America's (Worst) Mayor

Julia has the goods on Hizzoner.

Comments

[mudkitty]

I spend a lot of time on right wing blogs, and I can tell you - they will not buy into Guliani.

(Somebody's got to do it.)

[John Lucid]

I don't know, mudkitty. Sure, he doesn't share all of conservative Christian America's values, but I think Mr. Giuliani's ridiculing of a man with Parkinson's disease ought to earn him Rush Limbaugh's endorsement, which would go a long way in the patriotsphere.

Now if we can just get him to call someone a "faggot" he'd be a lock!

[Eric Jaffa]

Firefighters Union on Rudy:

Prior to November 2001, 101 bodies or remains of fire fighters had been recovered. And those on the horrible pile at Ground Zero believed they had just found a spot in the rubble where they would find countless more that could be given proper burial.

Nevertheless, Giuliani, with the full support of his Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen, decided on November 2, 2001, to sharply reduce the number of those who could search for remains at any one time. There had been as many as 300 fire fighters at a time involved in search and recovery, but Giuliani cut that number to no more than 25 who could be there at once.

In conjunction with the cut in fire fighters allowed to search, Giuliani also made a conscious decision to institute a "scoop-and-dump" operation to expedite the clean-up of Ground Zero in lieu of the more time-consuming, but respectful, process of removing debris piece by piece in hope of uncovering more remains.

Mayor Giuliani's actions meant that fire fighters and citizens who perished would either remain buried at Ground Zero forever, with no closure for families, or be removed like garbage and deposited at the Fresh Kills Landfill.

[Eric Jaffa]

I meant to use his full name. If I could edit, I would.

[The Phantom]

Don't have time to get into an extended discussion now, but--Rudy was a very great mayor. Period.

And those who seek to rewrite history about his mayoralty are doomed to fail. New Yorkers, and Americans are aware of his accomplishments.

Even if 9/11 had never happened--don't we wish--and he never needed to rally the city and nation in the terrible days afterward--the historic reduction in crime that happened under his watch, would be reason enough to consider him as President.

He's your next President. Barring sickness or whatever, he's your next President. I guarantee it.

[Alon Levy]

Phantom, stare at this graph for a few seconds. Then repeat the sentence "Giuliani caused the reduction in crime in New York" to yourself until you can say it with a straight face.

[The Phantom]

Dinkins was a decent man who was way, way over his head.

Assuming this chart is correct, and I do, he would have had the "advantage" of being able to take the rate down 5 per 100,000 people during his single term. Guiliani would have taken that rate of reduction multiplied it by 50%, and kept it going for eight years, not four.

I have an advantage that you may not have. I live in New York City, pretty much always have. I've always taken the subway, stayed out late, etc including during the entire period in question.

I witnessed "mass muggings" in Central Park in 1985, in front of NYPD officers who were ordered not to leave their posts to arrest the criminals.

I witnessed muggings in Times Square and elsewhere. I felt the fear that pervaded many NYC neighborhoods in the 1980s and beyond. I did not quite share it...I'm not small, and I know how to walk like I'm not to be messed with, but many, many women and men were scared to death to be on the street after dark, esp in what were then borderlands like Park Slope, the lower East Side, upper West Side.

Dinkins lost control of NY City during the Crown Heights riots, which lasted for days. He let that burn itself out. He lost the city during those days, and you tell me how that computes on this damned chart.

All I know is that most New Yorkers were afraid, and tourists stayed away.

Guiliani came in promising to solve the crime problem, and did. He did so by hiring great leaders in the NYPD, implementing Compstat, holding precinct commanders accountable.

I saw it then, I see it now. Noone thinks twice about riding the subway at 10pm now. They certainly did then.

There are more crimes than murder too. One leading indicator--in the early 90s, everyone here had a "Club" antitheft device on the steering wheel of their car. Now, noone does. Auto theft in my neighborhood is down 90% since 1990.

Ask 100 New Yorkers which recent mayor is responsible for the big reduction in crime. No one will say Dinkins.

When I was a young kid, I remember hearing Barry Grey on the radio. For a long time, he was a big talk radio guy in NY and beyond.

He was speaking about those who seek to rewrite history, and said that he did not care so much about those who seek to rewrite ancient history, but he got really offended by those who sought to rewrite history that had just happened!

I expect more "Dinkins was the real crimefighter" howlers as we approach the national elections. They won't succeed. Too many New Yorkers, and other Americans, saw what happened during the Giuliani tenure, lived through the changes here, rejoiced in them.

I know a ton of New Yorkers, many of them liberals, who will testify to everything I said. The memories are too strong, and this history will not be rewritten.

[CatManDu]

He may be bad, but John Street and his deluge of murder in Philadelphia is no picnic.

[global yokel]

The NYC Firefighter's Union issued this today:

http://www.firefightingnews.com/article-US.cfm?articleID=27125

Giuliani is toast. I'm betting that Hagel announces on Monday, and wins the GOP nomination. He is the only hope the Republicans have.

[John Lucid]

You're probably right, yokel. Sen. Hagel has gone out of his way to put distance between himself and the failed Iraq policy of the Bush administration that McCain still feverishly endorses, and he doesn't carry the baggage of Guiliani. And Giuliani has LOTS of baggage. Romney will NEVER win the nomination, and not just because of his flip-flopping on issues that conservatives hold near and dear to their hearts. He's also a Mormon, which to many Christian conservatives (especially in the South) is akin to a cult.

To be completely honest and forthcoming, a Hagel candidacy is the only Republican presidential bid that I fear. That is to say, he's the only one with a fighting chance. Not that I'm terribly impressed with the Democratic field, mind you. Then again, I am a Feingold man. I hope Sen. Feingold will some day run for President, even if it's not in this election cycle. No candidate is perfect, but I think he's one of the best Democrats I've seen in my lifetime.

[Chris]

I'm not a Giuliani fan, but anyone who thinks that graph shows that Giuliani was not responsible for a substantial drop in the NYC homicide rate has no idea how to read graphs. It's not that the graph shows that Giuliani was responsible for the reduction that occurred during his administration (it doesn't), but the fact that a downward trend started during Dininks' tenure (I've heard New Yorkers say, for years, that Dinkins started everything, and Giuliani continued and bettered the trends) says nothing. You'd need more information to argue either way. Including, for example, information about policy.

[Alon Levy]

Ask 100 New Yorkers which recent mayor is responsible for the big reduction in crime. No one will say Dinkins.

I will, in the same poll in which I'll ask them who they'll vote for in a Clinton/Giuliani election. Hardly anyone will say Giuliani.

Assuming this chart is correct, and I do, he would have had the "advantage" of being able to take the rate down 5 per 100,000 people during his single term. Guiliani would have taken that rate of reduction multiplied it by 50%, and kept it going for eight years, not four.

Well, I'm not disputing crime went down more in Giuliani's first term than in Dinkins'. But, you know, when the crime drop started in 1990, and when it happened even in cities that implemented none of Giuliani's measures, it's likelier that Giuliani was blessed with rising to power at a time when crime was plummeting throughout the US or rode on the wave of Dinkins' community policing measures than triggered the crime drop with Compstat and the broken windows policy.

[Uncle Kvetch]

As someone who lived through "Giuliani time," I think Jack Newfield's formulation pretty much hits the nail on the head: "Giuliani was a mayor of excess, with some big accomplishments and some spectacular lapses into cruelty and fanaticism."

He's going to need to surround himself with some highly skilled spinmeisters if he really hopes to appeal to the nation as a whole. A few anger-management classes probably wouldn't hurt either:

Giuliani authorized the release of Dorismond's sealed juvenile arrest record, which contained nothing more serious than a violation punishable by a summons, to discredit him. Juvenile arrest records are supposed to be kept confidential, and Giuliani violated legal ethics by breaking the seal without getting a court order. Dorismond was 13 at the time his arrest was entered into a police computer. At a press conference Giuliani argued that the dead man's conduct at age 13 was "highly relevant." Dorismond, he sneered, was "no altar boy." But Dorismond had actually been an altar boy. He had even attended the same elite Catholic high school as the Mayor--Bishop Loughlin in Brooklyn.

A few nights later television journalist Dominick Carter asked Giuliani about his "no altar boy" comment. "This is not a fair question," the Mayor complained. He declared that Dorismond had "spent a good deal of his adult life punching people," and that he had a "propensity" for violence.

The Mayor's defense for opening the records was that Dorismond had no privacy rights because he was dead.

He just can't help himself. You can argue over his accomplishments, but not his personality: When challenged, he's a petty, mean-spirited bully. I don't think it's his positions on abortion & gay rights that will sink him--he has plenty of time to "rethink" those and kiss the religious right's behind, if need be--but the fact that he's a nasty piece of work.

[mudkitty]

All of the above aint the half of it.

It won't be Guliani. They (the GOP) got nuthin. Guliani, Newtie, McCain...Ha! Huckabbee? Romney? They got nuthin.

In a desperate attempt to catch up to reality, they may nominate Hagel as the anti-war republican, but that Hail Mary Pass won't work either.

The rightwing are shitting their pants.

[Mnemosyne]

Let's ask Abner Louima what he thinks of Guiliani, shall we?

I'd say we should ask Amadou Diallo and Patrick Dorismond, but we'd need a medium to do that.

[Jim Tourtelott]

Rudy Giuliani is the vilest human being I have ever met, and I've been in the same room with Richard Nixon. Over time, particularly a campaign this long, he will let his inner scumbag out in public a sufficient number of times so that only those for whom character disorder is a selling point will want anything to do with him. Admittedly, that would not prevent his gaining the Republican nomination. But the Republican nomination in 2008 will be a thing of the same value as the Democratic nomination of 1984. Rudy can go back to his day job of hiding under rocks and frightening small children.

[Uncle Kvetch]

Over time, particularly a campaign this long, he will let his inner scumbag out in public a sufficient number of times so that only those for whom character disorder is a selling point will want anything to do with him.

Well, it looks like things are already moving in that direction, Jim.

I mean, you can understand the line of reasoning here: "We elected the guy we'd most want to have a beer at the ballgame with, and look how that worked out. Maybe what we need is the world's biggest dickhead."

[The Phantom]

--Ask 100 New Yorkers which recent mayor is responsible for the big reduction in crime. No one will say Dinkins...I will, in the same poll in which I'll ask them who they'll vote for in a Clinton/Giuliani election. Hardly anyone will say Giuliani.--

Rudy Giuliani was elected as mayor twice by the residents of New York City And his popularity in the downstate suburbs is off the charts. Believe its not bad upstate either.

Don't trust your judgement on this, oh ye liberal bretheren and sisteren, if such a word exists.

I spoke to my buddy Seth yesterday, who lives in Park Slope and who told me that "everyone he talks to is totally against Rudy". Well, what's your point? respondeth the Phantom.

Of course many (by no means all) of the residents there don't like Rudy. The groupthink there, like the groupthink here, is that he was some "fascist" Il Duce who made the D train run on time,while engaging in a campaign of extermination against people of color, while shutting down all the museums.

Totally at variance with the facts, but hey it makes for a swell story, so lets go along for the ride.

There will be more creative writing attempts to rewrite history, saying that "Dinkins was the real crimefighter" or that Ruth Messinger could have done just as good a job at rallying the joint after 9/11. God, I can't wait. The spin machine should have some swell canards in waiting.

Rudy brings deep executive competence to the table, and America understands this.

Trust me--Rudy's hard task is winning the primary. Should he get the nomination, he, in a walk, wins more than 40 states. Including NJ,PA, and NY.

He stands the old categories of liberal and conservative on their head. I know many liberals who intend to vote for him. I know religious conservatives in the South that will vote for him.

This country is starved for intelligent, competent leadership. They'll have it soon.

[ballgame]

This country is starved for intelligent, competent leadership.

So, Phantom, are you conceding that all of the national Republican leadership to which America has been subjected up until very recently has been stupid and incompetent? Or are you just referring to Bush?

And can someone other than Phantom explain exactly what Giuliani did in the post 9/11 environment that accounts for his glowing reputation, other than looking smug for the kiss-Republican-ass corporate media cameras? And by "did", I mean policies that Giuliani himself actually implemented in response to 9/11, not 'things that occurred during his tenure for which he was given credit'. I mean, surely there must be something substantive he did that would account for the fawning media coverage he received during that time that goes beyond the 'executive competence' bullshit we're being fed.

[The Phantom]

ballgame

I do indeed refer to Bush.

And almost all of the Republican and Democratic leadership. You may be impressed with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, but I am not.

---

--someone other than Phantom--

Well, to save you more "Dinkins the crimefighter" falderol, I must respond.

New York was in a very fragile state post 9/11. Once the second plane hit, two things became immediately apparent, even before they were backed up by news confirmations.

One, it was a terrorist attack. Two, it was a terrorist attack conducted by Muslim fanatics.

There could very easily have been anti-Muslim riots in that atmosphere.

One of the first things Giuliani said was (and I go from five years plus memory here) that " while we will give some additional police protection to mosques, etc. that he knows that the Muslims of NY were not involved in this, that 99.99999% were good people, and that the people of New York will not turn on each other in this hour. They're better than that"

The words were different, but this is the heart of what he said.

There was a great eloquence that came from him in that first week, an eloquence and grace that neither detractors nor his supporters could ever have expected.

Guiliani's leadership in September 2001 can't be quantified in terms of "policies". His actions were indeed proper, but...it was the things he said, the gestures he made, that made such a difference.

Case in point: a bride to be suffered the loss of her brother, a fireman,in the days after 9/11. The father had died earlier that year. The family asked Rudy to give the give the bride away and he did.

I'm sure that you will sneer at this gesture, but the Gorumba family did not. It was a lovely thing to do, it was the talk of the city, a sign of hope and humanity during some terrible days.

I can talk about things that Giuliani did in his capacity as executive in chief, but it is things like this that helped the citizens of NY get past those horrible days.

----

From Drudge Radio tonight: someone is playing
this video clip all of a sudden.

Again: the tough thing for Rudy is getting the nomination. He's neither liberal nor is he conservative. If he gets the nomination, he wins in a walk.