Giuliani is Not Who He Seems

Quote of the day:
“It will be generally found that those who sneer habitually at human nature are among its worst and least pleasant examples.”
--Charles Dickens

Statistic of the Day:
Estimated percentage of personal computers worldwide that have been hijacked and are currently sending spam without their owner’s knowledge: 11%
--Forbes, July 25, 2007 (Hint: disconnect from the web, clear your cache, run anti-virus software)

Quote of the day no. 2:
“Nearly every major accomplishment [Rudy] Giuliani points to today either had already been achieved or was well on the way to being achieved by the time he became mayor.”
--Kevin Baker in the August “Harper’s”

Rudy Giuliani currently is the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. Our well-imprinted view of him is based on three things.

First, he was extraordinarily eloquent as a government spokesman just after the destruction of the World Trade Center. In those days, we so desperately needed someone to put our sorrow, fear and anger into words--and he did that with great skill.

Second, in the years since 9/11, he has popped up in the media from time to time with comments about being “tough on terrorism.”

Third, there is a vague line that has been repeated often by commentators during the campaign that, when he was mayor, he “turned New York City around.” The facts don’t support this.

For example, it was Mayor David Dinkins who signed into law a tax surcharge that enabled the hiring of six thousand additional police officers. As a result, during Dinkins’ term the murder and robbery rates fell by 14%, burglary fell by 18% and auto theft fell by 24%. According to Kevin Baker, “the city’s crime rate dropped in all seven FBI major-felony categories for the first time in nearly 40 years.”

This is how things were heading when Giuliani took over as mayor. Yet he claims, and we still believe, that he alone is responsible for “cleaning up” New York City.

When 9/11 happened, Giuliani’s Office of Emergency Management completely failed to coordinate rescue efforts between the police and fire departments. There was not even an effective system for the fire department to communicate with itself.

That deficiency had been known since the 1993 World Trade Center attack, and led to hundreds of firefighters being cut off in the towers. There was no way to tell them the buildings were in danger of collapse.

Giuliani was on-site during the disaster and knew of the communications problem, but made no attempt to keep the firefighters informed. Later, he told the 9/11 Commission that the firefighters had refused orders to evacuate, according to “New York Times” reporters Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn.

Among the many people he worked with as mayor, Giuliani has a reputation as a bully--arrogant, egotistical, authoritarian, and very prickly in the face of criticism. In his mayoral campaigns, he had no qualms about distorting the records of, and even destroying the reputations of, those he disagreed with.

Baker also says this:
“The worst excesses of the Bush regime have stemmed directly from its leader’s character--that is, its rampant cronyism; its arrogance and egotism; its peremptory, bullying tone and methods; its refusal to brook criticism from within or without; its frightening authoritarian impulses; its need to create enemies as a means of governing; its impulsiveness and naivete; its outright contempt for the law; and its truly staggering ability to substitute its own versions of what it wishes the world to be for any recognition of objective reality.

“Judging from his record in gaining and holding power, there is no reason to believe that Rudolph Giuliani’s presidency would be substantially different.”