I hate to do this, but Rudy (the corrupt fraud) Giuliani is doing way too well in early polls and now with puff pieces in Newsweek. So I am going to have to go back over just what a corrupt fraud he is.
For those who want a head start on their anti-Rudy opposition research, here is a search I have set up for articles by investigative Wayne Barrett and/or Tom Robbins at the Village Voice on Rudy (the corrupt fraud) Giuliani. Happy browsing...
His sales pitch is very very dangerous just because of the cross-over appeal:
He can pretend appeal to moderates otherwise embaressed by the Republican party due to his is ostensible social moderation on issues like abortion and gay rights. Meanwhile he also appeals to those concerned with classic pre-9/11 conservative "Reagan Democrat" issues of crime, law & order, and welfare. And then he has of course the completely more phony "standing tall" as "America's Mayor" image from 9/11.
His cross-over appeal in the other direction, to harder-core conservatives, has been recently noted and analyzed, I now fear correctly by Yglesias via Derbyshire & Stoller; Glenn Greenwald and of course Digby at Hullabaloo. It what he is able to "represent" and "present" as a personality... a snarling anti-liberal member of the conservative tribe, rather any mere policy details (extramarital affairs, divorces, abortions, gays, gun control).
In fact there is plenty for any REAL moderate or progressive who care about democracy, due process, honesty and competence to worry about.
The sordid Kerik story was just the most recent example, played out on the national stage of Giuliani's real longtime history of promoting personal allegiance over competence, cronyism, lobbyist payoffs, pay-to-play, etc.:
- Multiple marriages and gross infidelities. This should not just a point against him with religious conservatives, it is part of what makes him tick (badly). He is just a bad guy.
- Nasty narcistic bullying personality, with girlfriends, wives, press, non-partisan technocrats and opponents.
- Taking credit as prosecutor for work of others before and after he left that office.
- Orchestrating racially tinged police riot when he was candidate against incumbent black mayor
- Culture of corruption throughout numerous agencies when mayor.
- Encouragement of police brutality.
- Refusal to meet with any african-american officials.
- pre 9/11 security failures
- pay-to-play with lobbyists, friends, family and businesses
- Increase in police, change in police strategy and decreasing crime rates before he was mayor.
- Falling out with his competent police commissioners before the promotion of his sycophantic limo driver Kerik to the position.
- Bizarre repeated bullying and back-biting in his serial hiring and firings School Chancellors (high turnover) while failing totally to improve schools. More interested in using the issue than working on it.
- Profiteering off of 9-11 image when in fact he made every mistake in the book in handling security issues before 9-11 and has NO actual expertise in the area.
- vast crony political appointments throughout government, worse than one-party city Democrats had done before.
- Actually ran up City budget worse than any Democrat had.
See for example:
the late great Neufield had an article on Rudy in the Nation
Wayne Barrett has been Rudy's main nemesis bigorapher, here for example is one article in The Nation; a debunking article of his from the the Village Voice... and another one here also from the Village Voice.
More on Barrett's books later.
The full length book version of Jack Neufield's article in The Nation, is available: The Full Rudy: The Man, the Mayor, the Myth, by Jack Newfield.
I think fair use won't mind if I use the Publisher's advertising blurb:
"Veteran New York journalist Newfield (Somebody's Gotta Tell It, etc.) gets right to the point, his lead sentence declaring Rudy Giuliani "a C-plus mayor... who has become an A-plus myth" since September 11.
Rather than defining the mayor by his last few months in City Hall, Newfield insists "we should see him the way he was on September 10"
"Rudolph Giuliani is "America's Mayor" remembered for cutting crime, taking charge when the Twin Towers fell, and displaying leadership when others were dumbstruck. Named Time's "Person of the Year," and knighted by the Queen, he charges $100,000 a speech, is a stalwart of the Republican fund-raising circuit, and harbors presidential ambitions."
Prize-winning investigative journalist Jack Newfield reminds us of what New Yorkers have long known - that Giuliani was an intolerant and authoritarian leader who showed a deep hostility toward his constituents, especially blacks; who padded the city payroll with 25,000 appointees, precipitating the city's current budget crisis; who violated the first amendment and was successfully sued twenty-seven times for violating freedom of speech and assembly; who refused throughout his tenure to meet with the city's black elected leaders, and who boasted of this strategy; who made an unconstitutional grab for power after 9/11, trying to circumvent both term limits law and The City Charter. Depicts the underside of Giuliani's eight years in power.
Readers outside New York City may recall the more notorious incidents recounted here, such as Giuliani's attempt to shut down the Brooklyn Museum of Art over an allegedly sacrilegious exhibit, but they'll also see Giuliani portrayed as a political opportunist who changed party affiliations twice before becoming mayor, slashed the city's education budget by $2 billion in his first term and blew through budget surpluses to leave the city $15 billion in debt. Newfield emphasizes the former mayor's apparent condescension toward political opposition, such as what some heard as thinly veiled homophobic jabs at schools chancellor Ramon Cortines. Newfield also believes a "worm of rancor" characterized Giuliani's record on race relations, including his near-blanket refusal to meet with elected officials from minority communities.
Although the book is somewhat repetitive despite its brevity and occasionally lapses into an excessively antimessianic fervor, it illustrates facets of Giuliani that many New Yorkers may have forgotten and the rest of America might want to know about. Forecast: It's not likely Americans want their Giuliani bubble burst and will probably prefer Leadership to this, but lots of New Yorkers will welcome Newfield's portrait."
More of the Real Rudy (Semi) Re-Runs to follow.