Giuliani in a Nutshell

As you may have noticed, Rudy Giuliani scares the hell out of me. Here is a guy with megalomaniac impulses who sees the war on terrorism as his best chance for a power-grab. And what he lacks in restraint, he makes up for in complete lack of class. Yesterday, after the Democratic debate, his campaign put out the following press release:

As the pundits work to figure out who won the debate tonight, it’s pretty clear Rudy Giuliani was the real winner. It is increasingly apparent Rudy is the one the Democrats are most worried about running against in the general election.

Senator Biden’s comments were of particular interest. The good Senator is quite correct that there are many differences between Rudy and him. For starters, Rudy rarely reads prepared speeches and when he does he isn’t prone to ripping off the text from others. And, Senator Biden certainly falls in to the bucket of those on the stage tonight who have never had executive experience and have never run anything. Wait, I take that back, Senator Biden has never run anything but his mouth.

Such a desperate attack from Senator Biden is to be expected considering I – Katie Levinson – have a better chance of becoming President than he does.

The campaign's first instinct is not to explain policy differences, but to attack Joe Biden for past controversies and his speaking style. Boy, that sure makes me want to vote for him.

Rudy has to resort to such tactics for two reasons. First, it is his instinct. Second, what else does he have to say? He obsessively speaks of his role immediately after 9/11. But what did he do after he left the Mayor's office? He made money. that's it. He was a member of the Iraq Study Group, but had to leave to raise money. Rudy's own Presidential website describes his entire post-Mayoral career thusly:

Limited by New York City law to two terms as mayor, Rudy founded Giuliani Partners in January, 2002, quickly establishing the consulting firm as a leader in the fields of emergency preparedness, public safety, crisis management, energy and health care. In 2005, Rudy became a name partner in the law firm of Bracewell & Giuliani. The sixty year old firm, previously known as Bracewell Patterson, has over 400 attorneys practicing in nine offices around the world.

How inspiring! If that's all Rudy himself can come up with, think of how pathetic the truth must be.

In fact, as far as I can tell, not one governmental entity has asked Giuliani or his company, Giuliani Partners, to advise it on anti-terrorism efforts. According to a partial client list published by the Washington Post, the only governmental entity that hired Giuliani Partners was Mexico City - but to advise it on crime prevention generally - and it is unclear how well he did that:

In 2002, Giuliani Partners landed a $4.3 million contract from a Mexican civic organization to advise authorities in Mexico City on how to tackle the city's vexing crime problems. Giuliani touted the deal during a splashy nighttime tour through the city's most dangerous neighborhoods, and his firm delivered a 146-point plan that the city's public security secretary, Marcelo Ebrard, trumpeted as an antidote to the city's entrenched crime.

Ebrard, now the city's mayor, said in a recent local television interview that many recommendations were implemented; the city put panic buttons on public buses and put surveillance cameras in high-crime areas. But other prominent figures disagreed. Jorge Castañeda, former foreign minister of Mexico, called the contract a "$4 million publicity stunt." Jorge Montaño, former Mexican ambassador to the United States, said the "people who paid Mr. Giuliani and his associates really made a great mistake. With all honesty, nothing that they suggested was successful."

The problem, Montaño said, was that Giuliani expected ideas that worked in New York to work elsewhere. "His recommendations were not based on the Mexican reality," Montaño said.

So what am I saying? In essence, Rudy is all about Rudy's power over others. His suggestion he stay on as Mayor past his term, and the way he told his second wife they were separating by press conference demonstrates exactly that. There is no evidence that he has given a damn about the long-term terrorist threat until he started running for President.

How in the hell can Republicans or anyone else support this guy?