Giuliani Remembered (None Too Fondly)

Salon's Cintra Wilson pictures Rudy Giuliani running for the White House in 2008, and can't help but shiver. Me, too. I worked in New York during most of Rudy's reign. It was years in the making, but by 2001, he had slowly but inexorably morphed into a petty (and petulant) tyrant, and we were all sick of him. His approval numbers were down in the thirties. Without 9/11, his signature moment, the man would have been taken seriously by no one but his carefully cultivated cronies and sycophants.

Wilson's assessment of Giuliani minces no words:

"He smashed ants with a hammer. He went absolutely nuclear on anyone who suggested for one second that anything he had done might be open to question."

Well known. Wilson mentions many fine examples, as diverse as his firing of police chief William Bratton, his public outrage over a New York Magazine bus ad that gently poked fun at the mayor, and his nasty on-air rant against a local animal lover who inquired why the city was banning ferrets as pets.

Then there's the way Giuliani encouraged his cops to act in his own flawed likeness.

"[E]veryone I knew at one point had either a first- or secondhand tale of police behaving in a Kafkaesque fashion, under the mayor many had nicknamed Il Duce — or "a small man in search of a balcony," as newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin memorably called him. I was once on the receiving end of a profanity-laced verbal tirade and nearly arrested by a particularly aggressive cop when I passed a plywood wall with a poster advertising a Celine Dion concert, and drew a moustache on it.....in chalk."

And who could forget Hizzoner's opposition to a painting in a local museum?

"Without seeing it, Giuliani became offended by "The Holy Virgin Mary," a now famous painting by Turner Prize-winning-artist Chris Ofili, of a black Madonna, employing the controversial (yet puerile) elements of elephant dung and female genitalia — ostensibly for shock value. And Rudy, shocked down to his adulterous Underoos, went off on a rampaging fit of Comstockery that made even ardent supporters think he was an overreaching jerkbag. In a move widely perceived as power drunk and control freaky, Giuliani threatened to close the Brooklyn Museum and cancel its annual funding if the offending painting was not removed. He even issued statements about his intention to establish a "decency panel," granting his office (read: himself) the power to decide what creative works were decent enough to be allowed to be considered art in New York City. When graffiti artist Steve Powers staged a protest by drawing a caricature of Rudy and charging all comers a buck to throw fake elephant poop at it, cops threw him in jail."

I could add more, much more, including my own experiences in Giuliani-era New York. But Wilson sums up all the important particulars, and it's a pretty strong indictment. Giuliani, after a period of being at least a useful idiot, was a train wreck as the Big Apple's leader, a status from which only two plane wrecks — and the incredible havoc they wreaked — ultimately saved him. To have him in the White House would mean enduring another four or eight years of autocratic, my-way-or-the-highway, personal-scores-settling buffoonery. I have to think Americans are smarter than that.

Comments

[Phil]

The frightening thought is maybe that this is what america wants.

[Garth]

I too lived in NYC for the majority of Rudy's reign and was among the very few who thought him a petulant, tyrrantical, bully and who considered his quality of life initiative distrubing. Since I worked on Wall Street I was very much alone vis my peers. They thought generalized police brutality, the manhandling of fare-skippers and squeegiemen, the pogrom against noise and all that just peachy.

What's very odd is how his personal foibles (the affair, the treatment of his ex, his wacky reactions) never really surfaced in the American conscience. Everyone thought Dole was "mean" but why exactly? Why don't we just reflexively consider Rudy "unbalanced"?

[David]

"I have to think Americans are smarter than that."

I wish I could agree with you, but history says otherwise.

[bgallagher]

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I, and I suspect many other non New Yorkers, had very little experience of Giuliani before 9/11 where he came off in the national news as a good leader. Some of the other press I have seen on him indicated he had some libertarian like ideas that appealed to me (especially in comparison to the nanny running New York now) and I was considering him as possible choice for '08. If what you are Ms. Wilson say are true, I certainly hope that more of this comes out if he makes an attempt at gaining candidacy.
I do think that will make a difference. Americans tolerate a lot of crap from their leaders but one thing that does put them off is an exaggerated sense of self importance.

[Jeff Wiebe]

Well put bgallagher. From over the border the only thing I've known about Guliani comes from 9/11 stuff, and I think an SNL appearance.

As usual, so much depends on what information gets out when, to whom, and how. I'm sure it's fair to say that no candidates in '08 for US Prez will be perfect (or even any good, sigh) but even-- or especially-- if it's a choice between losers, you sure want the lesser of the evils to win.

The previous message was brought to you by the letter 'R' for 'Resigned'.

[Rob]

I was going to pick on you for the statement "I have to think Americans are smarter than that." but it seems Garth beat me to the punch. Perhaps we are, but if so we seem to be doing a remarkable job hiding that fact. :\

btw, thank you for your wonderful blog. It's good to find some good ole' common sense on this here internet thing.