One More Kick For Giuliani

I just re-read the NY Times endorsement of John McCain, the least unattractive of the Republican candidates in their opinion. Isn't it sad that a guy who said he would keep troops in Iraq for 100 years is the best choice? Anyway, I just had a shit-eating grin on my face while coming across the reasons they decided not to go with America's Mayor, so I thought I'd cut and paste for posterity.

NY TIMES: Why, as a New York-based paper, are we not backing Rudolph Giuliani? Why not choose the man we endorsed for re-election in 1997 after a first term in which he showed that a dirty, dangerous, supposedly ungovernable city could become clean, safe and orderly? What about the man who stood fast on Sept. 11, when others, including President Bush, went AWOL?

That man is not running for president.

The real Mr. Giuliani, whom many New Yorkers came to know and mistrust, is a narrow, obsessively secretive, vindictive man who saw no need to limit police power. Racial polarization was as much a legacy of his tenure as the rebirth of Times Square.

Mr. Giuliani’s arrogance and bad judgment are breathtaking. When he claims fiscal prudence, we remember how he ran through surpluses without a thought to the inevitable downturn and bequeathed huge deficits to his successor. He fired Police Commissioner William Bratton, the architect of the drop in crime, because he couldn’t share the limelight. He later gave the job to Bernard Kerik, who has now been indicted on fraud and corruption charges.

The Rudolph Giuliani of 2008 first shamelessly turned the horror of 9/11 into a lucrative business, with a secret client list, then exploited his city’s and the country’s nightmare to promote his presidential campaign.

I never get tired of reading that. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. They could have gone on and on (but only had limited space) about this authoritarian freak who once said, "...freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do."

Freedom is about authority? ... Yeah... that's the kind of guy I want running my country. Just get your sorry-ass debacle of a campaign over with and quit already.

The Giuliani "Transparency"

It's been a little while since I've posted about Ghouliani. Having to write about the Giuliani scandal du jour can get a little tiresome. But here's a new one!

Under an unprecedented agreement that didn't become public until after he left office, Giuliani secreted out of City Hall the written, photographic and electronic record of his eight years in office _ more than 2,000 boxes.

...In a Republican presidential candidates' debate last week, Giuliani asserted: "My government in New York City was so transparent that they knew every single thing I did almost every time I did it. ... I can't think of a public figure that's had a more transparent life than I've had."

There are some however, including this native New Yorker that lived through the Giuliani Mayoral Administration that don't agree with the "transparency" that Giuliani claims. But don't just take my word for it.

"He ran a government as closed as he could make it," said attorney Floyd Abrams, a widely recognized First Amendment authority who faced off against city lawyers when Giuliani sought to shut the Brooklyn Museum of Art because the mayor considered a painting sacrilegious.

...Mayor Giuliani was in many respects a good mayor, but in regard to First Amendment-related matters, he is surely the worst in living memory," Abrams said in an interview.

...In a slap at Giuliani's City Hall, a judge in one such case wrote bluntly, "The law provides for maximum access, not maximum withholding."

Read the rest of the story.