I figured it was about time I weighed in on Rudy Giuliani's assertion that President Obama doesn't love America. Besides the juvenile nature of Giuliani's statement, let's take a peek at Rudy's love for the "homeland". First things first, though, let's examine how Rudy became a national icon through his own incompetence- in 1999, the Giuliani administration built a high-tech command center in one of the buildings of the World Trade Center, even though the WTC had been the target of a terrorist attack and was known to be a high risk location. A panel of NYPD and Secret Service security experts had advised Giuliani to locate the command cent in Brooklyn, away from the bullseye. Another criticism of the command center location was that the Giuliani administration had a 20 year lease with the WTC owner, with rents costing $1.4 million per year (NY Times link, count your clicks) when the city owned sites in which the center could be located. The reason why Rudy was walking the streets of lower Manhattan is because he had no other place to go, and his incompetence and corruption caused better persons than he to die. The most celebrated professional Giuliani critic is Wayne Barrett, formerly of the Village Voice- read his articles to learn about Rudy's true character and performance.
Despite his dangerous incompetence, Rudy Giuliani inexplicably got a reputation as a security expert, and parlayed that into a personal fortune. In 1989, when he first ran for mayor, Giuliani had a net worth of approximately $450,000 (NY Times link, count your clicks). His current net worth is approximately $45 million- that's what I call failing upwards.
In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Giuliani's former Police Commissioner and then business partner Bernard Kerik was nominated to head the newly minted "Department of Homeland Security". Kerikrecently was released from federal prison Giuliani's company benefitted from illegal influence peddling with "homeland security" (NY Times link, count your clicks) and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
If Giuliani truly loved his country, he would have served it without lining his pockets with tens of millions of dollars. There's a word for people who are paid for their "love".
NOTE: Title yoinked from Dominic Behan's best known song.
Meh. Don't play the game. What we have here is so much simpler than any of that. We have a politician with no hope of expanding his popularity and building it into an election-winning coalition. Faced with this undeniable electoral fact, the options are to continue to feed red meat to the base or go home and shut up. Since going home and shutting up is always an option, in the meantime you have these narrow-band conservative bomb throwers like Giuliani and Jindal doing the only thing they can do - throw meat to the crazies.
ReplyDeleteHere's the thing, Mr. Bastard. They aren't talking to you and they aren't talking to me - so we can safely ignore them. They are talking to the Ted Nugent constituency, the people who are so out of touch with the reality, not only of the situation as it exists but the system as it exists that they believe any of this idiocy matters.
I would be very pleased to see the rational left quit paying attention to the crazies and the bomb throwers and try to make the right come up with something close to a rational political dialog. Of course, after seeing Orin Hatch's performance today, maybe we just need to ignore them all....
Conservatives puzzle me with their ability to ignore the past indiscretions of people who clearly have broken some of their most holy taboos. Didn’t the still legally married Rudy parade his mistress around in public once while mayor and didn’t he also eventually marry a cousin? Of course, right-wingers completely ignored Palin’s daughter getting pregnant back during the 2008 campaign. Had one of Obama’s daughters been a little older and had sex out of wedlock the right-wing would have lost their tiny little minds.
ReplyDeleteIn lieu of a well-thought out comment, I submit this.
ReplyDelete~
I would be very pleased to see the rational left quit paying attention to the crazies and the bomb throwers and try to make the right come up with something close to a rational political dialog. Of course, after seeing Orin Hatch's performance today, maybe we just need to ignore them all....
ReplyDeleteThere is no rational dialog, they're all crazy. With Giuliani, it's personal- I know people who died, and to see that ghoul failing upwards chaps my ass.
Conservatives puzzle me with their ability to ignore the past indiscretions of people who clearly have broken some of their most holy taboos.
IOKIYAR!
In lieu of a well-thought out comment, I submit this.
Can't argue with that!
Also too, draft dodger. He didn't love America enough to fight for it, like Cheney, Buchanan, Limbaugh, Will, etc., etc. The late Jack Newfield coined the phrase "chicken hawks" to describe these hypocrites. It should be revived.
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