On a trip to England to burnish his foreign policy credentials by meeting with Margaret Thatcher, Rudy Giuliani bragged to reporters in a posh London Hotel that, "I'm probably one of the four or five best known Americans in the world." When asked who the other three or four are, he managed to get out Bill Clinton...Hillary Clinton, before attention was distracted by onlookers gawking at Dustin Hoffman who was staying at the same hotel.
Does Giuliani's ego and mendacity know no bounds? He just can't seem to keep himself from bragging and lying. He may even be vain enough to believe his own bullshit. The more America sees of him, the less it's going to like him (except for that stubborn 30% core who still support the Iraq war and want to see America kick ass around the world.)
This bogus claim of worldwide fame was right up there with his recent claim that he spent as much time at Ground Zero after 9/11 as the rescue workers, many of whom are now sick from breathing in toxic air, after the Giuliani administration did nothing to facilitate their wearing respirators like the cleanup crews at the Pentagon were required to wear. The New York Times then reported that in the weeks after 9/11, Giuliani spent 27 hours at Ground Zero, mostly giving tours to various dignitaries and keeping his face in front of the TV cameras (as rescue workers spent 12 or more hours a day digging through the rubble), while Salon.com reported that in a similar period, Giuliani spend twice that amount of time--58 hours--attending or flying to Yankee games.
So, after giving it about 5 minutes of thought, here's a quick list of a few more than 4-5 Americans who are probably more famous, or infamous, around the world than the egomaniacal Ex-Mayor:
*Dustin Hoffman
*Bill Clinton
*Hillary Clinton
*George W. Bush
*George H.W. Bush
*John Kerry
*Colin Powell
*Condoleezza Rice
*Michael Jordan
*Tiger Woods
*Serena Williams
*Venus Williams
*Vanessa Williams (either one) (well, maybe not)
*Brad Pitt
*Angelina Jolie
*Tom Cruise
*Tom Hanks
*George Cloony
*Steven Spielberg
*Julia Roberts
*Jack Nicholson
*Madonna
*Michael Jackson
*O.J. Simpson
*Bruce Springsteen
*Aretha Franklin
*Whitney Houston
*Barack Obama
*Al Gore
I'm sure readers can think of many more.
I'd like to suggest that to test Giuliani's claim, Huffpo blogger and pollster John Zogby run a poll in some major countries around in world listing Giuliani's name with the names of a number of other famous living Americans and asking respondents who is best known in their country.
I'd place some very good money that Giuliani's name doesn't appear in the top 4 or 5, or even the top 25, or maybe even the top 100.
& toadies that surround Rudy and are 'his world',
and especially if you include autograph-seekers
& paparazzi, it would be pretty easy to understand
why he might think himself 'right up there' among
the most famous, his ego not withstanding.
He probably gets an update from Bernie Kerik
every day on his standing.
Longer answer: The most dangerous place I know of to stand is between Rudy Giuliani and a TV camera.
Montgomery, the British Field-Marshal, was hardly characeristically British when he declared, "There have been four great Generals--Alexander, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, and me."
Don't get any ideas Rudy, your penchant for cross-dressing already locked down the mentally unstable vote.
Mohammad Ali !