Unhinged: Giuliani Buys Into His Own Testosterone-Fueled Myth

With each passing day -- and each bellicose, over-the-top, spittle-enhanced pronouncement -- Rudy Giuliani is revealing that he has the soul of a thug and the disposition of a tyrant. His behavior on the stump shows Jimmy Breslin nailed it when he described Giuliani as "a small man in search of a balcony." (Don't forget, Il Rudy cleaned up Times Square and made the subways run on time.)

Giuliani's latest testosterone-fueled rant found him arguing that if we hadn't invaded Iraq, Saddam (who had no nuclear program) would be "becoming nuclear right now," and making the jaw-dropping and stomach-turning claim that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama "are kind of debating whether to invite" Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Bashar Assad "to the inauguration or the inaugural ball." (At least he seems to accept that it will be a Democrat making out the guest list in January '09.)

Giuliani has apparently never met a belt he didn't want to hit below. GOP presidential candidates are in a contest to see who can be the biggest Neanderthal -- and this is caveman Rudy's latest swing of the club: "Huckabee doesn't believe in evolution? Well, I think Hillary wants to have champagne and dance the waltz with a holocaust-denying madman!"

Then there was his head-scratching defense of Mike Mukasey's waffling on waterboarding, claiming that, like the attorney general designate, he wasn't sure it was torture. "It depends on how it's done," explained Giuliani. "It depends on the circumstances. It depends on who does it." So if you're being waterboarded by a sexy girl in a room filled with candles, it's all good? Does Rudy occasionally come home, dim the lights, open up a nice bottle of chilled Chablis, put on a little Barry White, and ask Judi to break out the waterboard? Since when is there so much wiggle room when it comes to obeying the Geneva Conventions?

It's clear from his hyperbolic rhetoric that Giuliani has fully bought into his own phony myth -- painting himself as a two-fisted tough guy, the mayor with the "S" on his chest and the dust from the fallen twin towers on his shoulders.

The surprising thing isn't that Giuliani is channeling Rush Limbaugh, tossing red meat to the lunatic fringe that has taken over the GOP. It's that the media are letting him get away with it.

If a Democratic presidential candidate - or even a mere Congressman like Pete Stark -- had said that Bush was going to invite the nuke-happy Ahmadinejad to the White House for a celebration, the airwaves would be filled with demands for an apology and an emergency session of Congress would be called to pass a resolution condemning the unpatriotic insult. John McCain said that MoveOn "ought to be thrown out of" the country for calling General Petraeus "General Betray Us." But the front-runner for the Republican nomination suggests that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would want to party with tyrants, and he gets a free pass from the traditional press. Why? Does a potential Hillary-Rudy match up offer too many good story lines to be derailed by increasing evidence of Giuliani's readiness for a well-padded room?

Or maybe the media are just drinking the same Kool-Aid as the GOP faithful who seem surprisingly willing to look the other way when Giuliani treats telling the truth the same way he treats waterboarding: "It depends on how it's done."

Of course, if the media ever do get around to holding Giuliani's feet to the fire, they need to do it accurately -- not like the AP, which initially misreported Rudy's crack about Clinton and Obama inviting Ahmadinejad and Assad to the White House. The AP reporter heard "Assad" as "Osama" and many in the media, including me, went with the erroneous AP story -- in my case until I heard the sound byte myself.

Here is the AP correction.

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Comments

[Phylin]

In New York there is a guy called Giuliani
Who reminds me of Red Riding Hood’s granny.
When he uncovers his fangs
And begins his harangues
The resemblance is hideously uncanny.

[cactusJohn]

I enjoyed your discussion on Charlie Rose this week. Judy(Rudy)­Rulianni(G­iuliani) can hardly be considered a possible candidate for the U.S. Presidency, can he? --Thanks for your up-to-date analysis of his latest 'blow.' But as a retired consuting engineer (dating me to pre-Watergate) I am STILL surprised that the likes of the Cheney / Bush-league administration ever got into consideration. It makes one feel, sometimes like they have lived all their lives co-mingling with Klingons, or the like.

[MidaFo]

Arianna, it is not surprising that the media are buying into it. He is a prominent face of America. Thuggery and piracy are prominent elements of American capitalism and hence of Capitalism itself. Get the good people of America to be as worried as we are and he will be defeated. The problem is that HRC is merely the other side of the same coin. To a certain extent so is Obama.

The reason he has become so is the same as the reason Giuliani and HRC are. It is that your media and the opinion"polls" are messily and salaciously, even ostentatiously in bed with each other with the result that the American public regards what the polls tell them as more important than what the candidates intend, which is a propagandists wet dream.

This is indicative of a dearth of reason in America. The source can be ascribed through the Protestant religions to Calvin who denied the efficacy of reason.

HRC and the masturbatory mouth Giuliani are the reductio ad absurdum of one of the fundamental cornerstones of American culture; the outer signs on an inner madness.

We all have a problem. We, in South Africa, had it and still have to live with its writhing, suggestive shadow.

[Anastasia]

Hope the media's favorable treatment of Rudi, wakes people up to the fact 2008 will not be a cake-walk for the Dems, even though it ought to be.

The MSM, as usual is looking for someone that they can project a storybook character on to (and is a reliable friend of their interests) rather than the best person for the job.

They completely ignored all of the negatives swirling around Dubbya, and dubbed him the heir apparent. They'll do the same with Rudi, given half a chance.

That's why it's vital for the Dem nominee to call out every lie, every half truth, every bit of demagoguery that the Republicans throw at us.

Unfortunately, nice guys lose, when up against the right wing noise machine. Be strong, Dems!

[disgusted48]

That statement-

Guiliani-the soul of a thug,
the disposition of tyrant.

is the makings of a great bumper sticker.

How about: Guiliani-thug or dictator?
You Choose.

I think negative bumper stickers are more effective.

[ReHoover51]

we are the country that used WMDs on other countries (japan), we are the country that used WMDs on our people (waco) ... we are the country that provided WMDs to iraq
i dont expect much of this country ... hell, we let insanely dangerous christians do as they please and no one even dares say a word...
i am going to Titan, a moon of saturn!

[BlobbyRL]

I don't know...I remember a time when people like McCain and Juliani had thoughts of their own. They were a lot more interesting then. Now it seems they just spout the party line, endlessly repeating the half-truths and complete lies forged by the Bush administration. I can almost remember the very day McCain did a complete 180. How much money do you need to buy a senator or congressman? Or what do you have to threaten him with? I wonder how much they charged the dark one for their immortal souls? Hope it was a lot.

[CorkExaminer]

Very funny, and all too apt. A little disappointing to see no pushback against the Ahmadinejad demagoguery. OK, political realities don't allow for any push-back, but with a little more care it would be possible to avoid adding any.

[KosmicKat]

WHAT testosterone? He must eat it pure and fresh, out of a tin can. G looks too old to be able to father a child on an amoeba. The lisp and having the face of a mummified fetus add little to his macrocosmic charm.

[djarvis]

You are so right, Arianna. And the scary thing is that so many people believe Giuliani. His fiery rhetoric sounds like he is some kind of mad bomber, just itching for a chance to nuke Iran. But many Republicans are convinced he is the one who will make our country safe from terrorism.

They either forget or still don't know that it was his stupid decision to locate the emergency response headquarters INSIDE one of the WTC towers, even though that was where we had already been been attacked by a bomber in 1993. He also neglected to upgrade the radio system for the firemen, which caused many rescuers to be unable to communicate after the 911 attacks. He claims to be the hero of the 911 disaster when all he really did was walk around the area and cheer on the firemen, and many of them have been his harshest critics.

Rudy criticizes the Democratic candidates by saying that they have never run anything, while it is obvious that he is just running his mouth. Rudy has no foreign policy experience and would be worse in diplomacy than George Bush.

[StillAmused]

All those 'heroic' shots of Rudy walking the streets of NYC in his dust mask on 9/11 raise an interesting point. He had nowhere else to GO!

Watching this self-promoting 9/11 profiteer deconstruct, as the truth catches up with him, is gonna be one of the highlights of the primary season.

[Qbear]

Arianna

Will you equally chastise Hillary's new ESTROGEN SOAKED mea culpa?

[JTyroler]

I still don't understand how someone is "tough on terrorism" by simply being the mayor of a city that was attacked. Wouldn't this also mean that the mayor of Alexandria, Virginia is "tough on terrorism"? The heroes of 9/11 were the people who risked, and often lost their lives that day, not the people who tried profitting from these terrorist acts.

[lowfiron]

I can't top what the other comments say. Arrogance and facism certainly go together.

[Centaur]

I just finished reading an article about two "gentlemen" by the names of Frank Lucas and "Nicky" Barnes. In case you've never heard of these two, they just happen to be two of the most notorious heroin dealers and killers back in the 1970's in Harlem. In fact, Lucas's life is being showcased in a movie(American Gangster) which opens today. The other character Barnes "bio" is being shown as a documentary in selected theaters. What is so interesting about these two is that when they were asked who would make a "good" president they chose "Nosferatu(an amazing likeness), er, Guilliani because, and get this, they said he had "principles" and "he says what he means and means what he says." They also went on to say despite their "fondness" for 'Rudi" they thought that Hillary would win between the two.
Well, with such ringing endorsements from those two, Rudi should invite them to go on the "stump' with him.