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Rudy On The Mind
Rudy's signal that he's running for '08 leaves us ambivalent. That may surprise you, Dear Reader, given our seemingly offhand inclusion of Rudy in warnings here about McCain, “National Greatness” and Neocon wars of civilizations. A simple search using 'Guiliani' to the right should call up a fair sampling.
The problem is that we like Rudy personally. Alot. We worked for him back in the day on a daily basis. The interaction was direct, although Denny Young was around and Rudy's secretary “BP”, of course, supervised all. But he used our first name and must have thought well enough that he found time personally to return our phone calls long after we moved on. One of our friends remains in very close contact with him and reports that Rudy remains, well, Rudy.
The Rudy you saw on 9/11 is the Rudy we remember, only writ large. He is an extraordinarily decent person. He could be and we are sure still is extremely tough minded and exacting. Yet he always demonstrated a persistent empathy to others — even when there was no one looking or to record it. His battle with illness has only sharpened that sensitivity. Not for nothing did he attend all those funeral services and console all those families and stay in touch with them. An interesting duality of focused toughness and genuine compassion.
Our sense of Guiliani as a political person is the same as the man. So it was never a surprise that he is a progressive libertarian on many social issues. Unlike many of national stature we never got a sense that Rudy believed his own hype or if he did he got over it a long time ago. He had a great sense of humor and could see silliness and process-minded tedium for what it is.
So here's the rub. We'll leave it to the pundits to opine on his chances in the primaries and with the Republican base. That the wingnuts have a problem with him is in many ways an endorsement for much of America. Our reservation about his candidacy is his embrace of the GWOT and by extension the radicalism of regime change in Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia. We have heard him recently on some campaign swings (while sitting in the back of a packed house of donors) and there is no question in our mind that his invocation of GWOT and further war is genuine. No one knows what '08 will look like now, but the inclination to view the world in those terms and his undeniable charisma and credibility are an alarming combination.
He personally was wise to side step the Homeland Security Department (although Bernie sure blew up). The country, however, is the worse for that. If any one person could have sorted out that mess and made something actually happen, it would have been Rudy kicking ass wearing golf shoes there. And we always felt that someone of that same drive, intelligence, zero tolerance for corruption and compassion could have transformed Katrina into a moment of national healing. But. GWOT. Endless war of civilizations. A big if not smothering shadow over all even assuming the wingnuts can be overcome.
Tags:
Rudy,
Guliani,
08,
Election,
Presidency
Posted in General Aktion
at 16:03 on Tuesday 14 November
by DrLeoStrauss
Comments
We've had mixed feeling about Rudy the pol for a long time - albeit from a measured distance. We always found him impressive - greater than the sum of his parts. It's the parts, the particulars - that have given us pause. In short, our complaint about him is that his considerable abilities seem to carry too great a burden and we worry about the annoying cultish following he gets from mainstream media people who want to attach all sorts of attributes to him, He think he was a great Mayor for his first term - but then mixed in the second. He was always in contention with small beer opponents - like artists and dissident-types. His post 9-11 attempt to extend his term was, we think, not done in bad faith - We have no doubt that he sincerly thought he was indispensible at that time and so an extended term was warrented. But that could be a problem being Pres during GWOT. His illness does seem to have given him some perspective - But something like Iraq was either good or bad policy; it does no good to have a bad policy argued and led in a more effective fashion.
Meant to say we could understand why Rudy thought he was indispensible post 9-11. Did not mean to suggest that he was correct to try to extend his term. Charles de Gaulle can tell you all need to know about indispensible people.
Rudy does have a good sense of humor - with true wit. So does McCain. This cannot be underestimated. John Kerry and Jimmy Carter both have low quality sense of humor (publicly - we're not passing private judgements) and understanding that fact explains much.
But we do worry about Rudy's vision (same with Newt) precipitating avoidable wars if he is in power.
Politically, we think Rudy will be damaged by Bloomberg's success as Mayor - because Bloomberg has acheived Rudy-level results (in some ways better results) with less contention.
Doc, it's may be worth noting that your take on Rudy is somewhat opposite of one slice of conventional wisdom - That's to say, many of his critics speak well of some of his policies or his leadership at a key time, but take issue with his personality. You more than vouch for him as a person, while worrying about the possible evolution of his public policy in a post cold war GWOT world. Above we suggested we thought that he was excellent during his first term - less so after that. If we had to guess, most of the expected attacks against Rudy as being too liberal socially will not work. He may be able to balance that - as Nixon did - by having all the right enemies on the left. But his weaknesses will likely be from now unanticipated examination into his ordinary Mayoral policies from fellow Republicans. But who knows. His career is really amazing - the ups and downs, etc.
“No one could suspect that times were coming ... when the man who did not gamble would lose all the time, even more surely than he who gambled.”
~Charles Péguy
“War is hell - It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation.”
~William Tecumseh Sherman
“How the United States should react if Iraq acquired WMD. The first line of defense...should be a clear and classical statement of deterrence--if they do acquire WMD, their weapons will be unusable because any attempt to use them will bring national obliteration.”
~Condoleeza Rice 2-1-2000
Foreign Affairs
“There is already a mountain of evidence that Saddam Hussein is gathering weapons for the purpose of using them. And adding additional information is like adding a foot to Mount Everest.”
~Ari Fleischer 9-6-02
WH Press Conference
“Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.”
-Dick Cheney 8/26/2002
“[F]rankly [sanctions] have worked. [Saddam] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction.”
~Colin Powell 2/24/01
“If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world.”
~Ari Fleischer 12/2/02
“The president of the United States and the secretary of defense would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it.”
~Ari Fleischer 12/4/2002
“But make no mistake - as I said earlier - we have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about. And we have high confidence it will be found.”
~Ari Fleischer 4/10/2003
WH Press Briefing
re Ari's 'make no mistake' quote above is a classic of the Bush Admin genre of being unique in it's total wrongness.
Probably best to clip off the last sentance - the part about 'high confidence' - so as to emphasize the part about war being about weapons.
“For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.”
~Paul Wolfowitz 5/28/2003
Vanity Fair
“Let's talk about the nuclear proposition for a minute ... we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.”
~Dick Cheney 3/16/2003
Meet The Press
“Iraq could decide on any given day to provide biological or chemical weapons to a terrorist group or to individual terrorists...”
~Dick Cheney 12/1/2002
Address To Air National Guard
The bravura showmanship of being 100% wrong simply shut down political comprehension 2001-2006. Had the Administration been 30-35% wrong on x or y, ordinary political process would ensure that the mastication would be painful and prolonged. Their genuis was to transcend an understood frame of reference. I suspect in his heart of hearts Rove may harbour the secret belief that the Administration's true failing was to make concessions to consensus reality in 2006 — having come so far, they blinked at the finish line.
“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.”
~George W. Bush 1/28/2003
The Sixteen Words + Twenty More Words
State Of The Union Address
“One of our top objectives is to find and destroy the WMD. There are a number of sites.”
~Victoria Clark 3/22/2003
Pentagon Press Briefing
“We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.”
~Donald Rumsfeld 3/30/2003
ABC Interview
“U.S. officials never expected that 'we were going to open garages and find' weapons of mass destruction.”
~Condoleeza Rice 5/12/2003
Reuters Interview
You may be right about Rove - though it can be argued that the Dems should have picked up another 20-30 seats when you consider corruption, scandal, two failing wars, trade deficits, budget deficits, mounting debt, and an economy that booms for the smaller percentage of Americans than just a few years ago.
Notice the above trifecta of wrongness - each wrong for it's own reason, but united in falsehood - with Doctor Rice taking the prize for being wrong even when she's saying the opposite of someone else's wrong comment.
Doctor Rice's quote about garages is sublimely wrong - On the one hand, it's an absurd straw man she's shooting down. Real dumb , in the context of the endless pseudo-specific, scientific, and technical arguments that were being made in the lead up to the war. But it's gets weirder because people actually were saying wmd was hidden in garages and gardens. Rumsfeld and others - then radio and cable took it from there, post invasion. So Rice was saying something wrong - but it was double wrong for reasons she wasn't even aware of. But then again - the said they knew where the sites were anyway, so she was triple wrong. Yet - no one really cares. She's a role model.
Condi's quotes are not as funny as all those classics from the neos like Perle and the others. With the possible exception of the mushroom cloud quote - which she shared with Dubya, they are mostly contentless or or empty. The above one is exceptional - the triple wrong wonder.
“Their genuis was to transcend an understood frame of reference.”
So true - they should have has that victory rally a month before the election - the one that was appropriated for. They could have pulled it off, if they has decided among themselves what they were celebrating. Then they could have pushed the flag burning issue more - that always wins because no one knows how to respond to it, since no one knows anyone who burns flags. Russ would nod along and help out - asking every guest where they stand on the 'flag issue' then bringing in Big Russ and McCain and maybe a Nun he knows who knitted a flag, to discuss it.
Another thing going for the Dems was Katrina response - basically losing a city. That was huge - and Bush's political cost was not as big as you would expect; esp when combined with the drifting Afgan campaign, the Iraq debacle, and the looming crisis in Iran, and N. Korea. Bush can reply with some chatter about that tax cut that amounted to a hundred bucks or so for most people.
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We've had mixed feeling about Rudy the pol for a long time - albeit from a measured distance. We always found him impressive - greater than the sum of his parts. It's the parts, the particulars - that have given us pause. In short, our complaint about him is that his considerable abilities seem to carry too great a burden and we worry about the annoying cultish following he gets from mainstream media people who want to attach all sorts of attributes to him, He think he was a great Mayor for his first term - but then mixed in the second. He was always in contention with small beer opponents - like artists and dissident-types. His post 9-11 attempt to extend his term was, we think, not done in bad faith - We have no doubt that he sincerly thought he was indispensible at that time and so an extended term was warrented. But that could be a problem being Pres during GWOT. His illness does seem to have given him some perspective - But something like Iraq was either good or bad policy; it does no good to have a bad policy argued and led in a more effective fashion.