The fact that Rudy Giuliani's presidential hopes have performed a crash-and-burn of almost biblical proportions is no accident. After all, his campaign is focused almost entirely on terrorism while his tactics are, well, terrorist: threatening the public with horrible consequences unless they vote for him. His endless repetitions of the 9/11 mantra - and virtually nothing else - made no impression on a public already numbed by six constant years of fear-based politics. And his less-than-total fealty to the evangelical agenda, combined with his rather messy personal life, doomed him with the Christian right.
But this latest item can't possibly help. Looking back on his tumultuous eight years as mayor, the New York Times examined Giuliani's legendary habit of punishing anyone who disagrees with him. Not simply snubbing them at social events - no, that was too ordinary for him. Nope, Das Rudy actually had his critics arrested:
The thought of such a man possessing the powers of the presidency evidently unnerved Republican voters already heartily sick of seven years of Bush-Cheney lawlessness. After all, who wants to have a president who feels he can send someone to Guantanamo Bay simply to satisfy a personal or political grudge? No one, apparently.
Maybe there's hope for the GOP yet.
But this latest item can't possibly help. Looking back on his tumultuous eight years as mayor, the New York Times examined Giuliani's legendary habit of punishing anyone who disagrees with him. Not simply snubbing them at social events - no, that was too ordinary for him. Nope, Das Rudy actually had his critics arrested:
In August 1997, James Schillaci, a rough-hewn chauffeur from the Bronx, dialed Mayor Giuliani's radio program on WABC-AM to complain about a red-light sting run by the police near the Bronx Zoo. When the call yielded no results, Mr. Schillaci turned to the [New York] Daily News, which then ran a photo of the red light and this front page headline: "GOTCHA!"
That morning, police officers appeared on Mr. Schillaci's doorstep. What are you going to do, Mr. Schillaci asked, arrest me? He was joking, but the officers were not.
They slapped on handcuffs and took him to court on a 13-year-old traffic warrant. A judge threw out the charge. A police spokeswoman later read Mr. Schillaci's decades-old criminal rap sheet to a reporter for the Daily News, a move of questionable legality because the state restricts how such information is released. She said, falsely, that he had been convicted of sodomy.
Then Mr. Giuliani took up the cudgel.
"Mr. Schillaci was posing as an altruistic whistle-blower," the mayor told reporters at the time. "Maybe he's dishonest enough to lie about police officers."
Mr. Schillaci suffered an emotional breakdown, was briefly hospitalized and later received a $290,000 legal settlement from the city. "It really damaged me," said Mr. Schillaci, now 60, massaging his face with thick hands. "I thought I was doing something good for once, my civic duty and all. Then he steps on me."
The thought of such a man possessing the powers of the presidency evidently unnerved Republican voters already heartily sick of seven years of Bush-Cheney lawlessness. After all, who wants to have a president who feels he can send someone to Guantanamo Bay simply to satisfy a personal or political grudge? No one, apparently.
Maybe there's hope for the GOP yet.
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