as tank traps built around Gracie Mansion - even on the path next to the East River.
Well before 9/11 gave George Bush the excuses to assume power to save the state, Rudi was declaiming, "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." Big Brother put it shorter on the side of the Minitrue building, but he could not have been clearer.
The problem with his peeves and prejudices are that they do not add up to a coherent joined-up foreign policy. Speaking to West Bank Settlers' groups where others on the platform called for the expulsion of the Palestinians, may seem superficially similar to throwing Yasser Arafat out of a UN celebratory banquet to which he had been invited. While it may get Giuliani brownie points with a vociferous minority, it does not enhance his reputation for statesmanship.
But then denouncing anti-Catholicism in the form of an artwork in the Brooklyn Museum, and then accepting a knighthood from the Queen of England, whose heirs, by law, can neither be nor marry a Roman Catholic, betokens an expediently snobbish inconsistency.
Above all, it is his claimed laurels as the hero of 9/11 that bear very close scrutiny. If he stays close to form, he will be storing fissile material in the basement of the White House to power his bunker, and telling the Nuclear Regulatory Authority that their writ does not run there.
Living downtown on the morning of 9/11, I was reporting from my fire escape on the collapse of the towers, the cloud of toxic fallout that blanketed downtown and in the background, I had the radio on when I heard a reporter say that Mayor Giuliani was in mid-town, looking for an emergency headquarters. I shouted: "Hey, I know where the stupid b*******'s emergency headquarters are!"
In the teeth of warnings that building "The Bunker" on the 23rd floor of a complex that had already been a terrorist target in 1993 might not be a good idea, Giuliani had put this controversial $16m-headquarters in the World Trade Centre. Of course it was not totally stupid. The city taxpayers' $1.4m-a-year lease went to a major campaign contributor.
The 6,000-gallon diesel tank that was supposed to keep the lights of his office burning for the weeks of the chaos his paranoia had generally anticipated instead kept the building burning for several days. Rudy put it there in defiance of New York City fire regulations insisting that the complex came under the authority of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and so his own city's rules did not apply.
Falling debris from the North Tower set fire to number seven, which even the opinionated mayor had not tried to occupyon the morning. Fuelled by the diesel, the resulting fire blacked out all downtown Manhattan when the building fell on the Con Edison electricity substation in the basement, and resulting floods from fire brigade hoses knocked out downtown's telephones when the water reached the neighboring Verizon telephone exchange.
I confess a personal interest in this. Along with Wall Street, our apartment was without electricity for a week, and telephones for even longer.
Voters should also remember that, unabashed by his own incompetence, Giuliani then floated the idea of canceling the election after 9/11 and reappointing himself as an emergency measure. Even George Bush is unlikely to go that far. I wouldn't bet on Dick Cheney not trying to invent a perpetual presidency but that's different.
So just in case any of you get dewy-eyed about Rudi's alleged softness on gay and abortion issues, remember this guy makes Napoleon look modest. His insouciant inconsistency is unlikely to invoke a veto against any such authoritarian measures if his backers tell him not to. It's all about freedom - to do what he tells you.
The former New York mayor's arrogance and authoritarianism are so strong that he makes Napoleon look modest.
Ian Williams
September 11, 2007 7:30 PM
If the present incumbent is anything to go by, Rudy Giuliani is indeed White House material. He has just that required peevish paranoia that ends up being very ineffectual. September 11 and stopping freelance windscreen washers in Manhattan are Giuliani's major claims to the presidency.
To be balanced, once he set the cops on the case, they did stop the bridge and tunnel shakedown from the bucket and rag-wielding brigade.
Unlike Mike Bloomberg, Giuliani was never seen on the subway, or without his security detail. Touchingly suburban, in Manhattan he blamed pedestrians for traffic jams and gridlock. In the run-up to the (hopelessly over-hyped) million youth march in Harlem, which he tried unsuccessfully to ban, he had barriers as strong as tank traps built around Gracie Mansion - even on the path next to the East River.
Well before 9/11 gave George Bush the excuses to assume power to save the state, Rudi was declaiming, "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." Big Brother put it shorter on the side of the Minitrue building, but he could not have been clearer.
The problem with his peeves and prejudices are that they do not add up to a coherent joined-up foreign policy. Speaking to West Bank Settlers' groups where others on the platform called for the expulsion of the Palestinians, may seem superficially similar to throwing Yasser Arafat out of a UN celebratory banquet to which he had been invited. While it may get Giuliani brownie points with a vociferous minority, it does not enhance his reputation for statesmanship.
But then denouncing anti-Catholicism in the form of an artwork in the Brooklyn Museum, and then accepting a knighthood from the Queen of England, whose heirs, by law, can neither be nor marry a Roman Catholic, betokens an expediently snobbish inconsistency.
Above all, it is his claimed laurels as the hero of 9/11 that bear very close scrutiny. If he stays close to form, he will be storing fissile material in the basement of the White House to power his bunker, and telling the Nuclear Regulatory Authority that their writ does not run there.
Living downtown on the morning of 9/11, I was reporting from my fire escape on the collapse of the towers, the cloud of toxic fallout that blanketed downtown and in the background, I had the radio on when I heard a reporter say that Mayor Giuliani was in mid-town, looking for an emergency headquarters. I shouted: "Hey, I know where the stupid b*******'s emergency headquarters are!"
In the teeth of warnings that building "The Bunker" on the 23rd floor of a complex that had already been a terrorist target in 1993 might not be a good idea, Giuliani had put this controversial $16m-headquarters in the World Trade Centre. Of course it was not totally stupid. The city taxpayers' $1.4m-a-year lease went to a major campaign contributor.
The 6,000-gallon diesel tank that was supposed to keep the lights of his office burning for the weeks of the chaos his paranoia had generally anticipated instead kept the building burning for several days. Rudy put it there in defiance of New York City fire regulations insisting that the complex came under the authority of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and so his own city's rules did not apply.
Falling debris from the North Tower set fire to number seven, which even the opinionated mayor had not tried to occupyon the morning. Fuelled by the diesel, the resulting fire blacked out all downtown Manhattan when the building fell on the Con Edison electricity substation in the basement, and resulting floods from fire brigade hoses knocked out downtown's telephones when the water reached the neighboring Verizon telephone exchange.
I confess a personal interest in this. Along with Wall Street, our apartment was without electricity for a week, and telephones for even longer.
Voters should also remember that, unabashed by his own incompetence, Giuliani then floated the idea of canceling the election after 9/11 and reappointing himself as an emergency measure. Even George Bush is unlikely to go that far. I wouldn't bet on Dick Cheney not trying to invent a perpetual presidency but that's different.
So just in case any of you get dewy-eyed about Rudi's alleged softness on gay and abortion issues, remember this guy makes Napoleon look modest. His insouciant inconsistency is unlikely to invoke a veto against any such authoritarian measures if his backers tell him not to. It's all about freedom - to do what he tells you.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Monday, February 26, 2007
Little big brother
Little big brother
The Guardian Comment is Free Post - see below for the link
Rudy Giuliani is running for president on his reputation as a tough-guy mayor, but he should explain where his emergency HQ was on 9-11 - and why.
February 23,
In the unlikely event that Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani face off against each other for the presidency, Americans could be faced with a difficult choice. Both support abortion rights, the death penalty, and the war in Iraq; both oppose a single payer health system; and both support gay rights and being mean to welfare recipients. And both have instant name recognition for reasons tangential to their own deeds.
Both will also flip-flap like hummingbird wings to avoid appearing over-committed to anything that could lose them votes. In classic Clintonian triangulation (this time to get the evangelical vote), Giuliani is busily promising that, while he personally supports abortion rights, he would appoint judges who don't.
If the policy differences are negligible, it will all come down to "character". Now there is no doubt that, despite her faux-folksiness, the softest thing about Hillary is her teeth. She has an impressive drive for power that is reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher on the rampage.
Immediately one can hear the objections "what about Rudy, America's mayor, the hero of 9-11?" Never was there a more fragile legend than the daring deeds of Sir Rudy. I was living downtown on September 11, and watched the World Trade Centre when it was hit by those pretty convincing holograms (well done George Monbiot).
While reporting by phone from my fire escape to radio stations, I heard on a local station that Giuliani was looking for an emergency headquarters. I almost telephoned to tell him where it was. It was on the 23rd storey of No 7 World Trade Centre. And the Mayor had spent no less than $16m building "the Bunker" in the face of strong contrary advice.
Apart from the sheer stubborn silliness, there was the typically Rudyesque detail that the Bunker was on a twenty year lease paying $1.4m annual rent to one of his major campaign contributors. His own city's fire regulations wisely forbade putting a 6,000 gallon tank of diesel fuel in the building to keep generators running. So he declared it to be part of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and had it installed regardless.
On September 11, when No 7 caught fire as a result of blazing debris from the WTC itself, the diesel caught fire, and helped melt the retaining girders so the building collapsed onto the Con Edison electricity substation in the basement. The resulting floods from fire hoses trying to put out the blaze knocked out downtown Manhattan's telephones after water reached the neighboring Verizon station.
Some are born to greatness, some grow into it and some have it thrust upon them. Blacking out the world's financial centre for a week is indeed a rare accolade.
Maybe we can overlook a little lapse like closing down Wall Street for a week, not least since no one seemed to notice its absence at the time. But that toxic smog downtown has occluded memories of Giuliani's unheroic performance as mayor.
Never has there been such an example of acquired memory syndrome. Giuliani has taken the credit from David Dinkins boosting the size of the police force and from Bill Clinton for providing the federal cash to pay for it. And "America's Mayor" basked in the spurious glory of a financial boom that happened to coincide with his term in office. Lower poverty, more police, less crime - and nothing to do with him or his corrupt police commissioner (and subsequent business partner) Bernard Kerik.
Kerik was Giuliani's poodle, whose fur was famously clipped when he lost his scandal-ridden nomination for secretary of the Homeland Security Department. 9-11 did not sanitize him well enough. But one wonders whether it will whitewash Giuliani.
Americans expect a certain degree of decorum from their President. They will need to judge whether or not a man who claims to be a devout Catholic - and then announces his third divorce at a press conference without telling his long-suffering spouse - meets that requirement.
Of course loyalty counts - and indeed Giuliani loyally backed President Bush when the latter churlishly halved the 9-11 aid that Congress voted to the city. So much for what voters can expect in return.
This week in Florida, Rudy has been touring firehouses and associating with "first responders". These great photo opportunities should be fogged by memories of his November 2001 order drastically reducing the number of firemen on the Word Trade Centre site, where they were sifting the rubble for human remains.
It could have been justified as an economic measure, except every cop in New York had been on almost unlimited overtime for months, manning stupid and ineffectual checkpoints on bridges and roads across Manhattan.
Petty and petulant as ever, he obviously remembered that the New York firefighters' union backed his opponent. In December 2001, after that failed, he tried to "privatize" the Twin Towers Fund that the city had set up for the widows and orphans of firefighters. He transferred the funds to a private foundation he controlled that would pay salaries of up to $250,000 a year to six of his pals - including his mistress.
As Manhattanites said of him, "you can take the boy from the suburbs, but you can't take the suburbs out of the boy". Those suburbs were white. The cops who sodomized Abner Louima with a toiler plunger may not have shouted "It's Giuliani time", but they knew that it was. Implicitly, their mayor backed the idea that any black victim of a police shooting must have been guilty of something.
Perhaps the most frightening thing about him is that he has consistently shown the insecurity of a little bullied school kid, getting payback by behaving like Big Brother when anyone is foolish enough to give him the authority. His most defining quote is a verbose expansion of "Freedom is Slavery" - a succinct summary of the Patriot Act. He said, "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."
On second thought, that alone may overcome the conservative reluctance to back a pro-choicer and put him the ballot next year. If he won, he would make W look like a liberal.
The Guardian Comment is Free Post - see below for the link
Rudy Giuliani is running for president on his reputation as a tough-guy mayor, but he should explain where his emergency HQ was on 9-11 - and why.
February 23,
In the unlikely event that Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani face off against each other for the presidency, Americans could be faced with a difficult choice. Both support abortion rights, the death penalty, and the war in Iraq; both oppose a single payer health system; and both support gay rights and being mean to welfare recipients. And both have instant name recognition for reasons tangential to their own deeds.
Both will also flip-flap like hummingbird wings to avoid appearing over-committed to anything that could lose them votes. In classic Clintonian triangulation (this time to get the evangelical vote), Giuliani is busily promising that, while he personally supports abortion rights, he would appoint judges who don't.
If the policy differences are negligible, it will all come down to "character". Now there is no doubt that, despite her faux-folksiness, the softest thing about Hillary is her teeth. She has an impressive drive for power that is reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher on the rampage.
Immediately one can hear the objections "what about Rudy, America's mayor, the hero of 9-11?" Never was there a more fragile legend than the daring deeds of Sir Rudy. I was living downtown on September 11, and watched the World Trade Centre when it was hit by those pretty convincing holograms (well done George Monbiot).
While reporting by phone from my fire escape to radio stations, I heard on a local station that Giuliani was looking for an emergency headquarters. I almost telephoned to tell him where it was. It was on the 23rd storey of No 7 World Trade Centre. And the Mayor had spent no less than $16m building "the Bunker" in the face of strong contrary advice.
Apart from the sheer stubborn silliness, there was the typically Rudyesque detail that the Bunker was on a twenty year lease paying $1.4m annual rent to one of his major campaign contributors. His own city's fire regulations wisely forbade putting a 6,000 gallon tank of diesel fuel in the building to keep generators running. So he declared it to be part of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and had it installed regardless.
On September 11, when No 7 caught fire as a result of blazing debris from the WTC itself, the diesel caught fire, and helped melt the retaining girders so the building collapsed onto the Con Edison electricity substation in the basement. The resulting floods from fire hoses trying to put out the blaze knocked out downtown Manhattan's telephones after water reached the neighboring Verizon station.
Some are born to greatness, some grow into it and some have it thrust upon them. Blacking out the world's financial centre for a week is indeed a rare accolade.
Maybe we can overlook a little lapse like closing down Wall Street for a week, not least since no one seemed to notice its absence at the time. But that toxic smog downtown has occluded memories of Giuliani's unheroic performance as mayor.
Never has there been such an example of acquired memory syndrome. Giuliani has taken the credit from David Dinkins boosting the size of the police force and from Bill Clinton for providing the federal cash to pay for it. And "America's Mayor" basked in the spurious glory of a financial boom that happened to coincide with his term in office. Lower poverty, more police, less crime - and nothing to do with him or his corrupt police commissioner (and subsequent business partner) Bernard Kerik.
Kerik was Giuliani's poodle, whose fur was famously clipped when he lost his scandal-ridden nomination for secretary of the Homeland Security Department. 9-11 did not sanitize him well enough. But one wonders whether it will whitewash Giuliani.
Americans expect a certain degree of decorum from their President. They will need to judge whether or not a man who claims to be a devout Catholic - and then announces his third divorce at a press conference without telling his long-suffering spouse - meets that requirement.
Of course loyalty counts - and indeed Giuliani loyally backed President Bush when the latter churlishly halved the 9-11 aid that Congress voted to the city. So much for what voters can expect in return.
This week in Florida, Rudy has been touring firehouses and associating with "first responders". These great photo opportunities should be fogged by memories of his November 2001 order drastically reducing the number of firemen on the Word Trade Centre site, where they were sifting the rubble for human remains.
It could have been justified as an economic measure, except every cop in New York had been on almost unlimited overtime for months, manning stupid and ineffectual checkpoints on bridges and roads across Manhattan.
Petty and petulant as ever, he obviously remembered that the New York firefighters' union backed his opponent. In December 2001, after that failed, he tried to "privatize" the Twin Towers Fund that the city had set up for the widows and orphans of firefighters. He transferred the funds to a private foundation he controlled that would pay salaries of up to $250,000 a year to six of his pals - including his mistress.
As Manhattanites said of him, "you can take the boy from the suburbs, but you can't take the suburbs out of the boy". Those suburbs were white. The cops who sodomized Abner Louima with a toiler plunger may not have shouted "It's Giuliani time", but they knew that it was. Implicitly, their mayor backed the idea that any black victim of a police shooting must have been guilty of something.
Perhaps the most frightening thing about him is that he has consistently shown the insecurity of a little bullied school kid, getting payback by behaving like Big Brother when anyone is foolish enough to give him the authority. His most defining quote is a verbose expansion of "Freedom is Slavery" - a succinct summary of the Patriot Act. He said, "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."
On second thought, that alone may overcome the conservative reluctance to back a pro-choicer and put him the ballot next year. If he won, he would make W look like a liberal.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Little Big Brother - Rudy runs for Prez.
check out the site, full post by Monday
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ian_williams/2007/02/little_big_brother_giuliani_an.html
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ian_williams/2007/02/little_big_brother_giuliani_an.html
Friday, February 23, 2007
Down, Sir Rudy
A vivisection of Rudy Giuliani's reputation as America's Mayor.. with few passing barbs for Hillary, to prove I'm bipartisan.
Comment is Free Little Big Brother
Comment is Free Little Big Brother
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