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June 06, 2007
Giuliani The Wrong
Live from China, James Fallows smacks Rudy Giuliani down on Iraq. However, he uses the trope that "one can't understand" why Giuliani would be so grotesquely mendacious and wrongheaded, when he clearly knows better and is wildly out of step with the populace. Of course you can. Giuliani wants to win the Republican primary, and is already mistrusted by the base for a record of decent governance and social tolerance. He thus needs a separate signaling device to prove he's "one of them." Pretending it's still March 2003 and all your information on Iraq comes from the Powerline Blog is just the thing. And nobody questions him because this mayor of a large American city who didn't prevent a major terrorist attack but seemed emotional in its aftermath has some special insight into the nature of terrorism and the Threats Facing the Nation. Blech.
June 6, 2007 | Permalink
Comments
Can we come up with some sort of snappy name for this phenemenon of lumping together totally unrelated actors in the middle east? I'd go for something like "they're-all-the-sameism".
Posted by: mk | Jun 6, 2007 10:47:51 AM
"Can we come up with some sort of snappy name for this phenemenon of lumping together totally unrelated actors in the middle east?"
I've got one: racism
An article in Vanity Fair convincingly makes the case that Rudy, contrary to coventional widsom, is in fact the family values candidate. Yes, he's an adulterer, cross-dresser, and buddy to homosexuals, but he recalls the glory days of the 1950s, when the man was in charge, his balls intact. Which is interesting because he's presumably impotent, and I wonder about the ways his inability to have sex manifests itself in macho swaggering and kill-the-Arab fear-mongering.
Posted by: david mizner | Jun 6, 2007 10:53:27 AM
Demagoguery.
Pandering.
Exploitation.
There's a lot of words we can use, and all of them reflect the basic GOP strategy for every campaign.
Posted by: Stephen | Jun 6, 2007 11:04:31 AM
David: It's very likely that Rudy takes testosterone (injected or rub-on gel) to preserve his 'secondary sex characterists' (facial hair, voice tone, etc.). A known effect of the hormone is aggressive behavior.
(I'll allow that he may not be, since if his MDs think there is likelyhood of remaining prostate cancer, the hormone would increase risk. But if his prostate has been removed completely, then the hormone would be acceptable.
In any event, he's always been an aggressor, and that can be in his mind as well as in his nuts.
But the par for the GOP presidential candidate course is 80% or better straight lies on Iraq and Iran and other Islamic matters, with 15% or better being just very misleading. The other 5%, which may be truth, is not rarely expressed anyway. Rudy wants to lead the foursome, and Freddie T is still in the clubhouse putting on his running (golf) shoes.
Posted by: JimPortlandOR | Jun 6, 2007 11:29:47 AM
There's a lot of words we can use, and all of them reflect the basic GOP strategy for every campaign.
You can leave out "GOP."
Posted by: Sanpete | Jun 6, 2007 1:38:15 PM
I'm sure that republicans and democrats alike will trot out that line about a mayor who failed to prevent the terror attack. If you do: you ought to be able to suggest something that he as mayor should have been doing at the time that he wasn't doing - that would have prevented jets from Boston from crashing into his buildings.
I'd like to think Jim and David are above the ugly personal remarks about Guiliani.
Posted by: slickdpdx | Jun 6, 2007 2:14:32 PM
this mayor of a large American city who didn't prevent a major terrorist attack but seemed emotional in its aftermath
What a perfect characterization. That, in a nutshell, is the explanation for Rudy's golden-boy status, isn't it?
Slick, the point isn't that there was something he could have done to prevent 9/11. Nobody thinks that - though he may have been able to prevent it from being as bad as it was. But the main point is that there is no basis for the 9/11 hero image that Giuliani enjoys. He was mayor, a terrorist attack happened, he was sad. Wow, let's make him our next president.
Posted by: Jason | Jun 6, 2007 2:37:47 PM
Jason: You can't embrace Ezra's phrase, and then run away from its obvious implication.
Re: golden boy status - "a record of decent governance and social tolerance" don't hurt either. Although they will, apparently, earn you rude remarks from the folks that position themselves as liberal types.
Posted by: slickdpdx | Jun 6, 2007 2:42:58 PM
You can't embrace Ezra's phrase, and then run away from its obvious implication.
I simply disagree that what you said is its obvious implication. Pointing out that Rudy did nothing to prevent or mitigate 9/11 is necessary because his image would seem to indicate the exact opposite.
"a record of decent governance and social tolerance" don't hurt either
I would take issue with that characterization. When I think of Rudy's record as mayor - the "shoot 41 times first, ask questions later" approach to policing, the war on dung art - "social tolerance" isn't the phrase that springs to mind.
Posted by: Jason | Jun 6, 2007 4:13:18 PM
Wow, didn't know Giuliani shot someone. You hate Giuliani, so you think of the things you hate about him. Others don't hate him and are capable of thinking of other things about him. I don't get your claim that Giuliani did nothing to "mitigate" September 11th. He certainly did things to help New York recover from it.
Posted by: Sanpete | Jun 6, 2007 4:32:50 PM
If only he would have been successful in his bid to extend his mayoral term until.... the Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism was won!
Posted by: Hoyt Pollard | Jun 6, 2007 4:51:16 PM
You hate Giuliani, so you think of the things you hate about him.
It's the other way around. There are all these reasons not to like him, so I don't like him.
Wow, didn't know Giuliani shot someone.
Ha ha. So he's just an accessory to murder.
I don't get your claim that Giuliani did nothing to "mitigate" September 11th.
I mean that 3,000 (or however many it was) didn't have to die. The mayor of NY couldn't have stopped the planes from flying into the WTC, but he arguably could have had a more efficient emergency response in place and minimized the casualties. I'm not arguing that Giuliani should be blamed for this, because I just don't know. But it is obvious that more lives could have been saved. (More people could have died, too.)
So I'm not saying that Rudy could have prevented 9/11 or even mitigated it in this sense. But he didn't do either, which undermines his ridiculous 9/11 hero status. This image all comes down to exactly what Ezra Klein said - he seemed emotional in the aftermath. Talk about low standards.
There's nothing wrong with NOT being a hero, so I'm really not trying to bag on Giuliani (on this point). But it's worth pointing out that his hero status is completely undeserved.
Posted by: Jason | Jun 6, 2007 5:04:47 PM
Also, to those who call talking about terrorism the way Giuliani does improper fearmongering, pandering, exploitation, and so on, what would you say about the ACLU's pronouncements about endangered civil liberties?
Jason: The Brooklyn Museum fiasco was one of the times I disagreed with Giuliani. I think he would have been okay (although I still would have disagreed) if he had merely used his position as a bully pulpit - the withdrawal of public financing was too much. That incident is not a deal breaker. The Diallo references above are ridiculous for a lot of obvious reasons. Less obviously, but more importantly, police-involved shootings declined under Giuliani.
Posted by: slickdpdx | Jun 6, 2007 6:17:12 PM
So did civilian complaints, including excessive use of force complaints. Note, the police and the government do not control the number of civilian complaints. The CCRB may decide whether a complaint is founded or not and you might disagree, but these are the raw complaint numbers, not the numbers of "founded" complaints.
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/pdf/cr_22.pdf
Posted by: slickdpdx | Jun 6, 2007 7:22:03 PM
There are all these reasons not to like him, so I don't like him.
What you said, and I responded to, was that those are the things that come to your mind. They're very selective, so I think my point stands.
So he's just an accessory to murder.
No, not even close.
he arguably could have had a more efficient emergency response in place and minimized the casualties
This image all comes down to exactly what Ezra Klein said - he seemed emotional in the aftermath. Talk about low standards.
But it's worth pointing out that his hero status is completely undeserved.
Really? Based on what? What makes you think he didn't handle it better than most mayors would have? He already had a good reputation for running the city better than his predecessors, he was out in the open when others were hiding, and he fought hard for money and other things necessary to recover. What else would you require for people to admire him for what he did? To run up to the 80th floor and carry someone out? Not his job.
Posted by: Sanpete | Jun 6, 2007 8:44:52 PM
What makes you think he didn't handle it better than most mayors would have?
Well, golly gee, Sanpete, for one thng, he could have, you know, not decided to put New York's emergency control center in the World Trade Center -- especially considering the WTC had already been the target of a terrorist attack.
Posted by: DJA | Jun 7, 2007 4:15:47 AM
Sanpete,
There really isn't any question that Guiliani could have "handled it better"--for example as dja said he could have listened to his terrorism advisors and not put the emergency control center in the world trade center, he could have spent some of the time he was attacking squeegee men getting firemen and police on working radios, and he could have stood up for his city afterwards when (as he well knew) Townsend was telling everyone it was safe to open up wallstreet and breathe that polluted air when it wasn't. Other things? He could not have appointed Kerik, not have recommended Kerik for Homeland security, not tried to have his mayoral term extended, etc...etc...etc...
You can choose to believe ten impossible things before breakfast but don't piss on our legs and gtell us its raining. "hero status" is something that guiliani had thrust upon him by a momentary (and it was momentary) ability to rise to the occasion. But being president isn't about "moments" its about a long hard slog of decisions and choices every day. Guiliani has proven over and over that he doesn't have good instincts, doesn't have a deep knowledge of world affairs or anhything else, doesn't have any kind of sexual or familial moral code--so what is left?
Oh, and though you may buy into the guiliani is a republican hero none of the republicans I know would touch him with a ten foot pole. My favorite republican told me she used guiliani as a kind of gut check to see if she was serious about taking family values as more than a stick to attack democrats with. She was relieved to find out that guiliani's hyper republican agression didn't excuse him for his manifold failings as a father and husband. Live by the sexual fearmongering and pandering, die by the sexual fearmongering and pandering I guess. So sad. There's plenty of good liberal, intellectual, moral, philosophical and just plain practical reasons to despise Guiliani and his enablers but the one that will bring him down is his disorderly private life.
aimai
Posted by: aimai | Jun 7, 2007 6:48:07 AM
he could have, you know, not decided to put New York's emergency control center in the World Trade Center -- especially considering the WTC had already been the target of a terrorist attack
If that's the best you have, you haven't got much.
Aimai, despite your extensive polling with your Republican friend, Giuliani is doing well among Republicans, and is widely admired by them. People who hate Giuliani only consider the things they hate; others consider other things, and see what you hate differently. The points in regard to September 11th you bring up against him are easy to judge in hindsight, but I see no reason to think others wouldn't have made similar errors. In fact we do know that the radio problems were national, and still haven't been solved in many cities. Again, Giuliani was well admired by most New Yorkers, even many liberals, for what he did with regard to cleaning the place up.
Posted by: Sanpete | Jun 8, 2007 3:03:17 PM
