America's Mayor has had a rough couple of weeks as we head into the Iowa caucuses. Rudy Giuliani has been caught by the media making up facts in TV debates. Mr. Fiscal Responsibility has been found turning city vehicles into his private Hampton Jitney for trysts with his girl friend in the East End of Long Island. As an economy measure, the costs of police protection for the lucky Other Woman were hidden in obscure city agencies' expense accounts. He has been outed as a lobbyist for bad guys (The People's Republic of Qatar). He has made millions but will not say exactly how or from whom, despite his claims for being a huge fan of transparency in governance.
He couldn't be elected Mayor of Dogpatch these days.
So he doesn't have a good head for numbers or good judgment in picking close associates. With friends like Bernie Kerik, he doesn't need enemies. He is not a friend of animal rightists with his jihads against ferrets and iguanas, a major problem in New York, apparently.
No, what concerns me is his courage under fire. Can he take the heat in the kitchen? When the going gets tough, will Rudy get going?
I mean, will the man who has a speech defect -clinically analyzed by Jon Stewart as "9/11 Tourette" --have what it takes to stand up to Hillary Clinton, once the charade of these so-called debates and primaries are over?
My mind keeps going back to the defining moment in the race for the New York Senate seat in 2000.
It was Mr. Crime Stopper against the carpetbagger Hillary Clinton, the Chicago lady who was accused of not even knowing what subway train to get to Yankee Stadium, and other crimes.
My second favorite indoor sport at the time was watching these two political gorillas rassle on TV, a brawl that conceivably could be re-enacted in November 2008.
Rudy vs. Hillary in New York was shaping up as the "WWF Raw" of Senate races, one of those Steel Cage Matches, eye-gouging, bite the ear off, no holds barred TV political debate junkies like myself would die for.
Something weird happened on TV the week of June 7, 2000. It began with Rudy being seen on the local news ducking into the hospital. He has to admit he has prostate cancer. Poor devil. I feel sorry for him. It's sad.
Then we hear on the news that his wife (at the time), Donna Hanover-- the WPIX news anchorwoman whose employment was widely seen as a TV station currying favor with City Hall-- announces she is canceling her appearances in the off-Broadway play The Vagina Monologues. She is putting aside the chance to make a name for herself as an actress, saying she will stand by her man during his medical crisis.
Rudy on TV doesn't look too happy about it.
And then, somehow, it gets leaked: Rudy has a friend. Not Mrs. Rudy.
Rudy is standing there at a news conference on News1, the local all-news cable channel. Somebody asks Rudy a question on the prostrate problem, and Rudy starts ruminating about his home life. Suddenly, Rudy announces he and his wife are separating.
That's how Rudy Wife No. 2 found out her term in office was over.
She got a phone call from a friend tuned in to News1.
Devastated and humiliated, the soon to be no longer Mrs. Mayor, then called a press conference of her own.
In other words, we saw a real life political marriage go down in flames on TV in dueling press conferences
It was great TV.
Everybody was stunned by this turn of events. A man who had been basing his campaign on his respect for family values was exposed as a cruel heartless philander.
Republican bosses who were expecting Rudy to mop up the floor with Hillary, were speaking in tongues, bumping into furniture, trying to figure out where this left the Senate race.
And then Rudy bailed out.
That was astounding. The man who seemed poised to lead an expeditionary force into Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Stanistan, wherever Osama was hiding, was throwing in the towel. Only five months before Election Day!
A lot of journalists, besides me, were dismayed. We were looking forward to a classic grudge match
On the upside, it also was a television first, a reality TV show which could be called the Self-Destruction of a TV Candidate.
The whole thing literally self- destructed before our eyes. It was so uniquely TV. It couldn't have happened before TV, something that would have gone on in a smoke-filled backroom. It was a New York Minute worth remembering.
Without Rudy, the Republicans were forced to go their bench. They threw in a guy named Rick Lazio, an obscure Congressman representing the 2nd District of New York.
His campaign seemed to consist of four words: "Made in New York." Wherever he went in the state, he accused Hillary of not being a native New Yorker. He didn't even seem to know that New York's first senator, Rufus King, was from Massachusetts.
Not even Rudy's love of opera, his courageous campaign to rid the city of ferrets and iguanas, giving a Congressman nobody cared about the chance to be a wimp in the debates with Hillary, none of that could lessen the sense of disappointment at his lack of cojones.
The Indispensable Man, as he had been portraying himself after 9/11 had become the Invisible Man.
While it is true that there is an old American folk saying that he who runs away lives to fight another day, his leaving the battlefield under fire leaves me wondering now: does he have the intestinal fortitude to take the heat in the kitchen this time? Or will we once again be standing up to salute and pledge allegiance to Rudy's white flag.
Just asking.