Seeing Rudy Giuliani fulminate against Hillary Clinton and Moveon for "character assassination" and "political venom" this week was like watching Larry Craig denounce homosexuality.
Recall that Giuliani was famously abusive as a U.S. Attorney, ordering some Wall Street traders to be handcuffed in front of their shocked staff, with charges later thrown out. And since he ran his mayoralty based on reverse Lincoln -- with malice toward all and charity toward none -- his words in the Bush-Petraeus context are an unadulterated example of what psychologists call projection or average citizens call hypocrisy. But since he can't run in Republican primaries on such stalwarts as family values or on guns, gays, god and abortion, he has to overplay the war/patriot card.
Venom and assassination? When former Mayor Ed Koch, who endorsed Giuliani for reelection in 1997, titled his biography Giuliani: Nasty Man? Let's see:
- *When a black private security guard Patrick Dorismond was wrongly shot to death by police who implied he was a drug dealer, here's how Giuliani comforted a grieving family: he illegally and selectively released Dorismond's juvenile record and personally attacked him as "no altar boy." (In fact, he had been an alter boy.)
- When Brooklyn City Councilman Steve DiBrienza enacted a bill to limit the number of beds at City homeless shelters, Mayor Giuliani vetoed the measure, and then retaliated by sending an eviction notice to a city building housing a senior-citizen center and non-profit children's center in DiBrienza's district. Here's a guy who would go to that length because I beat him on passing a law that requires smaller-bed shelters,DiBrienza told the New Yorker. "Because we would not blink, he would throw kids, seniors, and the mentally ill out into the street. I mean, could I have written a better script to expose the fact of what he was?"
- When the New York City media reported in 1994 that Giuliani's newly appointed Commissioner for Youth Services had failed to pay his taxes, the Mayor's press secretary called several reporters to assert that the Youth Commissioner of predecessor David Dinkins, Richard Murphy, had engaged in a variety of financial improprieties. The Giuliani commissioner had to resign but the smeared Murphy fought back -- and a year later the city's Department of Investigation dismissed the charges against him as exaggerated and false.
- When it appeared that he would run for and possibly win a U.S.Senate seat in 2000, he pushed to change a 140 year-old rule that my office of Public Advocate was next in line in case of a vacancy because he didn't want a Democrat like me to succeed him. We fought his effort "to change the rules in the middle of the game...for political and personal reasons." He lost 76% to 24% in a public vote.
It's odd to watch the party of Joe McCarthy, Karl Rove and Swift-boaters complain about opponents who allegedly impugn the patriotism of political opponents. But it's particularly humorous to listen to Giuliani complain about MoveOn and Hillary Clinton for their criticisms of Petraeus...or protest those who raise "personal" questions about his wife and children. For when he had to, he would routinely engage in personal search-and-destroy missions against those who stood in his way.
On the venom front, Giuliani urges reporters to make Churchill analogies when he was far closer to a Nixon governing by enemies list.
What a choice. None and None.
As for Guilianni, the thought of him as president is extremely frightening. He's another Bush, but with more brains. He would be an unscrupulous tyrrant, another Karl Rove who not only demonizes those who disagree with them, but seeks serious revenge. With Guilianni, we'd we that much closer to a full blown dictatorship.
He is not your usual conservative Republican no matter how much he tries to act the part. His conversation with Trump may be all in fun, but it surely looks strange. Wonder if he uses it for a political picture?? Slinging mud just opens one up to these sorts of reminders. What he does is his business but than all this name calling just elicits this response and sure enough, someone sent me the site.
We've had our full measure of brigands and pirates, shysters and con artists in the White House, say no to Giuliani a resounding NO I say.
The only Republican candidate who's worth a damn is Mike Huckabee. If the Republican Party wanted to offer up someone who is in the same league as John Edwards, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, he would be their choice. Thankfully for the Democratic Party, they don't have the character or intestinal fortitude to run a relatively uncompromised candidate of quality.
The presidential election is a foregone conclusion, the only way a Republican winds up in the White House in 2009, is if the elections are fixed. A possibility that I will not be willing to dismiss until after all the votes are tallied.
Obama 08, genuine leadership for this new century.
But where Tooty fruity Rudy is Dead Wrong is wheN he attacks Senator Clinton for raising LEGITIMATE DIALOGUE about the so-called "Petreus Report". She's doing her civil duty to her constituents to call it what we all know it is: BULLSHIT.
Moveon.org's running a wonderful TV AD in response to President Psychopath's speech last night. They want to air it on Monday and I donated $50. I urge anyone who can to do the same.
Hey Tooty Fruity Rudy--lay off the Senator. You keep up these silly-nilly tactics, (attacking an esteemed American politician for voicing her honest and warranted objections)and not only is the Senator gonna beat you for the Presidency come 2008--she's gonna bash you soundly.
Why?
The American People are fed up and disgusted and on the verge of revolting for this very crap being pulled on us by President Psycho and his cohorts.
Lay off our Freedon to Speak you twit.
But Rudey Ghouliani seems so impressed by the uniform, ... its assumed worthiness of awe and respect by all who confront it, ... even by Senators and political interest groups.
As a past firefighter I ask why the former mayor is so awestruck with the good general's military uniform, and yet has repeatedly and consitently disrespected the FDNY in Parade or Turnout gear, ... it's members and other first responders. Is it the whiff of smoke on their collars for which he holds such disdain?
Rudey is hollow through and through. There is no one home inside the grinning, screeching, Mr. Ghouliani, ... "Il Douchey", ... I am sad to say. There is no military service, no foreign service, no fire service, no police service, no federal office, nothing but a thug from the Big Apple with 9-11 dust on the lapel of his shiny silk suits.
When my brothers and sisters in NYC tell me to beware, ... I listen. Every one of the people I respect from New York tells me that "Rudey" is as bad, or worse, than he seems. At the moment he seems more like a man interviewing for a couple hours a day on AM talk, ... than a man deserving to become the President of The United States.
More than
http://static.flickr.com/18/68726110_2c7787453b_o.jpg
WHERE'S my APOLOGY...Rudy