Rudy a Lefty? Yeah, Right.
SrRojo
Rudy a Lefty? Yeah, Right.
By David Greenberg
Sunday, October 28, 2007; B01
You wouldn't know it from reading the papers, but the favorite to win
the Republican presidential nomination is a confirmed right-winger. On
issues such as free speech and religion, secrecy and due process,
civil rights and civil liberties, pornography and democracy, this
moralist and self-styled lawman has exhibited all the key hallmarks of
Bush-era conservatism.
That candidate is Rudolph W. Giuliani.
As any New Yorker can tell you, the last word anyone in the 1990s
would have attached to the brash, furniture- breaking mayor was
"liberal" -- and the second-to-last was "moderate." With his take-many-
prisoners approach to crime and his unerring pro-police instincts, the
prosecutor-turned-proconsul made his mark on the city not by embracing
its social liberalism but by trying to crush it.
Somehow, though, Giuliani is being introduced to the rest of America
as a liberal. And the people pinning the L-word on him aren't just far-
right spokesmen such as James Dobson or Richard Viguerie, to whom even
the Bush administration looks squishily centrist. No, it's supposedly
objective journalists who've been using the label. ABC News reporter
Jake Tapper recently spoke offhandedly about the mayor's "liberal
views on social issues." Echoed NPR's Mara Liasson: "Giuliani has
liberal views on a number of social issues, including abortion." On
washingtonpost.com, political blogger Chris Cillizza referred to the
mayor's "liberal positions on social issues," even though Giuliani
supports only limited abortion rights and gay rights.
To a New Yorker, the idea of Rudy as a liberal or even a moderate is
unreal, topsy-turvy -- like describing George McGovern as a hawk or
Pat Buchanan as a Zionist. The case for Giuliani's moderation rests
mainly on three overblown issues -- guns, gay rights and abortion --
and even in those cases, his deviation from conservative orthodoxy is
far milder than is usually suggested.
The "social" and "cultural" issues that divide Americans encompass
much more than guns, gay rights and abortion. They include state
support of religion; the legitimacy of dissenting speech; the
president's right to keep information secret; the place of fair
procedures in dispensing justice. The Bush administration's hard-line
stands on these matters have polarized the nation as much as the Iraq
war has. And on these issues, Giuliani is just as hard-line as the man
he'd like to succeed.
If you've managed to keep liking President Bush, you'd have no trouble
loving President Giuliani.
Consider the first of our freedoms: free speech. One emblematic act of
Giuliani's mayorship was his 1999 attempt to censor an art exhibit
because it featured a painting of the Virgin Mary that used an unusual
form of mixed media -- clumps of elephant dung, to be precise. (Others
were also upset by the cutouts of female genitalia.) Giuliani, a
Catholic who attended parochial schools and once aspired to the
priesthood, understandably took offense. But he then converted his
religious sensibilities into policy, unilaterally withholding a $7
million city subsidy to the Brooklyn Museum of Art. When that failed
to get the painting removed, he tried to evict the museum from its
century-old home. Ultimately, after losing in court, he was forbidden
to retaliate against the museum. So much for moderation.
Those who deem Rudy a liberal might also recall his plan to fund
parochial schools with city money. His goal went far beyond letting
Bible groups meet after hours in public classrooms: The mayor
personally phoned Cardinal John O'Connor to hatch a plan that would
have placed public school students in church-run schools with overtly
Christian curricula -- including catechism and excluding sex
education. It was the real liberals on the school board who stopped
the plan.
Beyond religious issues, a second conservative trait defined
Giuliani's tenure: his Cheney-esque appetite for executive power. In
1999, for example, he directed (without the City Council's permission)
the police to permanently confiscate the cars of people charged with
drunken driving -- even if the suspects were later acquitted.
Giuliani's record on government secrecy, too, is hardly moderate.
Liberals today routinely attack President Bush's refusal to divulge
information about his domestic wiretapping program and his 2001
executive order claiming the power to close presidential papers. But
they rarely discuss an equally autocratic move that Giuliani made:
cutting a deal with the city as he was leaving office to assign
control of his mayoral records to his own private company so that he
could decide who could see them.
The fanciful notion of Giuliani's liberalism also omits the pi¿ce de
r¿sistance of his mayorship: his flagrantly undemocratic bid to stay
in office for an extra three months after Sept. 11, 2001. During
earlier crises, even World War II, U.S. elections had always managed
to proceed normally. But Giuliani maneuvered for weeks to remain mayor
after his term-limited exit date. Only as normalcy returned to New
York did his power grab fail.
Finally, don't forget foreign policy, which has become a social issue
in these parlous times. In pledging to carry on the Bush legacy abroad
-- seeking to assuage Americans' feelings of vulnerability through
brazen nationalism and the ready use of force -- Giuliani taps the
same emotions he did with his crusades against crime and vice: a sense
that a frustrated people want a no-nonsense leader who will buck the
weak-kneed worrywarts, be they urban school officials or Democrats who
flinch at warrantless wiretapping.
What's left of the case for Rudy's liberalism relies on three prongs:
guns, gay rights and abortion. But even those positions, seen in
context, don't render Giuliani a liberal or a moderate so much as an
occasional and tepid dissenter from the GOP line -- which, over the
past quarter-century, has become increasingly right-wing.
Take gun control first. Some people demand that their candidate
endorse the right to plunk down a wad of cash anywhere, anytime, for a
submachine gun. But for most conservative voters, what matters is a
"tough on crime" stance, and if any issue has defined Giuliani's
career -- from his years as a prosecutor frog-marching corrupt bankers
down Wall Street to his staunch support as mayor for trigger-happy
cops -- it's his conservative posture on criminal justice. While
liberals such as Michael S. Dukakis were thought to embrace gun
control to conceal their distaste for tougher measures, Giuliani has
always been known as an avenger.
His stands on gay rights also don't quite merit the liberal label.
Pundits often note that he lived with a gay couple after splitting
with his second wife. But policy stands, not private behavior, define
a politician's ideology. (Just ask Sen. Larry Craig.) Yes, Giuliani
supports more gay rights than do other Republicans, but he still
opposes same-sex marriage and has even denounced New Hampshire's law
blessing civil unions.
On abortion, Giuliani, while technically pro-choice, is far from
liberal: He favors outlawing what opponents call "partial birth"
abortion, backs parental-notification laws and supports the Hyde
Amendment, which prohibits federal funding for most abortions under
Medicaid.
Ultimately, the use of the labels "liberal" and "moderate" matters
less than the reason why they're used: to suggest that core Republican
voters won't support Giuliani's candidacy. But the numbers say
otherwise. Although some right-wing religious leaders are talking
about backing a third-party candidate if Rudy is nominated, few
primary voters are likely to follow. Not only has Giuliani
consistently led the GOP field, but pluralities of survey respondents
tend to agree that he "shares the same values as most Republicans" and
that on social issues he's neither too conservative nor too liberal
but "about right."
Pundits are flummoxed. When George Stephanopoulos told an ABC News
gabfest that a Gallup poll showed that 69 percent of "religious
Republican evangelicals" deemed the mayor an "acceptable nominee,"
George F. Will protested: "I just can't believe that those voters are
going to go for Rudy Giuliani." Cokie Roberts chimed in, "I just find
it very hard to believe that Rudy Giuliani is going to come out of
Iowa and South Carolina as the Republican front-runner." But testimony
from rank-and-file voters suggests that they will indeed tolerate his
mild heterodoxies on abortion because they like his overall ideology,
especially on Iraq and terrorism. (A Pew poll found that only 7
percent of Republican voters consider abortion their chief concern,
compared with the 31 percent who named Iraq.)
When Bush ran for president, his slippery slogan of "compassionate
conservatism" convinced many Washington journalists that he was a
moderate. When he then pushed a right-wing agenda, they were stunned.
They hadn't looked hard enough at his record. Likewise, if Giuliani
becomes president, he will probably emerge as an unabashed social
conservative -- as seen in his judicial appointments, his efforts to
aid religious schools, the free hand he gives the government in
fighting crime and terrorism, and an all-around authoritarian style.
Let's not get fooled again.
David Greenberg is a historian at Rutgers University. His books
include "Nixon's Shadow: The History of an Image" and "Calvin
Coolidge."
gc
He thinks it's surfng, this explains his mystery returns to Santa
Barbara? And strange spontaneous campaign at Joe's?
OMG... it's not ...
http://bp3.blogger.com/_0qTU784XP0M/RyZNbc6qADI/AAAAAAAAB-k/eIwcI7uHBYE/s1600-h/EAT+AT+JOES+RUDY.jpg
Rudy is alot more than a cross dresser. He changes more than tiara
crowned Judith's underware, and often. He's had Laura Schlessinger's
kudos. Next to BushCo he'll bomb anything remotely Islamic, or enemy
peace protesters. And with friends like Bernie it looks like the mob
hit scenario was just rival gang biz.
Schlessingers FAVORITE blog:
http://santabarbarasblog.com/?p=944
Wrote this fellow Pip! Pip! columnist scoop.. ?
"Santa Barbara News-Press columnist Richard Mineards speculated on
Monday that a major presidential hopeful reportedly has a mistress in
Santa Barbara...
'If true', Mineards wrote, 'his White House aspirations will be well
and truly sunk. The tabloids are already circling, I'm reliably
informed.' Pip! Pip! for now."
Who could that be? Is someone sneaking into Santa Barbara? It can't be
Hillary, "his White House aspirations..."
Dennis Kucinich was here. Obama and Oprah? Rudy was here for rich
Montecito fundraiser. He returned later and did a mysterious "Eat at
Joe's" appearance with the little people...
The News-Press is alot of faux news, they wouldn't pander for readers?
This is the paper that reported, as a real fire, a fire drill in a
several story empty fire drill building that's almost next door to the
News-Press. To make matters worse, when a back country fire covered
the city in toxic ash they didn't warn anyone to take air quality
precautions. Fire issues are a big deal here and we were accustome to
a daily paper that did their jobs.
http://zzwt.blogspot.com/search?q=rudy
* * * * * * * *
October 28, 2007
The dark forces driving Bush's absolute power
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/andrew_sullivan/article2752429.ece?openComment=true
http://lolita-lolita17.blogspot.com/2006/09/cute-or-slut-dr-laura-schlessinger.html
On Oct 28, 9:28 am, SrRojo <drj2...@concentric.net> wrote:
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/26/AR200...
> The fanciful notion of Giuliani's liberalism also omits the pi¿ce de
> r¿sistance of his mayorship: his flagrantly undemocratic bid to stay
hc
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/03/giulianis-mafia-family/
"I wonder if he noticed how much becoming part of his team resembled
becoming part of a mafia family," Mr. Kerik wrote. "I was being made."
On Oct 29, 2:22 pm, gc <lol7...@msn.com> wrote:
> > When Rudy goes waterboarding
>
> He thinks it's surfng, this explains his mystery returns to Santa
> Barbara? And strange spontaneous campaign at Joe's?
> OMG... it's not ...http://bp3.blogger.com/_0qTU784XP0M/RyZNbc6qADI/AAAAAAAAB-k/eIwcI7uHB...
> The dark forces driving Bush's absolute powerhttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/andrew_sullivan/a...http://lolita-lolita17.blogspot.com/2006/09/cute-or-slut-dr-laura-sch...
> ...
>
> read more »