The Full Rudy: The Man, the Mayor, the Myth (2002)

[ProSense]

I remember this Guiliani.

article | posted May 30, 2002 (June 17, 2002 issue)

The Full Rudy: The Man, the Mayor, the Myth

by JACK NEWFIELD

Rudy Giuliani was a C-plus Mayor who has become an A-plus myth. Since the atrocity of 9/11, Giuliani has managed to merge himself with wounded New York until the man and the metropolis--and this almost religious event--seem to be one heroic blur.

But in April 1999, in the sixth year of his term-limited mayoralty, Giuliani had only a 40 percent approval rating from the people he governed, who knew him best. A year later his divorce lawyer was savagely attacking his wife, Donna Hanover, while the Mayor was flaunting his mistress in public. He even brought his girlfriend into the Mayor's residence, Gracie Mansion, while his wife was still residing there. They don't allow this kind of behavior in trailer parks!

As a result, Giuliani's popularity plummeted again in the spring of 2000. He was almost a laughingstock when he withdrew from his Senate campaign against Hillary Clinton. The official reason given was the Mayor's diagnosis of prostate cancer, but even conservative writers like William Safire in the New York Times and Robert Bartley in the Wall Street Journal had urged him not to run in pointed columns focused on his chaotic personal life.

In May 2000 Giuliani looked like a control freak who had lost control of himself.

more...

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020617/newfield
http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20020617&s=newfield

The end of this article sums up the real Giuliani.

The man's political fortunes were in the dumps right before 9/11. He, like Bush, rode that tragedy to mythical status. For even more find and read the articles about Bernard Kerik.

Anyone pushing Giuliani for president is just as blind as a Bush supporter.

[spindrifter]

1. Hopefully the puritans of the country

will nix him for his shocking womanizing behavior.:argh:

[dave502d]

2. The man made by Fox News, I just don't like Giuliani .n/t

[July]

3. Anyone who lives in or near NYC knows Giuliani is a crank.

He thought he was the Prince of New York rather than the mayor.

[dalaigh lllama]

4. Thanks ProSense

I'd always heard that NYers weren't all that fond of Rudy. I was on another forum shortly after 9/11, and one of the posters there was from NYC. She commented rather drily: "Who could have guessed a control freak would be just what we needed on 9/11."

[NYCGirl]

5. I'd give him a lower grade than a C+. A C- perhaps. NT

[ShockediSay]

6. and let's not forget

he was responsible for cutting the budget for the comm equipment of first responders, leaving many of them in a big mess without communications;

he was responsible for the operators on 911 who were a big mess themselves, misdirecting people to stay put etc;

his record of racial divisiveness in the City and Gestapo application of police resources> >he'll fit in well w/ BushCo;

that for all his photo-op posturing following 9/11, I don't think he can claim to have saved one life.

To the contrary, those who volunteered for debris removal, we now learn, are dying at an alarming rate (pulmonary) for lack of adequate safety gear and air quality risk assessment.