How Would You Like Your Giuliani - Fried or Roasted
Unlike the Kennedy-esque accolades heaped on Hillary's recent economic blatherings, the advance on Giuliani's presidential bid will likely take a more cynical turn. First out of the box is a new documentary called "Giuliani Time", given a decent review here in the Times.
The filmmakers obviously hope to derail Giuliani's candidacy by presenting the real Giuliani, not the hero of 9/11. But as lefists, they are sure to fail to have much of an impact beyond their own fellow-travelers.
Not that Giuliani is beyond reproach - quite the contrary. I see in Rudy similar character flaws as we see in Bush. Though much more intelligent, articulate, and educated than Bush, Giuliani has that disturbing need to promote loyalty above all else. We should remember that Bush's disgraceful DHS nominee, Bernard Kerik, was a Giuliani creation. To recap, Giuliani had one of the best men around, William Bratton, as police commissioner, but they couldn't get along.
He clearly can't handle woking with talented people who might outshine him. (To be fair to Bush, this is not a trait he has - he seems perfectly comfortable surrounding himself with high profile people - but that's probably more a function of his laziness than any fundamental inner strength - and it hasn't really done him a lot of good, has it.) But like Bush, he also reveled in a kind of cult of personality. It's all about Rudy - when he was mayor, I always got the impression that if he couldn't get credit (or blame, which is the same thing) for something, it didn't interest him. It's not clear he holds any principles or philosophy above his own need for Rudy-worship.
But the film's focus seems elsewhere. According to the review, "throughout the film, the Giuliani administration is rendered as a heartless and heavy-handed police state that mistreated minorities, the poor and sick, artists, people on welfare and victims of crime." In other words, he withheld patronage from minority leaders, he forced the homeless off the streets, he closed money-losing hospitals, refused to waste tax dollars on talentless "artists," he enforced welfare rules, and had the police focus on arresting street criminals. My guess is this movie is not going to be mobilizing any dump-Giuliani movements real soon.
The filmmakers obviously hope to derail Giuliani's candidacy by presenting the real Giuliani, not the hero of 9/11. But as lefists, they are sure to fail to have much of an impact beyond their own fellow-travelers.
Not that Giuliani is beyond reproach - quite the contrary. I see in Rudy similar character flaws as we see in Bush. Though much more intelligent, articulate, and educated than Bush, Giuliani has that disturbing need to promote loyalty above all else. We should remember that Bush's disgraceful DHS nominee, Bernard Kerik, was a Giuliani creation. To recap, Giuliani had one of the best men around, William Bratton, as police commissioner, but they couldn't get along.
He clearly can't handle woking with talented people who might outshine him. (To be fair to Bush, this is not a trait he has - he seems perfectly comfortable surrounding himself with high profile people - but that's probably more a function of his laziness than any fundamental inner strength - and it hasn't really done him a lot of good, has it.) But like Bush, he also reveled in a kind of cult of personality. It's all about Rudy - when he was mayor, I always got the impression that if he couldn't get credit (or blame, which is the same thing) for something, it didn't interest him. It's not clear he holds any principles or philosophy above his own need for Rudy-worship.
But the film's focus seems elsewhere. According to the review, "throughout the film, the Giuliani administration is rendered as a heartless and heavy-handed police state that mistreated minorities, the poor and sick, artists, people on welfare and victims of crime." In other words, he withheld patronage from minority leaders, he forced the homeless off the streets, he closed money-losing hospitals, refused to waste tax dollars on talentless "artists," he enforced welfare rules, and had the police focus on arresting street criminals. My guess is this movie is not going to be mobilizing any dump-Giuliani movements real soon.
posted by ziel | 4/12/2006 08:29:00 PM
2 Comments:
Don't forget, he also made Yankee left field bleachers smoke free.
Of course! Almost got me booted out of there.
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