This kind of shamelessness, the lack of any vestige of conscience; playing the victim; the vindictiveness and eternal lying; the recklessness and lack of care for consequences; the risk taking; the sexual promiscuity; lack of personal loyalty and the constant deep need for external validation and adulation are all part of the psychopath's armoury.
Most people meeting, living with or working with them are totally confused by them even as their lives are disrupted and often ruined.
In some, if not many cultures, these people are heavily socialised, marginalised or simply disposed of when young. The psychopath is probably born not made, so is not totally to blame for having a reduced capacity to embrace normal human feelings.
The problem arises when their love of power is unchecked in big business, the law and politics, three areas where they tend to gather in numbers.
In America they are admired as `go-getters' people who `play the system' well by a vast number of the population who appear to have little time for integrity, honour and simple honesty. It rewards them at all levels with positions of power and wealth and offers little or no censure.
That they are flocking to the Trump administration is no coincidence. They are the robber barons, opportunists and carpetbaggers who see the tramcar and have jumped aboard. Trump is not the first, just the most obvious.
PS: The more low functioning usually find themselves in jail as do far too few of the high functioning.
Excellent well written piece. Thanks.
1
Someone I once admired in the naivete of my younger days. Not for over 25 years; I now loathe him. As a contributor to the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers to Foundation, suggest that they disassociate from Giuliani; seeing his name on the letterhead gives me pause with regard to contributing.
1
I've noticed a recent change in answer when I ask someone why they are going to continue to vote for one of these people who lies all the time about absolutely everything. They pick an issue and say, "X is too important to me. I can't be bothered about some fibbing when X is at stake." Xis a variety of things. I've heard X is illegal immigrants. Or X is abortion rights. Or X is gun rights. Really, just about any issue will do. At one time the response was that these people weren't lying. Now it is pick an issue, any issue.
1
I remember in the 1980's when Reagan was carrying on his lawless assault on the rights of disabled people to collect Social Security disability benefits. Giuliani, U.S. Attorney at that time, declared that his office would not automatically file the briefs prepared by the Social Security Administration attorneys because they were so regularly contrary to settled principles of law.
I have often wondered why he subsequently abandoned the idea that the government must be bound by the law.
1
What an incredible story, masterfully told. Thank You.
1
Before 9/11, Rudi Giuliani was best known as the mayor who cracked down on the "squeegee men," who smeared dirty water over the windshields of hapless New York commuters, as they waited in traffic to get into the tunnels and bridges out of Manhattan at rush hour, asking for a handout. Picking on the low-hanging fruit of the most vulnerable and least damaging of the city's evildoers was his signature initiative. As a mayor, he was a phony from Day One. His speeches at funerals and memorials for fallen first responders may have been moving, but they could easily have been ghostwritten for him, just as JFK's PROFILES IN COURAGE was actually written by Ted Sorensen, who also wrote Kennedy's speeches. A successful politician is inevitably the product of many different people's skills and efforts.
2
The illustrations are priceless, as is the article. Thank you.
3
This article reflects much research combined with a talent for writing. I thank Mr. Mahler for condensing all the foibles of many of the self-appointed big guns and telling it like it is.
2
Wow!!! Great research and conclusions! I was a bartender when Giuliani hosted a party in Garrison for his failed mayor campaign. He and Rodger Ailes sat at the bar and talked about all the dirty tricks they had pulled during the last 3 months. They were shameless.
4
If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?
Will Rogers
1
I sort of liked the "He died in prison, penniless and alone" part. Justice is on occasion done.
3
roy cohn redux
3
When Rudy is on CNN, do they actually pay him to speak? If so ..... Years ago, in downtown Manhattan I would routinely jump out of my car and give some approaching gentleman a dollar or two NOT to clean my windshield with his dirty rag. That, CNN, is how to spend money correctly.
3
America has changed, for the worse.
So has Giuliani. Only worse.
3
To be shocked at Giuliani's behavior is to have been blind all along. He was always self-promoting, arrogant and sleazy. He cheated on his wives, grabbed the mike no matter how far away it was. The emergency control center that was destroyed 9/11 because of its location in building 7, was put there by Giuliani over the objections of the Police and the Fire commissioner, a story long forgotten - link below:
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/26/us/politics/26emergency.html
8
Interesting article. I believe we tend to remember the good and suppress the bad memories about a person. That is certainly true of my impression of Mayor Rudy. I do disagree that misinformation campaigns are a recent phenomenon. In fact the Nazis were the first in my memory to use propaganda to influence the people. The definition of propaganda (as I used to teach it when I taught high school English) is, say something long enough and loud enough and eventually people will believe it. That is straight out of the present administrations's playbook. Does that comparison frighten you? It should. Those who forget history are destined to repeat it. Let's hope America is big enough and generally good enough to overcome this present and clear danger.
5
There is a golden moment in this essay when the author writes "the closest thing to a unifying explanation for his behavior was his pronounced inability to experience shame," and Giuliani responds in his footnote that this statement is a "theory" that "requires a degree in psychiatry."
Yet if you go to the Oxford English Dictionary and look up "shame" it's all there. Its meaning has been a shared understanding for well over 1,000 years. That Giuliani's behaviors and actions should engender "shame" in a normal person does has face value and as such is not a theory at all. Furthermore, the catalog of these behaviors and actions is large and thick.
The bottom line is this: Giuliani's response is a perfect example of the "fog" the author is talking about. It is frightening that we have so many powerful people running this country who are fog machines with ill intent. They don't even think of starting out with the truth and seeing whether that will work. They start with lies, baseless accusations, and deflections, then they move on from there.
Personally I might think this lack of shame is sociopathic, but that would require a degree in psychiatry that I do not have. Therefore, a "pronounced inability to experience shame" does nicely, and no degree in psychiatry is required.
4
Rudy didn't change he just has been uncovered for who he has always been. Rudy was christened America's mayor because he did what any leader would have done after 9/11.Rudy is a legend in his own mind.
8
Thank you for this piece -- Tolstoy-worthy and it would
be far more entertaining if it weren't so painfully true.
4
It's pretty much what New Yorkers have had a bird's eye view of; maybe it might convince his supporters - but I don't think so. Still, to see it compressed, all in a narrative, He's always been as ruthless as he could get away with, and as exploitative and self serving as Trump. The bog surprise - once at least - is that shamelessness at this level is celebrated as representing the American spirit in too many corners.
AS in those instances where it is revealed that police have lied, evidence manufactured, and forensic labs report results they never found - - one wonders how many people Giuliani railroaded in his bid for power and public adoration?
Note: Andy Friedman's illustrations are GREAT.
5
Shame is self-punishment. Children are born with it (well maybe not Trump). But if you get rid of truth shame will evaporate. And when that goes you lose the most important element of all: trust.
7
When the ghoul was mayor of NYC, he was generally thought to be racist, sexist & corrupt. 9/11 somehow made him a hero, til we discovered he was taking compensation from first responders injured in the aftermath of the attacks. In other words, New Yorkers arem't shocked at his befriending Trump & helping him to help himself politically by attempting to strong-arm the Ukrainians by withholding essential military aid.
10
@Jenifer Wolf Lodge
Their home town always knew Trump for the grifting, grabbing, little narcissist that he has always been; Catching up to Rudy only took a "minute" more.
8
New Yorkers don't go down memory lane in huge illustrated articles like this one. They live in the present.
So the main point is that, after a sputtering beginning, Rudy is doing very good and useful work for Trump these days. Else no one would have bothered.
His recent trips to Ukraine took impeachment enthusiasts by surprise. Are Trump and Giuliani insane, digging in Ukraine while being impeached about Ukraine?
The gathered bounty from those trips should be at the center of the trial this week, even though Rudy is not officially on the team.
Turning yourself into a top private investigator at 80? America is truly the land of reinvention. So did he have messy divorces? Who cares...
1
@novoad If there were truly "gathered bounty" it would not have had to be presented on OAN. It's as bountiful as a degree from Trump U.
3
Sweet article. The identification of "shamelessness" as the main force behind the political dysfunction of this era is one that deserves some serious consideration. It would certainly explain the conduct of the GOP senators in the impeachment of Donald Trump. Shameless is what occurs when you are solely concerned with self preservation, when there is no loyalty to law, norms, country or principle.This will be McConnell's legacy.
6
Thank you for the in-depth look and denouement of Giuliani. A few weeks ago on Morning Joe, Donny Deutsch, a New Yorker who has also followed Giuliani's exploits since the beginning, was excoriated by the host, Joe Scarborough, for echoing several of the points elaborated in your article.
Although Scarborough is now critical of Rudy, he clings to the narrative of Rudy's mythical and self-aggrandized past. In effect Scarborough told Deutsch, "I will not allow you to impugn the reputation of America's Mayor on my show." In light of your article, I think Scarborough owes Deutsch an apology.
6
I can only hope that Giuliani and Trump get what they truly deserve (and which is long overdue); a big comeuppance in the form of long prison sentences. Maybe they could even have adjoining cells.
6
My dearly departed sister was a lawyer who met Rudy in the ‘80s for a job interview. She often told us that she could see he was a simmering lunatic then. He was always this bad, it took astute people to see it.
10
The apparent success of such figures as Trump and Giuliani demonstrates once again that Americans cannot tell the difference between fame and notoriety.
7
At one time, Danny DeVito defined the role of The Penguin, but Mr. Giuliani has not only perfected it, but made it an inescapable part of our mind-bending daily routine -- the throbbing Trumpian headache.
The president's "personal attorney" indeed. Quite a euphemism for a bagman who dwells in the political sewers.
It all seems so surreal, but it's only too real. And thus far, the bad guys are getting away with it. They're running roughshod over the Constitution of the United States and the rule of law for the most venal personal gain and thumbing their noses at us in the process.
Nice legacy, Rudy.
9
Giuliani is the symptom, the Republican Party is the true cause of the train wreck in which this country is currently immersed. Giuliani can only be as crazy, hyopcritical and unbound to any semblance of rationale thought as the Fox News fueled Republican Party will allow. If it wasn't for the enabling embrace from conservative news, Giuliani and the Republican Party would likely be far saner and this country far safer. Conservatism run amok is the true disease infecting rationale discourse in the country. Ousting enough Republicans from Washington, D.C. to achieve supermajorities in both houses as well as the Oval Office is the antedote.
6
Rudy ordered city workers back to work in their contaminated buildings within days after 9/11 so that New York would appear to be “up and running”. He was no hero.
9
Love the George Grosz inspired caricature drawings.
9
So desperate for relevance, it's just sickening to watch. What ever happened to grace and style? Trump corrupts everyone.
2
Trump has unearthed racism and thuggery and made it acceptable. So, Rudy "came out of the closet" and here he is! No biggie!
3
A brilliantly written vivisection of Guiliani and, remarkably, fair-minded. Illustrations were superb too.
7
A leopard can't change its spots. Any man who intentionally, publicly, and gleefully humiliates his wife is a bad person.
After the first World Trade Center Bombing expert suggested that the NYC government build a secure emergency control center in Brooklyn. Giuliani overruled the experts and had one built at the WTC. It has been credibly surmised that he used that "bunker" for private assignations with his paramour, given its proximity to both of their workplace--City Hall.
4
I have been amazed to hear from respected news sources in recent years that Rudy was "America's Mayor". He appeared in front of the cameras on 9/11 when Bush was hiding in his airplane. Other than that, I thought he was an embarrassing, incompetent mayor his entire tenure.
5
The problem remains that these shameless Republican shysters will not be shamed, it's not part of their DNA. And with the alternate-facts media such as Twitter and Facebook continuing to spread disinformation to willing Republican recipients, how do we see this epidemic of shamelessness stopped? If you come up with an answer, please let us all know.
5
Excellent piece. Birds of a feather.... Interesting that T & G's fathers were criminals. The apples don't fall.... Exploding narcissism. T gets away with it which give license to G's expanding skills in the arts of lying, cheating, and stealing. T & G were meant for each other. Truths don't matter.
5
It's Trump. He spread culpability like a gardener spreads manure.
5
Giuliani did not change. Journalists make thousands, no tens of thousands of decisions about how to cover public figures. There have always been plenty of content bread crumbs linking present day Rudy to Rudy past. Just ask the litigation partners at White & Case who refused to support him when their managing partner tried to shove him down their throats, way back when. Ask the victims of stop-and-frisk. Ask the families of all the rescue workers who got cancer after 9/11 because no one told them to wear masks (America's mayor my eye! He wore a mask didn't he?) Just take a big glass of humility and realize that your team made those decisions. Then think about how you might do better going forward. After all, you are only human. And to be human is to be fallible. Remind yourselves of that every day. I wish you luck!
6
Giuliani hasn't changed a bit. Back in his days as a self-styled crusader for truth, justice, and the American way, he trashed the Constitution on a regular basis as he went after organized crime. I always felt he was far more dangerous and just as evil as the mobsters he prosecuted, and his behavior in recent years has only validated my opinion of him. Superbly qualified to be an enabler and fixer for Trump.
5
And Rudy’s son works in the White House too. Doing what exactly?
10
he was alway belligerent and angry; the famous tirade against the weasel protection advocate was prophetic
3
Giuliani would today be just another unknown blip had not Time Magazine violated their own criteria by naming him the 2001 Man of the Year.
Of course he stays in the limelight because the media loves people who are simply famous for being famous.
4
I don't care about venal Giuliani, per se. I was drawn to this essay because of the larger story of the degradation political/social discourse, what Jonathan Mahler perceptively identifies as the onslaught of shamelessness. What a voice -- Mahler is at once coolly precise and warmly humanistic. The effect left me shaken; the writing, a magnificent piece of work.
11
Which?
Fog ... or Thundering Thunderstorm?
One just hides reality for a brief while. The other tries to wash reality away for all time.
2
@kenneth
Thunderstorms don’t wash away reality, they alter it.
Great article. If anything, though, it was a little too kind to Rudy. His pettiness and vindictiveness was legendary in New York back in the day. I recall a friend (who worked in City Hall) telling me that after the 1994 NY Gubernatorial election, Rudy made sure that anyone who worked for the City and who had backed George Pataki was punished. We're talking stuff like putting people's desks in hallways and isolating them. His current behavior does not really surprise me, although it does make me shake my head.
10
Giuliani doesn't deserve credit for reducing crime and he was not responsible for the resurgence of the city. It was happening across the country. And he certainly doesn't deserve credit for being mayor when NYC received the brunt of a terrorist attack. Was anyone calling him America's mayor before that? He seized the opportunity when he was thrust into the national spotlight, but the mythology was never supported by reality.
5
As an addendum to my comment below: I have met Mr. Giuliani several times over the years. He's an excellent listener, has a wonderful sense of humor, is very good company, and so easy to make laugh with a sharp witticism. In conversation he is quite generous. I found him to be a great deal of fun to be with!
So the question is: how much of what we judge Giuliani on is a public persona (in the literal sense, meaning mask) and which is the real Rudy Giuliani? It's quite complex, indeed.
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
1
Rudy is a quintessential New Yorker. In the same way that Roy Cohn was a New Yorker while he was eating "21 Club" style turkey hash off your plate.
Damon Runyon. (Sky Masterson.) Norman Mailer. Jimmy Breslin. Walter Winchell. Monk Eastman. New York is not really a part of the United States, except in an abstract way.
And that way is getting more abstract by the minute. Is it the new normal - with Rudy and the Donald - or the Twilight Zone?
1
@Lino Orimbelli To me he's more like "Harry the Horse" trying to impersonate "Sky Masterson." Except that Harry the Horse was kinda likeable.
2
Aside from being a mean and racist scold, he had hired an army to run the city and had left the city in financial straits, pinning it on 9/11. Thank goodness we had a real businessman, May Bloomberg, who could put it back together again. He left the city in tip top shape. Rudy was as egotistical and disgustingly exploitive of 9/11 ever after.
3
@Janice May? If anything, Bloomberg would prefer to be thought of as August.
Meanwhile, he used the time well and prepared the city for rough winters ahead.
Why hasn’t Giuliani been indicted yet?
3
@BlueBird It's kinda like Monopoly, and he's bought a house on Pennsylvania Avenue.
3
Donald Trump controls his cult by having 'dirt' on every member. If they do not comply, he floods the media with that 'dirt'. That is the method he learned from his attorney Roy Cohn who also used that technique during the 'you are a Commie' terror of Joseph McCarthy. What 'dirt' does Donald Trump have on Rudy?
3
@bnc
Giuliani certainly has a lot of dirt on Trump, his so-called "insurance."
3
More like did either really change or has what they always have been simply come out into the light. Not that America's bad part, its rhetoric once hidden beneath the rocks where it belonged, as been let loose by a feeling or empowerment allowed by acceptance for the sake of political power. It shouts its filthy credo now because it finds acceptance. Acceptance because too many of those who themselves are too polite to publicly admit to the same feelings won't cry out against the abominations and assaults on my democracy and Constitution while many of those who truly don't accept them won't oppose them in favor of their own desire to retain the favored position in our society they've held for so very long. Now a changing America threatens their status so they accept everything that violates their own sense of morality in favor of retaining that status.
That's the unchanged just more openly honest America. Rudy, he's always sought power and fame and would do anything, absolutely anything, to get and keep them. Legal if he could, illegal if he has to. Nothing unchanged there, either.
3
Rudy didn't change , he just got older and less appetizing . When a person ages , people are less willing to overlook a lot of flaws ; the cracks are enormous , too enormous to ignore . America's mayor was not America's mayor until after 911 , when wounded and grieving , a stunned America looked to New York's mayor that for once rose to the occasion with honesty and true feeling . That he proceeded to use 911 to enrich himself was typical Rudy . No , he has always been his true self ; ambitious , nasty , insecure , untruthful and unattractive . Poor Rudy .
6
No, Rudy hasn't changed. What has changed is a) the Democratic Party, and b) the media landscape.
Unlike the Republicans, Democrats now believe in public policy and personal decency, no matter whether individual Democrats may fall short of that ideal. Conversely, Republicans are still machine politicians and apparatchiks, who believe that what's good for business is good for America, and that they deserve a cut.
And then there are camera phones and social media. Any politician taking his mistress out to dinner will now get caught. And thanks to text and video messages, many careless politicians are now creating a paper trail of their crimes, which they did not in the past.
He was never all he was cracked up to be. Faulty bargain basement radios for the Firemen. Main Security Office at the Trade Center just to satisfy his ego. Cleaned up the city but at what expense, "Giuliani Time" with out of control police. Let William Bratton go because he was much smarter than Rudi. But the minute he separated from his wife Donna at a press conference the real transformation started. And now he is just stone cold crazy. They have been keeping him under wraps the last couple weeks because lord knows what he will say. He loves to be on TV & feel important so much he might state something that really hurts the Trump admin. He went to the Ukraine to convey Trump's wish & to sell his security firm. Just a wretched miserable man.
9
Never understood the ‘America’s mayor’ nonsense. A self-perpetuated myth of no sentimental or political value. One only needs to look at Rudy’s embarrassing run for the GOP presidential nomination in 2008. Who can forget the laughable claim that things will ‘turn around in Florida’ after a dreadful O-and-7 start.
2
Don't forget how after 9/11 Rudy exploited the tragedy--floating the idea that he could just ignore the city charter on term limits and stay mayor indefinitely, among other low-class schemes. New Yorker's didn't fall for it.
He was corrupt then, he's more corrupt now.
Creeps gonna creep.
7
@Avenue Be Say where have I heard ignoring term limits in order to stay in office? Birds of a feather etc etc.
2
@Avenue Be
Trump did too, coming down from his tower to schmooze with the press and make false claims that he helped dig out rubble and that he sent over 100 men to search for survivors. More Trumpian projection.
2
Rudy Giuliani hasn't changed. He left office and discarded his humanity for something else. He was always perfectly willing to play dirty. The only difference between him and the criminals was the law degree and, for awhile, the side he was on. He corrupted himself. American's mayor indeed! NOT. He is nothing more than a loudmouth with a long grasp. It's time someone loosened it and put him in his place.
8
Thanks for an excellent article.
I remember well how Rudy used 9/11 to bolster his political career. Shameless.
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/cq/2007/07/12/cq_3065.html
3
America is always changing but sociopaths like The Donald and Rudy always remain the same. If 9/11 never happened Rudy would have disappeared long ago - and deservedly so.
4
From America’s Mayor to America’s Betrayer.
5
Birds of a feather flocking together, with a DOJ run by another rotund bird, all terrorizing the venal and insecure of Washington DC. Pathetic state of affairs.
2
He was a creep then and hes a bigger creep now! Ask any NYC teacher!
7
I'd say Rudy didn't change, we just all fell into the 9/11 patriotism, sorrow, and panic. Among other things, this caused many of us to think Rudy was a good guy. We also signed away many privacy rights, were cool with torture, and supported two unjust wars we're still mired in.
7
@Matt and those who made money off all that really loved him.
4
I am not a fan of Giuliani, but I used to respect him as a successful prosecutor. Has there been any research into how chemotherapy may have affected him? Nowadays he seems delusional.
2
I'm not certain why, but I have never remembered Rudy as America's mayor. During the summer before 9/11, he was all over the tabloids and was embroiled in a nasty divorce. I remember him then as he is now - a cartoon character full of bluster.
4
Rudy spent quite a bit of time gathering evidence in Ukraine, lately. We'll see soon how good he really is.
If he has even half of what he says he has, with sworn affidavits, then Joe and Hunter and the impeachment are in deep, deep trouble. The fact that he works this case without pay makes it even more remarkable.
We'll have to wait for a week and see if we are in Rudy's Ukraine World...
@novoad Okay, now I understand. This article is really all about Ukraine.
2
@Kenneth
Of course it is all about Ukraine.
If Rudy had not found the dirt on the Bidens in Ukraine and brought it back for the trial, who would have cared about how an old mayor was doing in retirement?
Up until I read this article I thought he had changed. But now I understand he's just found a more congenial environment for his schtick. I've finally concluded this country deserves what it gets, having fallen for the witch's brew he and Trump dish out. I just hope I'm gone before the worst of it hits the fan.
4
@metsfan
Exactly my sentiments...thanks.
2
@metsfan Rudy doesn't "dish out" anything these days. He simply laps up what his owner puts in his saucer.
4
Wonderful illustrations: who is the artist?
1
Very amusing, very depressing. Flash and trash. Sort of like the final scenes from The Irishman.
2
I so remember when disinformation was called by it's rightful name, "lying ".
1
Rudy was never "America's Mayor." That was a fiction dreamed up by a press eager for a positive story after "Mayor Rudy" sat on his hands and allowed his city to be attacked and devastated. Bin Laden had already attacked the Trade Center once before, yet Rudy didn't keep tabs on Bin Laden or his known associates. Afterwards all Rudy did was show up for press conferences. No heroism in any of his actions. Unlike Cory Booker who ran into a burning building to rescue a constituent, more people died from neglect under Rudy's watch than were saved by him.
7
What happened to Giuliani'?
This speaks legions: "...Giuliani had left some key details out of this founding mythology: His father, Harold, had in fact been a collector for a loan shark and served time in prison for armed robbery."
Apple don't fall from the tree...
3
@J Young
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
most Americans are not enamored by New Yorkers, you think you’re the leaders but we aren’t even paying attention to your shenanigans
1
@Dean Moriarty Oh, okay. Thanks for the tip.
(Meanwhie, what are you doing here if you're not even paying attention?)
2
@Dean Moriarty I grew up in Colorado and have lived in Europe and NYC for the last forty years. I fully intend to die in New Mexico, probably Las Vegas.
Relax. It's not an either/or proposition. There's room (until further notice) for all of our experiences.
Rudy is American leadership. The decency, vision are only on tightly scripted shows about leaders. The reality is callow slime - with as you say - bit appetites sans vision. This is a very large cluster of big city politicians, Republican leaders (see Newt). Decent folks, well meaning folks have had their day (Obama). American republic is now firmly imperial republic with kings, queens, princesses, and a congress filled with knaves and jesters. Rudy is all of the above, just never the king.
3
How did Giuliani mysteriously turn into a monster right before our eyes? Ask those who accuse him of being one how they did it.
@John Doe If it was right before YOUR eyes, then YOU should be the one to tell us.
1
Giuliani, whatever the supposed "qualities" he might have had as "America's Mayor" is clearly a man adrift without a lifesaver.
3
Andy Friedman _ He is creating Pulsating People, as it were!
@Hasmukh Parekh Pulsating People? What does that even mean?
Trump brings out the pathetic worst in anyone who comes within 30 ft. of him. Keep your distance.
3
I am a bit surprised by the idea that shamelessness in public life is a new phenomena. Neither the scale nor the depth is new. Just compare the promises and the achievements of any politician. Trump probably has delivered more than any other politician to his base, not that his success makes me happy. Trump manipulates the entire system a lot better than anybody and openly takes pride in it. Rudy is doing the same. I have not seen an honest politician. Has anyone? This is why the others loose to Trump, they pretend to be honest. But we know they are not.
@Valentin A
In America, can you think of anyone similar to Gandhi? Nader?
I lived in NYC back when and thought he was the same as he is now. The clean up the city mayor, the 9/11 hero were aberrations.
2
An amazingly well written and factual account of a man who isa another example of corrupt men in politics.
5
Giuliani's legal skills are not what they are cracked up to be. As U.S. Attorney he failed to get John Gotti convicted, a task which was easily and quickly accomplished by his successor.
4
@Camille Perhaps he wasn't really trying?
1
The concept of Giuliani as "America's mayor" was always ridiculous to me. He happened to be mayor on 9/11, and played it for all it was worth. This contrasts sharply with John Kennedy's response when asked how he became a war hero: "It was easy. They cut my boat in half."
The perfect example of how well Giuliani has always meshed with Trump's bigotry is how he tried to close the Brooklyn Museum because they exhibited paintings that he found offensive. He and Trump are a perfect match.
Giuliani was also directly involved in the catastrophic decision to place the Police and Fire Department Emergency Recovery sites at 7 World Trade Center, even though the WTC had already been the object of a terror attack in 1993. It wasn't simply 20/20 hindsight that made that clearly a disastrous choice - plenty of critics said that well before 9/11, but Giuliani was always of the "poke 'em in the eye" mentality on such issues.
9
Rudy has been this way since he was US attorney during the Mariel Boat Lift. It escapes me how people could have lionized him so. He's a wanna-be who has no real personal power so he satisfies himself with being the tyrants Lieutenant.
4
Living on the west coast, I never considered Giuliani to be my country's mayor. He always appeared flagrantly opportunistic and self-serving, especially after 911. If the people can ever get him under oath, he may very well land in prison, like Trump's other personal lawyer, Mr. Cohen.
5
Not going to read the article because R.G. is not worth the ink. The short answer is he hasn't change only his openness changed. He feels entitled because his sense is that Trump is so protected that he, R.B. feels he can get under the umbrella of protection and say or do what ever he wants. His diplomacy was not all that endearing to begin with so it's hard to detect Rudy acting differently. He's still an embarrassment to himself and sports a mind so closed he isn't worried about is image. He''s not up for election so what does he care. He's safe for the dictatorship is here. Try and write a column of denial on that front and see where he leads.
2
Giuliani was always an aggressive, belligerent personality. But when he first came into the public eye, it was as an aggressive US Attorney prosecuting white collar crooks and fraudsters like Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken (whose Drexel Burnham also employed Leon Black) who'd committed major financial crimes damaging financial markets and people. Imagine ANY Republican building a career on attacking corporate criminality nowI
As Mayor, Giuliani was liked by some people for his "tough on crime" persona and disliked by many others for his attacks on education and social services in NYC and especially for seeming to allow the cops to go to extremes. Former mayor Koch, who had a complex relationship with Giuliani, wrote a book titled, "Rudolph Giuliani, Nasty Man."
Somehow, the media-- NOT NYers!--started calling him "America's Mayor," after 9/11, which Giuliani then shamelessly exploited in a career as a "security consultant," whereby he started making $miliions for himself and became overtly reactionary.
After that, Giuliani became nastier and nastier and more and more venal and greedy. He -- like Chris Christie -- has a long relationship with Trump, which has generally benefited both Trump (evading NJ tax judgements against his failing Atlantic City casinos with Christie's help, for instance) and the likes of Giuliani and Christie.
Giuliani has steadily become more and more flagrant in backroom shenanigans for Trump and the right-wing. HE changed -- big-time!
8
@NYer "Giuliani has steadily become more and more flagrant in backroom shenanigans ..."
Giuliani has steadily (or jerkily) become more and more toady in his dreams of grandeur. They will honor him with a water spout named after him in the Queens Botanical Gardens.
2
the scent of fear has an impact on society; the more fearful we are the more we turn to base instincts and the worst is accentuated. Add the heightened use of manipulative techniques, especially from those who wish us ill, to the mix of low information and you get an ugly mishmash. Rudy is among the manipulators, with those negative skills more to the fore these days..
2
People like Rudy and Trump lean to be who they are. I don't think Rudy has changed. He has always been the one who looks for an opportunity to step on others to help himself. Just as Trump has done. History will not be nice to both Rudy and Trump.
5
@john Oh, history will be nice...and fair. It just won't make them feel very good.
Giuliani was looked at as sort of a hero when mayor of NYC. Even though NY is a liberal town, his tough-on-crime stand got a lot of good press. Somehow that mutated into what we've got now.
1
@Mark Browning Not mutated. Overshadowed by a grave and giant reality.
My thoughts on Rudy Giuliani run as follows:
During this whole mad political charade, what I find most striking is that Rudy has repeatedly said things that almost but not quite incriminate Donald.
Rudy, while outwardly a faithful friend to Donald, probably hasn't overcome his rage at not being given the Secretary of State job he felt he obviously deserved.
Personally, I think Rudy will end-up playing Brutus to Donald's wanna-be Caesar. Rudy will finally be the one who plunges the metaphorical dagger into his erstwhile Boss's back.
Could Rudy actually spill his guts when it starts to look like he may soon be rolling under the bus? From the article's description it seems Rudy knows no ethical or moral barriers, so there's a good chance of hearing a stunned Donald cry out in anguished betrayal, "Et tu Rudy?"
6
@David "...not being given the Secretary of State job he felt he obviously deserved." Did you mean "desired"?
1
A short man still in search of a balcony. Rudy was always this way. 9/11 was a brief lapse in character.
3
@Karl Are you kidding? 9/11 WAS his balcony.
2
Giuliani's reputation as "America's Mayor" was always undeserved. He happened to be Mayor when 9/11 happened. What were his notable accomplishments in that role? His prior decision to locate the City's Emergency Response HQ in the World Trade Center -- against the advice of experts -- hampered the City's ability to manage the crisis; and he attempted to use the tragedy as an excuse to delay the next election and extend his term of office. He was always an authoritarian thug.
4
Well done Mr. Mahler. A very comprehensive introduction to "The Life and Adventures of Rudy" for those living outside New York. The article is also timely, reminding everyone of the corrupt company Rudy has kept, and is keeping. I hope Mr. Bloomberg send every Republican senator a copy of this article along with a large Cuban cigar.
On second thought, many of those senators fall in the category described by the article as "shameless." So, they may actually find the article not evoking any guilt but "instructive" in the sense that they may see their survival on doubling down on defending corruption and brazen graft.
4
Who came up with the term, "America's Mayor"? John Barron?
The most prominent actually genius trait that Don Trump could lay claim to is the invention of 'The Art of the Spin'. Rudy likely co-opted the method. It reveals our biggest problem in this nation and has great import in modern doublespeak.
Trump declared his Trump Towers as having more stories than it actually had. Then other developers followed suit because it inflated value. Hyperbole became contagious esp. during the years of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous", Roy Cohn, Playboy, and "Bonfires of the Vanities", etc., and the birth of tabloid news broadcasts, Fox, Limbaugh, Jones... You could write several volumes of examples. Trump and Rudy would be Starr examples.
Rudy may have come up with the term himself and pushed it? I'll grant that he was an admirable prominent anti-corruption prosecutor but I think it went to his head. Increasing his legal profile and fees would have suited.
When did it first occur to Donald Trump to run for president?
I think it was when he bought The Winter White House? But he got media types to ask him about running 30 years ago,
(B. Walters, Oprah...) when he had no conceivable skills that would translate. But he fed them the meme. I'll guess Rudy or a friend in PR coined and spread the term "America's Mayor". It makes no sense really.
I think we have a plurality of American Mayor's.
4
Abner Louima was a black man who was brutally sodomized with a broom handle while in police custody during Giuliani’s term of office as mayor of NYC. Shortly after this came to light, Rudy was interviewed by Katie Couric on the Today show. She asked him about this event. Before he answered, he laughed in her face. I don’t remember a single thing about his answer. I was so shocked by him laughing at this disgusting and evil act perpetrated by NYC policemen, that I was completely oblivious to what he said after the laugh. He was, and is, a horrible person.
10
If Trump gets through, he will had demonstrated that one can do politics without any morality boundaries. God bless America!
5
@Roland Berger Did you mean Rudy Giuiliani? He was, after all, the subject of this article. Or did you really mean to insert Donald Trump somehow?
1
This is not so surprising to people like me, who have always recognized what a terrible person Rudy was. Before 9/11, as mayor, he was a vindictive, preening, adulterous, self-centered little man. When 9/11 happened, it was partially as bad as it was because of his bad decisions, not to fix emergency responders' radios when the problems with them were well-known, and to put the O.E.M. in the WTC itself, against all advice, because it was convenient for him. On that day, he waited for press to arrive before setting off from City Hall toward the disaster, unlike most of the rest of us who just rushed to the scene without seeking photo ops.
Rudy has always been mean, petty, and entirely self-infatuated. It is appalling that he's part of this mess, but I guess Trump liked his style of adultery, lies, and vengeful motivations.
18
Giuliani didn’t clean up crime. It’s well documented that crime country-wide, including New York, was already trending down due to a number of factors. But he sure did ride that wave and sell it as his own. People believed him too.
8
I had no idea that Giuliani and Trump were alike in so many terrible ways. Let's hope our democracy survives these criminal grifters.
11
Somehow just looks like he still feels aggrieved that he was not born to a real privileged family!
5
@N.B. Correct. And then knighted by the king so he could ride off with his Guinevere ... while his wife stayed behind to dust and vacuum the castle.
2
Interviews with Giuiani’s NYPD mayoral security detail would reveal some really appalling stuff....
And don’t forget Giuiani’s consistent and ill-advised support for his pal, NYC Department of Corrections head Bernard Kerik, who was known to be “inappropriate” at DOC and in fact later convicted of criminal charges.
2
Here's the part I find missing. Who was paying Rudy? Lev Parnas apparently does not have that kind of money, but maybe he has the means....the Russian conncted Ukrainian oligarch, Firtash? And if that is the case, kudos to Nancy Pelosi - "All roads lead to Putin".
8
Surprised I haven't seen Jimmy Breslin's eight words on Rudy:
"A small man in search of a balcony."
Thanks to the Guardian for this....https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/jul/14/giulianisfirefighting
4
@ctt Boy, I miss Jimmy Breslin.
1
Giuliani is a disgrace for this country, helping Trump stir dirt on Biden by holding a foreign president hostage to his whims. All for Trump's narrow interest in re-assaulting the presidency later this year. How corrupt can this odd couple get may not have hit bottom yet, especially if we, the people, remain indifferent...and let these guys get away with 'murder'.
5
I'm pretty sure Rudi was always a lying scoundrel.
It just depends on the lie and why as to how he get's judged by public opinion.
4
OK you got me I did not read a word.
Goffy did not show the proof.
Isn’t it obvious by now - Rudy has been a secret plant by the Democrats charged with one task - to bring down Trump!
As a politician Rudy was a liar like most politicians and Americans are gullible. The mask is off of Rudy but it is doubtful that Americans learned anything. He hasn't changed and neither have the people.
I realize that the advertising industry cannot sell unneeded things to mindless consumers if they tell them they are stupid, but the fact is that people are just that.
3
Rudy's Domain: Fogs and Mirrors or
Rudy the ridiculous!
1
'...he continued to press his lies about Biden on cable TV and Twitter, frequently alluding to the large trove of evidence he had assembled, which apparently included video and audiotapes, and, curiously, ‘‘charts.’’ ' A tried-and-true tactic. Remember Joe McCarthy's list of communists in the State Dept.? Nixon's secret plan to end the Vietnam war? I guess Trump's investigators are still hard at work in Hawaii investigating Obama's birth certificate, and "you wouldn't believe what they're finding!" I can't wait!
2
Rudy has always been an arrogant, obnoxious self-promoter. His 9/11 moment fooled people into thinking he was something more.
4
Giuliani hasn't changed and neither has America. In the case of Giuliana he always was a self serving, self promoting ambitious gnat, just ask his exes. We are now getting to see the ugly underbelly of America thanks to 24 news and the internet.
5
The slime always rises to the top. For some reason Rudy keeps thinking he needs to audition for the part of Trump's Roy Cohn. It's ok Rudy, you got the part. But don't forget that the plague brought Roy down, the karma plague that is.
5
It's interesting to this New Yorker that no one here "Comments" favorably about the man.
I think I know why.
5
This feature lays it out. To know Giuliani or Trump is to see a lust for power and adulation that will throw a scrap of cover over its nakedness only as long as it has to. These two have become grotesque, obscene exhibitionists on a world stage. Let's shut down the freak show while we have a shred of national self-respect remaining.
4
What changed? Nothing. When you wrote: "pick your former Rudy: priestly prosecutor, avenging crime-buster, America’s mayor" you simply left off the rest of the list that includes "serial philanderer, real estate's water boy, incompetent planner of emergency preparedness and publicity addict."
6
Giuliani? Overrated much!
2
He didn't change a bit. He's the same horse's hind end he was on 9/11, and even before. It seems that New Yorkers are really gullible to have believed his shtick. As with Trump, we could see right through him in other, more rural parts of the country.
3
@vandalfan
No. Read these comments and you will see that most New Yorkers were on to him the whole time. I would say he is a "uniquely American" phenomenon but then you have DJT.
2
@vandalfan New Yorkers had him figured out long ago, just like they had Trump figured out long ago.
1
This terrific essay includes the following perception. And I wonder if Mr. Mahler's opinion on the "predetermined" outcome of our forthcoming presidential election hinges on his view of what he calls "asymmetrical warfare." If so, God help our Republic.
"Giuliani seemed to exist at the intersection of shame and shamelessness, inflicting shame on his perceived enemies and yet invulnerable to it himself. Today, this divide — between the shamed and the shameless — is at the center of our politics. Some political actors are constantly reacting to shame, or the fear of it; others seem incapable of experiencing it. This creates a kind of asymmetrical warfare in which one side can do whatever it wants to achieve victory and the other can’t. In such a dynamic, the outcome of every battle seems almost predetermined.
1
The how, why, and history of the grinning, globe-trotting goofball cozied up to Trump has been needed – at least for some of us non-New Yorkers.
Congratulations & thanks to NYT journalist Jonathan Mahler for this superb piece on Rudy’s repeatedly crass exploitation of the political and media landscape.
9
Having lived in minority majority neighborhoods in NYC since 1981, I can say he's never changed. America certainly has.
3
Of all the mayors I suffered under Giuliani was far the worst. Even Koch was a strong but still distant second and Bloomberg a fairly close third to Koch-- in some ways even worse and in some ways not as bad.
4
An excellent piece. Thank you.
It appears that that truth and decency have much in common with Rudy’s ex-wives: they are all very disposable.
4
Is it too much to hope for that Trump's Impeachment might finally demolish the whole criminal enterprise which has engulfed the GOP and its supporters? I keep hoping that they will hit bottom, but Trump, Giuliani, and their Republican enablers like McConnell, Graham and Nunes, just keep digging.
This may well be the last chance honest Americans have to take their country back from this band of thieves.
2
There’s nothing new in this Giuliani “profile”. We know he’s corrupt. His gift is that he understood NYC politics and the ambition of a would be establishment that brought shades of Roy Cohn with it. As long as he delivered to that constituency, he was fine. So, has America changed? Well, the new establishment runs by Roy Cohn’s values (see Alan Dershowitz commitment to defend Trump) - America writ large, doesn’t embrace it. That Giuliani, a corrupt man was able to ascend as far as he did, is a miracle. Real estate development was closed out to him, and trading speculation was closed to him as well. He’s making his fortune on the niche he found possible. The global rebellion, including in the US, against neoliberalism indicates that America hasn’t embraced the Milton Friedman/ Bob Rubin kleptocratic values
5
Thank you. Well written and a good bookend to Yuval Levin's How America Lost Faith in Everything. We are experiencing a clash of institutions that periodically drives us to drink. A cadre of shameless fog machines are running the game and we are learning how difficult it is to fight back in the digital age. Therapists are cleaning up fixing the whiplash.
Justice will be served when Trump models a lime green blouse while playing the bongos on Dancing With the Stars, Rudy is his dance partner in drag, and Melania is reduced to selling her line of 'I don't care, do you?' t shirts on QVC.
3
If only Rudy had the honesty of the Biden family and went on to a foreign company board getting paid tons of money, unable to speak the language and not one day’s experience in the field. You know, an honest working life.
2
Tweed had the Tammany machine to marshal the mob’s support. Trump has the Murdoch-Putin machine to marshal the contemporary mob’s support. GiulianI is merely window dressing for the crime family.
2
Thank you for manufacturing the truth.
I’d like to be sure of what I am to understand.
The demagogue who demonized African Americans to corral mayoral votes three decades ago; who trashed the First Amendment in a vain attempt to dictate the curatorial decisions of the Brooklyn Museum; and who presided over police brutality culminating in the murders of Amadeus Diablo and Patrick Dorismond purportedly has “changed”.
Giuliani is today what he was then. A loud, bumptious, Insult-spewing racist. What was once merely a catastrophe for New York City has become, courtesy of Trump’s assiduous note-taking during those dismal days, a tragedy for the world.
4
No, Rudy was always the person we see today; he just didn't have a Donald Trump egging him on in former times.
All one had to do was follow the trail of his divorces and notice how he allowed his lawyer to talk about the wife he was dumping at the time.
Then there were some of his less-than-ethical long-time associates, such as Bernie Kerik, who went from being New York City's Police Commissioner to being found guilty of multiple infractions of the law and was sentenced to four years in federal prison.
Rudy was always Rudy; he's just more Rudy now.
130
@Lilburne That is what article was stating, it was the whole point the writer was driving at.
8
@kurt Rudy saved New York. Appreciate him for that if nothing else.
In my opinion it's Giuliani that changed at least in his public persona. Living in NJ I did not have the day to day experiences that New Yorkers felt, but I remember Manhattan especially the subways before and after Giuliani as Mayor and there was a significant positive change along with the drop in the crime rate. I also had the unfortunate experience of being at one of the 9/11 funerals for a fire Captain that was killed in the North Tower. Giuliani gave the eulogy. It was very moving and I felt that Giuliani gave a heartfelt touching speech.
The Guiliani of today is nothing like the man I met. His unconstrained reach for the spot light and his incoherent rants on Fox is not the same Giuliani that was Attorney General of NYC or how he behaved as Mayor. How treated his wives in his multiple divorces and his glutinous grab for more money is sickening.
I don't think it was Trump that turned him, it's all Giuliani and it's very sad to witness.
35
@VMG He was federal attorney for the Southern District of New York. There is no attorney general of New York City.
10
@Arthur okay.
2
@VMG
Trump and Giuliani both suffer from extreme narcissistic personality disorders; it’s no wonder they’re a natural fit.
10
The venality that links Giuliani to Trump is what is most compelling in this account. As a retired Foreign Service Officer, I often had to deal with clueless Americans wandering into the embassy on the belief that I, my salary paid by the “American tax-payer,” as they routinely reminded me, had to assist them in their overseas schemes for profit. Giuliani is just another figure, so bent on his tie to the bully-in-chief that he believes government workers must bow down before him. We are lucky that the State Department diplomats who have stepped forward have shown that their commitment is deeper, to the nation they love, and not to any quick pay-off for someone with unscrupulous ethics.
127
@Michael V.Glad to hear a fso perspective. Well said, thank you
13
@Michael V. The irony is that this is probably why Trump seems so committed to literally decimate the State Department, which seems to be a success thanks to his nominees in that of Tillerson and Pompeo.
9
Rudy Giuliani is a cautionary tale of what happens when you give political power to someone who began as a prosecutor; they are really not temperamentally suited to be an executive. Other examples that come to mind are Chris Christie, and Andrew Cuomo, all nasty people. The avenging zeal they once brought to court soon congeals into spite, vindictiveness, and paranoia. If they can't find an enemy, they'll invent one, because they require an adversary in order to function.
94
@stan continople Interesting perspective and possibly what some of us sensed about Kamala Harris during her presidential candidacy.
16
@stan continople Hmm...that's a rather broad brush, don't you think?
3
@Heather Watson
Not just Kamala Harris, but Amy Klobuchar too. From all reports, she's a horror to work for.
3
Nothing changed: he simply should never have been called 'America's mayor.' He did nothing to deserve that appellation, if indeed such a title is an honor. He bandstanded over the wreckage of the World Trade Center and that made him a hero? Come on; we know who the heroes were then, and RG was Not one of them.
117
As a New Yorker living in the Pacific Northwest after 9-11, people kept telling me how great Giuliani was. My response was always: “you don’t know this guy.“ Now everyone knows.
What Giuliani is, if the word can be used, is lucky. He was a deeply unpopular mayor “saved“ only by 9/11. Then he became America’s Mayor, got a reprieve, his dismal record wiped clean, his walk among the ruins looked heroic instead of idiotic for setting up the OEM precisely where he was advised not to and his breaking down at funerals was honestly touching. Publicly he handled 9/11 well. But then he exploited it shamelessly, became a sham and mercifully disappeared before he got a third (or fourth?) act as Trump’s fixer and fog machine.
He was lucky that his character-type described so well in this article has become the norm in world politics because it fits (luckily for him) into our scary zeitgeist. But these things never end well and there has always been something self-destructive in the way Giuliani rolls forward. He’s not a happy person, he is just, ironically, unlucky to have the power to get hooked on the cheap high of his worst impulses. He should have cashed in his chips a long time ago.
117
@Fernando Rudy was mean and racist as a mayor. He was deeply unpopular and the only reason he go to stand up on 9/11 was that George W. was MIA. Someone had to say something. That did not erase his nasty, reign over NYC, to say nothing of the way he treated his second wife, the mother of his children, announcing his divorce on Mother's Day, unbeknownst to her.
But I haven't gotten started. He was and still is a miserable person.
17
This article is a good retelling of WHY Trump should be impeached and removed from office. (and Rudy should be disbarred and censured for his role as legal counsel to POTUS)
122
Giuliani like Trump revels in doing things that decent people wouldn’t do. For some reason, millions of people find that alluring.
125
@Seldoc Well said. Donald Trump explained in two sentences. For some reason the NYT still likes to devote 1/3 of their copy every day trying to beat Trump into submission. They would be better off ignoring him for a month.
19
@Seldoc
Millions love reality TV, too; probably the worst entertainment idea ever.
15
There has been always a nexus between city politicians and real estate developers, an easy way to fortunes by changing city by-laws.
One has to wonder if one existed between Trump and Giulani. Somebody needs to do some digging!
22
@Surdy Sad but true. In my town we just had an entire street rezoned almost overnight to accommodate one donor to 4 of the five commissioners. Citizens just cannot compete with the lure of development money campaign contributions. Also doubled their salaries and changed their term of office.
5
@Surdy
And that nexus has always been connected to money laundering. Trump not only laundered the Putin gang's rubles, he starched and ironed them. That is the reason he is Putin's puppet and is why Giuliani even knows him.
3
The outer fringes of America changed, and with it, Rudy. A lack of respect for law, and self serving (wildly in Rudy and Trumps case) have always been with us. Remember the 60s anyone? or the 30s? Or the 1860s? The fringe evolves to current political currents. But the core- honesty, respect for the law, diligent effort, and a community spirit of offering assistance to those in need, they are strong still and with us. And these core values will re-emerge to course correct America as in the past. Missing are the leaders to guide us forward.
15
He is what he always has been, rotten to the core.
49
I used to live in NY and always considered Rudy to be a fraud as "America's Mayor". He used 9/11 and the smoking debris of of the World Trade buildings to puff up himself.
46
@Gerry G I never liked Rudy one bit either, from bullying minorities ,cheating on all his wives,Rudy has taken his self serving nastiness to a new level
4
rudy was always rudy, he was faking it when he ran for mayor, even then he used divide and conquer techniques, 9-11 was his hoax he exploited it to max, in his pres run up he used 9-11 in every sentance, people finally started to read between rudy's lines and figure out he was a con. we now know how dirty his game was all along, and his dirty partnership with the donald since the mid to late1980's. i never trusted rudy, ever since his first mayoral run
23
Giuliani is the archetypal republican.
He is the essence of what it is to be a republican.
A psychopathic childish mind that wants what it wants without regard for the harm it may do.
27
Rudy went rogue--turning crooked to keep his money train going strong in DC---the man's richer than ever from all these inside deals.
5
First and foremost always shameless self promoter, Rudy Giuliani has not changed over the years. It has just taken his relationship with Trump for his venality and corruption to come into focus for many.
22
To save time we can assume that virtually everything Giuliani says is a lie because he lies about virtually everything.
19
Guiliani was so overrated after 9/11. Any Mayor or Politician could take advantage of a nation in shock. Guiliani did just that. Prior to 9/11 he was way down in the Polls and his career appeared finished. Since 9/11 he has been living off the tragedy of others who suffered on that day. Without doubt he is a con artist who is very good at fooling people up until this most recent debacle with Ukraine.
22
Trump and Giulianni; two peas in the same poid
19
Rudy's intentionally designed clown show is an insult to a serious minded sense of citizenry. It is purposefully misleading, disdainful, preposterous and obnoxious. How he got here is the story for the novelist; I don't have the imagination required to transcribe it. Who will rid us of this troublesome pest?
12
I guess I am from the Hannah Arendt School of the banality of evil. Tillerson was mistaken when he called Trump a moron. Trump is deficient in many areas important in trying to make this world a better place but Rudy is just another lawyer who had an epiphany and fell in love with their ability to light into dark and reality into insanity.
We learned of Dershowitz long ago, we started this farce with Cohen, then came Rudy and today Haaretz tells us about Sekulow.
Very few of us are lucky enough to never have to deal with mental illness but most of us understand that we simply aren't something very special.Even the brightest of the bright don't believe they are that special even when praised by people they know are very special.
This farce has gone on too long, it has long past being pathetic and we are in what Trump told us what environment he shone in which was chaos. This has gone from Pathos to Bathos.
America is neither Satan nor Jesus it is America and Trump is America writ large and Trump sure knows his lawyers.
Today's Haaretz talks about Sekulow and I am wondering if America's media will be able to handle truth. Rudy is larger than life, he is a caricature not human but comic book. We can talk about Rudy but can America talk about Sekulow and what this really is all about?
8
Good morning and Happy Sunday to all. Sadly the genetic material in Rudy's blood might have played a part in this saga. His shameless abuse of the civic space to further his personal career and needs smacks of the insolent political behavior in Napule. Nothing is too big or false when the Neapolitan politicians lie to their constituents who remain poor and dependent on the clientelist status quo, even after the central government in Roma has poured billions of lire, and now Euros, to better Campania for the past 70 years.
E vabbuo!
2
Reading this I'm reminded of this from the Oz books, "A curious thing about Ugu the Shoemaker was that he didn't suspect in the least that he was wicked. He wanted to be powerful and great...he imagined anyone else would act just as he did if anyone else happened to be as clever as himself."
7
Rudi hasn't changed, he was always a mobster only interested in wealth and power, many just didn't see it.
18
What I find confounding as a long time New Yorker and someone who lived through Giuliani's terms as mayor is this idea that he was some sort of paragon of great leadership during his days as mayor. He wasn't. He exhibited racist, arrogant, bullying, narrow-minded, tribalistic tendencies throughout his entire tenure. He was in a word very Trumpian. People forget that in the years and months leading up to 9-11 Rudy Giuliani had become a pariah. Most New Yorkers were sick of his obnoxious and ugly manner. They couldn't wait to get rid of him. 9-11 saved his career. And to his credit he did handle 9-11 well. Just as he deserves his portion of credit for lowering the crime rate in NYC. But seeing Giuliani fall in line with Trump's ugly lies and behavior is totally in line with the tenor and tone of his years as mayor. So to ask, "What happened to Rudy?" is ridiculous. This is who he always was. Just go back and look at footage of Rudy firing up a racist mob with a bullhorn and you'll see his true nature. It's been there in plain sight all along. He is at heart a cruel, ugly, power hungry racist. What's up with The Times falling in line with this false and misleading narrative?
22
@Peter Lewis -- This reflects what I remember of his terms as mayor also.
4
@Peter Lewis Bingo!
1
once you drink the chalice of power
you think and dream of it every hour
you wish and hope to drink again
you pray your power will never end.
13
This description of Giuliani could be applied just as accurately to Trump. Perhaps Trump learned some of his bullpuckey from Giuliani, or perhaps they both learned from Cohn.
7
Rudi G went down the "look at me, I'm relevant" rabbit hole long ago. First when he used 9/11 to fatten his wallet, along with his criminal partner, Kerik's, helped by Dubya who glossed over Rudi's emergency planning incompetence (placing emergency planning next to the largest, most obvious target). And second, when his lust to be relevant to the GOP caused him to deny 9/11 even happened.
8
He was never "America's Mayor." That was simply some post-911, pre-war propaganda created by the same media that helped push us into Iraq.
17
To offer some perspective, parts of this story not travel at all well outside the New York region.
As a southern Californian, before the current national melodrama, I had scarcely heard of this Guiliani character. Living on the west coast, I have scarce (or no) interest in the local news of New York and New England.
A few years back you had asked about Guiliani, I might have recalled he was (maybe?) mayor of New York. Nothing else.
All this nonsense about "America's Mayor" just does not travel. Kind of guessing this story was created by favorable political articles in local New York media. This sounds very much like the usual sort of paid political propaganda.
Any image as a "jut-jawed lawman" is strictly a local delusion, presumably targeted at New York folk, in hope of election.
Please do not confuse local myths as any sort of national perspective.
5
@Preston L. Bannister He was called America's mayor after 911, when he stood in front of the cameras and screamed We're Gonna Git 'Em Fer That.
1
@Preston L. Bannister .. Yet here we find you, in the comment section of the New York Times. The lady doth protest a wee bit too much, me thinks.
4
@Preston L. Bannister
I never thought of Rudy as jut-jawed. To me, a New Yorker, he was always no-necked Rudy.
2
He's Trump's alter ego, a bodacious showman, clown type who figured out long ago that a certain segment of the public will buy (and believe) anything. It's all about entertainment, baby!
Just imagine, your city is attacked by terrorists, and afterward you create a high-dollar consulting business telling others how to protect their citizens.
12
Last week and this upcoming week is going to give us additional insight in to the world that Rudi is now running around in.
The media slogan of " America's Mayor" now by the Trump/Russian mayor.
Not a very good look for greedy Rudi especially since his TV meltdowns are so dramatic and so very sad.
6
The Magazine set out to do a hit piece on Giuliani on the eve of the Senate removal trial and got it. I have no problem with that. When Giuliani separated from Donna Hanover and used his mayoral news conference to let her know, I said to myself "This is not a nice man."
For the record: NYC was a disaster under David Dinkins. Ed Koch, Mr. Democrat, saw that and endorsed Giuliani for mayor in 1993. The New York Times endorsed Giuliani's re-election in 1997. The Mahler article makes sure not to delve into the slew of illegalities and irregularities at the base of the Mueller investigation, which Giuliani properly assailed (the FBI did in fact spy on the Trump campaign with approval of the Obama White House), as detailed in Andrew McCarthy's Ball of Collusion and the IG report, with more to come from the Barr/Durham investigation now a grand jury proceeding.
This article advances the Times's three year "get rid of President Trump" campaign a little but not that much. What matters most is that the Democrats nominate a credible November 2020 candidate. I await the news on whom the Times Editorial Board thinks that is.
1
@Donald Nawi
"This article advances the Times's three year "get rid of President Trump" campaign..."
Trump did that all by himself. In fact, nobody could have done such a good job of "getting rid of Trump" than he has done
2
@Donald Nawi So this story about Rudy G is really a secret attack on the American presidency?
Got it, Donald.
2
@Donald Nawi
Still with the conspiracy theories.
Prior to Trump, the FBI was an independent organization. They neither required nor sought the approval of the 'Obama White House' to conduct their investigation, and not a single investigation into the FBI's investigation, by republicans, democrats or neither, have said that the investigation was started for anything other than legitimate reasons. This should be obvious: when someone knows about a crime before the news of the crime is public, as was the case here, it is time to investigate how they found out. If you think not, then I'm glad you are not in law enforcement.
It is fascinating how the propaganda partisans have turned up into down. Obama never used what he knew to help Clinton. The head of the FBI, James Comey, singlehandedly handed the election to Trump, with his announcement of investigation of criminality BY CLINTON 10 days before the election, at which point her polls plummeted. And yet you and your comrades say that Obama was spying on Trump, and Comey was a secret democrat operative, whose organization was in the tank for the person they helped defeat in the election? Good god. You guys will believe anything.
1
Everyone in America needs to read this excellent piece of journalism!
8
A long read like this superb article demands and deserves additional time for readers to respond. Thank you, NYT.
Please keep the comments open as long as you can. It's noon on Sunday, Jan. 19th. The relatively low number of comments ( just 100 as I write) suggests that many readers have yet to settle into viewing this on something bigger than a smartphone screen.
Clear and incisive, The Fog of Rudy is journalism at its best. The literate goldfish I know ( despite their nine-second attention spans*) may need a few days, but most will want to consume the whole thing.
* https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/22/opinion/the-eight-second-attention-span.html
6
Cassandra, thanks for the link. I always like Egan’s pieces and had missed that one.
Along with the short attention span he mentions, I also loathe the obsession people have with their phones. As just one example among many, I recently reconnected with two long-time friends and we met for breakfast a month ago. During our meal and conversation each of them had to check their phone a few times. I thought to myself, “we haven’t seen other in years and yet you can’t be bothered to keep your attention focused on our conversation?” I would never do that with a friend. When I’m talking with a friend, they are my priority, not my phone.
3
Giuliani so much want to be a player, he always has. In his dotage years he will play with anyone and do anything. The same Giuliani just more desperate.
6
Rudi G went down the "look at me, I'm relevant" rabbit hole long ago. First when he used 9/11 to fatten his wallet, along with his criminal partner, Kerik's, helped by Dubya who glossed over Rudi's emergency planning incompetence (placing emergency planning next to the largest, most obvious target). And second, when his lust to be relevant to the GOP caused him to deny 9/11 even happened.
4
Anyone who looked closely at Rudy from his early role as an AUSA through his appointing himself U.S. Attorney in SDNY (to escape his own abuses of office as Associate AG) knew he was the same then as now. A simple review of his orchestrated “perp” walks across Wall Street — with his pre-arranged press coverage — would show that virtually none of those he had arrested to make it look like he was a great prosecutor were ever actually prosecuted. As to the mob prosecutions, he, as the U.S. Attorney, claimed the credit. Of course the actual work was done by the hard working AUSAs in SDNY, not Rudy. As to 9/11, no doubt he was issuing commands on the street, since it is well known that for “personal” reasons he insisted — contrary to all rational thought and advice — that the NYC emergency command center had to be in the World Trade Center. Maybe his closest friend Bernie Kerik, who he made NYC police commissioner and later tried to emplace as head of U.S. Homeland Security, and who later was convicted of multiple corruption felonies, helped him with that bizarre choice. In any event, Rudy is Rudy is Rudy. He covered his massive ego and arrogance better when he was younger, but now he doesn’t bother to hide it anymore.
5
@A. Schnart AUSA? SDNY? Could you save us a little research time here?
It is said that clients often hire lawyers who are like them. In the case of Trump it's a narcissist client hiring a narcissist lawyer. The narcissist lawyer is too enamored with himself to realize that when push inevitably comes to shove he will be shoved under the bus by his narcissist client.
8
"..., all the while pressing a bizarre and baseless corruption case against Joe Biden."
Really "baseless"?
1
Giuliani didn't change. He just showed his true colors.
1
We New Yorkers knew and knows the real Giuliani and Trump.
Rudy was petty, engaged in culture wars (Brooklyn Museum) and rode the wave of safer cities.
Trump...well, we knew him to be an unimportant buffoon who appeared amusingly on Howard Stern.
In fairness, we never knew the true extent of Rudy's mad disregard for law.
5
I lived in NY when Operation Pressure Point was in effect on the Lower East Side in 1982. I went away for Christmas, came back to find a patrolman stationed on the corner of my block (2nd st between A and B the center of the heroin trade). That might sound like a good thing except that the only objective was gentrification not actual policing. Rudy has been a thug his entire life. The title of "America's Mayor" was just sympathy branding and had nothing to do with the man.
7
@Kevin Stuart Schroder "Rudy has been a thug his entire life."
I don't like to think of anyone I know as a thug, especially anyone who touted himself as "America's Mayor."
Nevertheless, I have to face the fact that this former lawman went over to the Dark Side years ago --and is so much wealthier because of that.
And, oh, he gets to go all the fancy White House parties nowadays.
He's such an important man now.
@Kevin Stuart Schroder Rudy was not Mayor in 1982.
Imagine how proud N.Y.U. must be that it gave Rudy a law degree.
5
The devolution started with Ronald Ray-gun and simply accelerated to where we are today. The corruption at the heart of the Republican Party just makes my skin crawl. And what makes my head explode is how the perps seem to get away with it. I am more than convinced that the ringleader of the whole kit and kaboodle, the beloved Sewer Rat of sixty-two million-plus American voters will just skate into the twilight with round-the-clock Secret Service protection and continued money laundering with the Russians in real estate ventures. Sometimes I think my wife's BFF and her brother who both voted for this corruption are secretly benefiting! I really do.
10
I knew Rudy Giuliani before he was famous. My encounters with him occurred shortly after Reagan appointed William French Smith to be Attorney General, and Giuliani was appointed Associate Attorney General. I worked for the U.S. Marshals Service, and upon the retirement of its Director, William E. Hall, he became acting director.
Part of my job was the production of quarterlly nationwide crime statistic reports, a job I performed under the previous AGs, Griffin Bell and Benjamin Civiletti. They were straight statistics, one of which involved the original offenses committed by individuals who subsequently committed offenses that came under U.S.M.S. jurisdiction, and had to be presented to the Senate Judiciary Committee under oath, swearing to their accuracy.
The first one I did for Giuliani, using the same valid methodology I had employed for the previous 17 quarters, was returned to my desk with the notation "Not good enough," with no further specifics.
When I inquired, I was told that they wanted the reports to show more drug offenses, in service to the nascent "War on Drugs." I pointed out that most drug offenses were state matters in which the Marshals are never involved, but he told me just to alter the report and say it was "55% of all cases." It was really about 12%.
I was told, "No one can check." Well, HE could check, ahd if I committed perjury then he would know and could hold it over my head forever.
I quit instead, a job I LOVED! He hasn't changed.
50
@Dr. Planarian
So sorry. The job you tried to do well could have kept the War on Drugs from becoming the War on the Poor in America (the best paying jobs in bad areas are drug runner - those get picked up and jailed, the bosses are left alone). Many years ago when I was young three of us went to Mexico for a vacation. We were stopped and the car was searched more than once so I asked what they were looking for and was told guns. Huh? It seems we were arming the Cartels.
1
@Dr. Planarian "I knew Rudy Giuliani before he was famous." Lots of people knew Rudy before he was famous.
Few will admit it.
1
You don't need to be a psychologist or psychiatrist to know people project on to others what they hate and fear most about themselves. Trump and Giuliani are masters at projection.
9
Great piece! I remember early on in 2015 I recognized the tactics used by, ahem, I can't say his name but you know who. They were similar to what my oldest kid would do: he would chastise anyone who would dare do the unspeakable knowing that he already had done the unspeakable and thus now no one would connect him to those actions as he had already stated that it was unspeakable. I think the term is "projecting". As for Rudy... he does what my older brother would do: all of a sudden shed light on something that was already accepted to be evil, but with a twist of "what you don't know is... yadayada" and thus his name and reputation + that new description of the activity would now be seen in a different light. I think that term is "gaslighting". I'm waiting for the piece on "White Privilege in our Political System and the net results in our society".
2
I lived through the Giuliani years. At the time I worked for a community AIDS organization. Giuliani systematically decimated the city budget for AIDS services despite the fact that New York City was the epicenter of the disease.
Giuliani was not only not well-loved, he was actively disliked by the New Yorkers I knew and know. Many of us believed that his ubiquitous presence in the news and on TV after 9/11 was just another grab for attention. Giuliani did nothing of substance during those days.
Honestly? I am no fan of Mike Bloomberg, but it was he who effectively led New York out the disaster of that awful event.
Has Giuliani changed? I don't think so, but it has become more obvious and much more frightening. He now looks like Gollum -- stringy hair and all. The sad part his "precious" is a man as vile as himself. I keep asking: Why isn't Giuliani in jail?
12
In hindsight, Rudy was always a liar. He was just able to hide it better when younger and when people were not paying so much attention to him. Remember Biden calling out the naked emperor with his famous noun, verb and 9/11 sentence. Nowadays, Rudy is old, and trying to defend the extreme way beyond his younger self would have been capable of, with full public eye on them. Not going to work.
5
He's always been weasel-ish. Recall his insistence in basing emergency communication in the old World Trade Center in spite being advised otherwise by communication/emergency authorities? His hubris cost lives on 9/11.
12
Neither. Rudy and trump are what they've always been.
6
It's best to forget Rudy. He's like the Kardashians. What does he really do? Beyond inflating his own ego not much. And the press loves the spectacle.The subtitle of the piece should be: Did he change --- or did America [OR did the Media Change]?
6
I believe that he has simply been following in his father Harold's footsteps: he was convicted of felony assault and robbery, serving time in Sing Sing. After his release he worked as an enforcer for his brother-in-law Leo D'Avanzo, who ran an organized crime operation involved in loan sharking and gambling.
9
I think poor Rudy got seduced by worst of NYCs shady money people, i.e., a good cross section of Wall Streeters and real estate developers.
Rudy came to believe that, unlike the criminals he put away (the ones who manifestly transgressed penal codes) the shady plutocrats lived and thrived in grayer areas, i.e., a landscape just beyond the outer reaches of the penal codes.
It is in this land, a place where amorality is a code, and fabulists know how far they can go without committing provable fraud (civil or criminal), Rudy took roost with gusto.
And, while Rudy is perceived by many people as a clown, he doesn't care. His goal was to become like the people he aspired to be -- the plutocrats.
After all, there are shady people all over the world who you can make part of yours; you don't need the uptight, prissy, do-gooders on your side to live a happy life. That's especially true when perhaps the top American Mr. Shady happens to in the White House.
Ask Rudy. Simply having a successful law practice, one in which you are scrupulously ethical, where you solve your client's problems with professionalism and probity, and pull down a million a year - that's for suckers.
There is a lot more money to be made on the dark side.
5
hRudy is the same racist authoritarian he always was, but age has made him worse. However, he had four months after 9/11 where he somehow miraculously rose above that, became a mensch, and fooled most of America into thinking that was who he really was all the time. Sadly, as with Trump, the farther one lives from the New York metro, the less the reality of who these guys are is understood. And now all of us are paying the price.
3
@CP Rudy was never a mensch.
Rudy, like many of us, had his day early in life and has been chasing more days like them ever since. It seems, 'tho, that he has learned nothing during his chase.
A conscience is a fundamental requirement for shame. If one lacks a conscience, then one does not experience shame. Other terms for someone without a conscience are psychopath or sociopath. Closely related, a narcissist considers life only in terms of self-interest and has little or no feeling for others beyond transactional gain. (For instance announcing a divorce to the press before informing your wife.)
We may observe the living Venn intersection of these, only too common psycho-pathologies, in a perfect storm formed by the relationship of the president grifter (Don the demented con) and the also demented former prosecutor/mayor.
7
Since no longer NYC mayor, Giuliani has craved the limelight and those heady days when he was purportedly "America's mayor". Venality, hubris and weakening mental faculties (witness his frequent word-salads), Giuliani has fallen into a cohort of miscreants, oligarchs and grifters. He has not changed. His surroundings have, and he now is endeavouring to regain the spotlight, but on the most corrupt moral grounds imaginable, emulating the immoral deeds of those with whom he associates.
4
I always think of Rudy when I watch Paul Giamatti on Billions. Whenever I think the character Chuck Rhoades has gone "over the top", I remember that Rudy is worse. Far worse, in fact, because Rudy actually exists.
2
I am puzzled about we Americans changing? The majority of us who voted for Hillary Clinton and who voted in Democrats to take over the House of Representatives didn't change. If I and my moderate Democrat friends are typical, we are reading the news of Guiliani's current spectacles feeling stunned, horrified and frustrated as we do when we --not changed at all--read about Senator Mitch McConnell and other Trump supporters. What changed is the technology whether on social media or in hacking rooms that helped put and keep these people in power.
5
Interesting discussion from someone with credentials and the national standing to at least get a response from Mr. Giuliani.
However, the headline is extremely misleading, or the answer is obvious.
Most Americans are of sound mind, have reasonably adequate reasoning skills and some degree of skepticism, especially when it comes to evaluating any claim from a politician.
To think that the fringe behavior and thinking skills that he has exhibited over the last couple years would have been in place when he was elected mayor is not a reasonable option.
To hear his sub-manic rants, even when taken as a defense attorney trying to deflect the conversation, means to me that he has become a very deep spiral into nonsensical thinking, with any challenge or denial not perceived as an offer to help him but as cement for his irrational thinking that his view of the facts (while wrong) is correct.
I hope he gets some help.
1
This is a very interesting and perceptive story. I don't know Mr. Giuliani personally so I don't know for sure what motivates him. But the author's description of today's media in this paragraph (below) is spot on and Mr. Mahler deserves kudos. I would only add. in the interest of fairness that there are partisan media outlets on the left also: CNN, MSNBC and some of our national newspapers>
"The foundation of that system is partisan media outlets, which allow political leaders — whether Trump on Fox News, Boris Johnson in The Daily Mail or Jair Bolsonaro on the Brazilian network Record TV — to spread disinformation to their supporters with almost no pushback. But it’s also enabled by more politically — neutral media organizations, which struggle with how to present the daily onslaught of false claims from public figures. Combine that with the ubiquity of social media, which makes no distinctions between truth and lies, and what you end up with is a political conversation without consequences that favors the most outrageous voices."
2
Giuliani has become a national embarrassment.
Whatever he may have accomplished as mayor has been erased by his slavish worship of Trump.
Luckily, one of the best mayors NYC has ever had, someone who in his 12 years guiding the city into a livable place with less crime, better graduation rates for school kids ( after he raised the teacher salaries), and the renewal of lower Manhattan, Mike Bloomberg, is now donating his own money to replace Trump.
Mike was not allowed in the debates since they require private contributions and he is self funded and, even with the new DNC rules that one may enter the debates by getting one delegate in the early states he will not qualify since he missed the filing deadline and is not on the ballot.
Nonetheless, he is coming up in the polls. He is about to overtake Pete in the national polls and already is number three and rapidly advancing in the Real Clear Politics aggregate of betting sites.
He will defeat Trump who lately has been over tweeting about him since he is so threatened by another New Yorker who is a real businessman who not only is worth many times what he is but is giving his money away.
I like Mike and so do many other Americans.
2
@Simon Sez - Mayor Mike. Too rich, too short, too
late. Not really a Democrat. With a very annoying
voice. Use your millions to support other True
Democrats running for office all over this country.
Please save this country from all the damages being
done by Comrade trump. Mayor Mike is rich but
neither a saint nor savior.
1
A masterful job by Mahler.
4
No one like or respects Rudy now, Seem, lately to have morphed into a weird, hot house subtropical bloom, along the lines of a Venus Fly Trap. Best to keep your distance.
2
Well, age and dementia will change a person.
And it seems that as some people age, the more conservative and less tolerant they become.
Rudy Giuliani had a successful first term as mayor, and it was a success he achieved by forging a coalition government with as many highly qualified appointments as possible.
In his second term he started to position himself for future office. He replaced democrats with partisan republicans and hacks like the Harding father and son, and his ex-chauffeur Kerik.
The result was not good. As of 9/10/2001 even the cops were calling him "the mayor of golf."
Ironically, 9/11 saved his reputation.
But the Giuliani that we see today emerged in the years 1998 - 2002. If anything the first term is the exception to the arc of his life story.
1
It was a playoff series at Yankee Stadium, I don't remember what year but before 9/11. Not the final game in the stand, not the world series. Hizzoner attended and the Yankees won. A door opened in the outfield and an NYPD mounted policeman trotted out, on steed. Then came another. Then another. They lined up, one behind the other until the whole field was enclosed by horses with cops on them. I don't know how many - more than a couple of dozen and i thought, "This is the paradigmatic Rudy moment - a pointless showing of excessive force that has achieved absolutely nothing except to burnish Rudy's vanity." His hunger for trappings of respect is bottomless, it's fulfillment misconceived and always unearned.
4
After Giuliani lost to Dinkins in '89 in an amateurish campaign that revealed his lack of acquaintance with basic issues facing New York, his handlers convinced him to meet with people from different perspectives. I was asked, as director of education at the Hetrick-Martin Institute for LGBT youth, to help him understand the controversy over AIDS education in the schools and integration of LGBT issues into curricula as in the "Children of the Rainbow" multicultural guide. (He understood in advance that I would not be supporting him and was loyal to Mayor Dinkins and was one of his Human Rights Commissioners, but I felt it was better for someone of Giuliani's stature to at least have the facts on the dispute.) In our half-hour one-on-one, Giuliani showed himself perfectly capable of understanding what I was saying, reflect it back, and murmur a level of agreement. (He did express dismay about a children's book with a mom in an anti-nuke t-shirt.) He tried to ingratiate himself with a gay activist by saying that Cardinal O'Connor was hostile to him--stemming from his then-pro-choice stance. But any reasonableness disappeared when Giuliani was in public, especially after his election in 1993. He banned condom lessons in the schools (a ban continued by the Rudy-blessed Bloomberg, by the way) and appointed Board of Education members from the religious right. His bellicosity is an act that plays to the cheap seats--the same ones from which our current president was elected.
4
@Andy Humm
Wow! They (Rudy and Trump) do seem like two peas in a pod. I wish we could send them back.
As the article makes clear, Rudy has never changed.
It was “Giuliani Time” during his tenure as mayor, which pretty much summed up the reality of the man. Look the phase up if you’ve never heard it, and then think about Trump Time, which we live in now.
Brilliant, crystal clear writing. If the subject wasn’t so vile I would say I enjoyed every word.
3
"Once considered 'America’s mayor,' he is widely known as a disinformation-spouting operative who helped get the president impeached"
Rudy has always been an opportunist; by definition, opportunists take chances. Sometimes "taking chances" works - and they end up becoming "heroes" - but often it does not.
US history is full of such opportunists. One may go as far as suggesting that Americans have that "in their genes". After all, the pilgrims on the Mayflower ship - and those that follow them - were, in a sense, opportunists too.
We should not worry too much about Rudy. He has already told everyone on national TV that he has 'insurance', against Trump trying to throw him under the bus. I actually believe him, even though he claims that was a joke!
If he is dragged into the impeachment process, he only reveals whatever he think will be damaging to Bidens. And, when asked anything concerning Trump, he would either suffer from "selective amnesia" or take the fifth. And if he end up in jail, like Paul Manafort, he would expect Trump to have him on the top of his pardon list.
3
Great expose...Rudy and Trump are kindred spirits without souls. They have thier personal version of "right and wrong" from which thier own actions are excluded. And, despite some limited success upon which they exploit and inflate thier contributions, they remain the human equivalent of a broken clock that is right twice a day...on very rare occasion they give you what you need but for the most part they are useless and benefit no one. The best they can do is represent what is broken and wrong to the rest of us.
2
It shouldn't be forgotten that the demonstration against police oversight that this article mentions was a police riot and an explicitly racist attack against Mayor Dinkins. That's what Giuliani was supporting: Trumpism in its nascent form, violence and racism. And that's how he ran his administration: for "us" and against "them." Trump was obviously watching and learning lessons.
6
The similarities between Boss Tweed, Rudy and Trump are striking. It would seem logical that Rudy and Trump, following the Tweed path, will end up the same way, penniless and in jail.
3
Immense and intense sorrow, Jonathan Mahler and Andy Friedman. Undeniably, both America and Rudy have changed. Rudy Giuliani as president Trump's frontman is a travesty of justice. Will Trump's personal lawyer and Ukraine Affair meddler defend him in his Senate impeachment trial this week? Let's see.
Donald John Trump has brought in some superannuated big legal guns from impeachment of Clinton trial and OJ Simpson's murder trial (Starr and Dershowitz) to add some excitement to the FOX TV reality show. Will we see the Democratic Senators fold 'em to the Republicans' acquittal because their leader has committed no impeachable offenses? Even tho he has undeniably abused the power of the presidency? Both Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani, good old tight friends, haven't fallen far from their fathers' poison trees.
3
The article misses the turning point in Giuliani's life: His withdrawal from the Senate race in May 2000 because of his cancer diagnosis. And from the Senate, Giuliani, who has modeled his career on Tom Dewey, planned to ascend to the presidency. Instead it was Hillary Clinton who became senator and presidential nominee. Ever since, Giuliani has hated Hillary Clinton because she walked away with the Senate seat that could have been his. Hence his alliance with Trump - the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
4
Let's not forget that Giuliani placed NYC's emergency command center inside the World Trade Towers AFTER the Towers were already bombed once.
"Even as his brand-new, $13 million emergency command center was lying in ruins at ground zero, he recast himself as a global authority on counterterrorism, taking full advantage of the economic potential of the pervasive and enduring fear of the next attack."
He got rich despite his incompetence.
5
Change? People like Giuliani don’t change themselves. They are just very talented in getting others to believe who they are at that particular time.
4
Rudy did not change. Neither did America. Circumstances have simply allowed the dubious grandeur of both to shine through.
2
Rudy was, is, and always will be an opportunist. He and Trump are made for each other.
2
Toward the end of this excellent piece, the author mentions Giuliani's use of innovative RICO statutes. I have for years contended that the present administration needs to be prosecuted under these same statutes if we hope to get our democracy back.
19
It’s funny that both Trump and Rudy are despised in New York, their home state. Most politicians have a “home state” advantage, polling better at home than elsewhere because of voter familiarity and name recognition. New York voters are very familiar with Trump and Rudy, which leads them to hold both men in record levels of contempt. If voters in the rest of the country knew Trump and Rudy as well as New Yorkers do, both men would be facing prison time, instead of campaigning for re-election.
101
@John Ranta
Excellent point. That can form the basis of an election campaign ad for Democrats. The ad can ask voters: why Trump has never had an election rally in New York city?
12
@John Ranta
We tried to warn the country; not enough people were willing to listen.
4
I often hear in political conversation, the question, "Why did Rudy change?" Reading this article makes me think Rudy never changed, that in reality, he never loved himself and seeks love on the outside that never fulfills him. In the pursuit of love, sometimes he stands out and seems to rise to the occasion, but as each moment in history passes and new challenges appear, his love seeking is unsuccessful politically. That is what we are seeing now. He seeks Trump's love, but Trump really has nothing to return and nothing Trump aspires to is fulfilling. Thus, the emptiness of Rudy.
21
@Ben could be...a simple and interesting insight; could apply to trump as well.
1
What an amazing expose! Impeccably written. This is the journalism that makes a difference: incisive and expressive. "And still we rise!"
57
Giuliani hasn't changed a bit. Lust for power and the ruthless, relentless effort to obtain it at any cost are his salient characteristics. His deceitful, dramatic media gestures are more visible today because in old age his social skills have diminished; he no longer dissembles well.
Recall the gleeful, 'perp walk' marching out of Kidder Peabody, media in tow, having handcuffed a VP of Trading at his desk and dragged the man out in tears. There was insufficient evidence to file a case; but it made great TV. Charges were quietly dropped 3 years later. That calculated act of self aggrandizement destroyed an innocent man's life.
Another case: John Mulheren was convicted of securities fraud by Giuliani's no-holds-barred prosecution; but the case was promptly thrown out on appeal. The 2nd Circuit stated that no rational juror would have convicted based on the facts. Even in the case of Milken, Giuliani was unable to file a case after years of detailed investigation and prosecution by press leak. So instead, he demanded & received $650 million plus a criminal guilty plea from Milken's employer - in exchange for his not filing Rico charges. RICO would prevent the large firm from financing it's large inventory of treasuries, equities, commodities... bankrupting it before a trial could be held. Soon thereafter, the 11,000 employee firm was forced to file for bankruptcy anyway. Then as now, he was untroubled by the niceties of due process or the human consequences of his actions.
59
@John Lonergan
New York former mayor was Micheal Bloomberg - who improved the scoops and tax base.
1
@John Lonergan -- It is simply untrue that crime has risen significantly under Mayor De Blasio.. There have been ups and downs from month-to-month, as there always will be, but the trend has been downward throught Mayor De Blasio's tenure as mayor.
Factcheck.org did a check on this last May. I suggest you inform yourself, and stop repeating faslehoods.
https://www.factcheck.org/2019/05/the-trumps-vs-de-blasio-on-nyc-crime/
7
@Steven Gallen Edersheim
Giuliani was self-promoting in his headline-grabbing prosecutions of Wall Street investment banks and many of his prosecutions did fall apart. But companies like Drexel Burnham and individuals like Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken WERE big-time crooks, who deserved jail for their crimes. (Read James Stewart's classic book, "Den of Thieves" for the full story).
The systemic financial criminality of Drexel, Boesky and Milken was to to blame for the demise of these firms. And amazingly, similar but far worse corruption was allowed to almost destroy the US and world financial system and the economy of both in 2008.
I don't like Giuliani one bit, but Drexel and their ilk were major financial criminal enterprises. The real difference is that now Giuliani is working in league with such criminals and acting like one himself.
2
Ridiculous, shameful and ultimately tragic that he placed the Emergency Command Center in the World Trade Center, which had already suffered an attack from the minions of the ‘blind Sheikh.’ Why didn’t he locate it in an obscure and unobtrusive building in the city? And it appears that, although he made his reputation as mayor from his response to the 9/11 attack, he never really geared the city’s preparations up after the initial World Trade bombing.
50
@luckycat If he knew then what he'd be doing now, he'd have put it in a New Jersey casino.
@luckycat
He made his reputation by going to funerals off of the people whose blood is on his tainted hands. He pretended that he was a security manager, he enriched himself and thousands of people died because of his arrogance and stupidity.
Rudi spent the summer before the attack doing nothing but complaining about funds for Brooklyn Museum.
He was a terrible mayor just like Trump is a terrible president. Rudi/Trump their downfall is happening right in front of us
6
There is no such thing as shame in the post-modern world. There is only a personal brand to monetize. In the era of the spectacle, only ratings matter, not content. The Trump-Giuliani drug deal reveals this to perfection -- they did not want an actual investigation, they only wanted the announcement of an investigation. For Giuliana, the foreign travel was just a bonus.
44
All of the Senators just signed an oath to uphold the Constitution.
If the Republicans put Trump ahead of the Constitution, shouldn't they all be sent to the slammer?
52
@Coy - Hey, there's a new reality game show coming this Spring called, Rudy Knows RICO
2
@Coy AG Barr will get right on that. As soon as he finishes investigating Hillary's links to Lincoln's assassination.
6
@Coy
Yes...and send them to the same prisons where all the kidnapped immigrant children are.
3
I’ve been in NY 40 years. He was always like this. He just found the right fertilizer.
107
Trump and his lickspittle defenders, Giuliani and his low-life associates . . . they all have managed to be both shameful and shameless at the same time.
43
@gardencat, I am grateful to Lev Parnas, one of Giuliani's henchmen, for "coming in from the cold" and lifting the fog shrouding the entire Trump-Giuliani gang. There are another incarnation of the mafia, in my opinion, except that the real mafia kept it in "the family"; these thugs have made all of us "the family," whether or not we want to be. I hope Mr. Parnas' testimony, a road map to this evil empire, isn't for naught, as Michael Cohen's truth-telling was ignored. Just because we don't like the package the truth comes in doesn't make it untrue.
4
"...the Thurgood Marshall Courthouse in Lower Manhattan.."
I'm surprised that "America's Mayor" has not insisted that the building be renamed the "Rudolph Giuliani Courthouse".
Or has he?
9
Where is the NYS bar disciplinary committee?
66
@Yogi NYC I'm speculating, but the wheels of Bar Assoc. justice move slowly - and Giuliani still has some support among the white shoe firms he helped to enrich.
I suspect that once the US Atty for SDNY procures an indictment, Giuliani's fall will be steep and sudden.
Nice Work. Thanks
32
Rudy " noun verb 9/11 " Giuliani . If that horrible tragedy had never happened , he would've had no post-mayor career whatsoever . His shameless lack of a moral compass makes his alleged embrace of Catholicism seem like a rude joke .
57
@Writing Wrongs just as Trump has “embraced” Evangelism. Both a joke and an expedience.
8
@Writing Wrongs
I went to Midnight Christmas Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral last month. I later found out Giuliani was also in attendance. If I had known in advance, I would not have gone.
4
From the memory hole:
“On August 4, 1987 federal prosecutors declined to investigate the Bumpurs case. Rudy Giuliani, who was the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan at the time, stated that he had found "nothing indicating that the case was not tried fully, fairly and competently", and that there was no "proof of a specific intent to inflict excessive and unjustified force."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Eleanor_Bumpurs
8
‘‘Truth isn’t truth!’’
This is how this axiom came about in Trump’s post-truth administration. Trump gave the power of attorney to Giuliani. Giuliani then used his absolute power to corrupt the truth, by officially mandating that “Truth isn’t truth!”
28
Fantastic graphics ... they are just so realistic and grim (as are the folks they depict)
Thanks for the long view of Rudy .. I think you are right that unless one can feel some amount of shame for the taudry, despicable, illegal and inhumane things that they do there is no hope that there can be any remorse or recognition that what they are doing is in any fashion wrong ... Shakespeare-ian if they weren't such grifters ...
35
@nocalgal
Ed Koren would have been better. Or if Ed was not available try Gary Larson who is starting up again.
1
Whatever charm he had, he lost. Hanging on to Trump hasn't helped, but he needs a sponsor, like Roy Cohn did. He has no natural constituency outside criminal prosecutorial circles.
13
@Shillingfarmer
Is Trump so stupid he does not recognize that he has now been impeached because of Rudy Giuliani's reckless actions and statements?
Trump must be on the brink of dumping this albatross who is soon to be indicted.
Trump will distance himself as quickly as possible.
Wait for it:
"I didn't hire Rudy"
"Rudy's not on my payroll."
"I didn't know and I didn't pay him to do this."
6
Please, Rudy does not speak for America but only for some oligarchs currently in power. The pendulum has a way of swinging. I wish I knew where it was in its arc just now!
33
@Katie K I guess my fear is that if the pendulum swings too far, then the suspending mechanism breaks and it never swings back. That would be the collapse of the American experiment. Of course, it has always been a fraught experiment. We built an economy based on slavery, we currently incarcerate more of our population than any other country, and we claim to be the world's model of freedom and liberty. OK, let's talk about shamelessness...
16
@Bruce
Trump may be the straw that breaks the camels back or perhaps we are already broken but just can't see it yet.
There have been so many assaults on the moral fabric of our country and taken together may mean we are entering "the dark night of the soul."
And, I fear that the stage is only going to get darker with the two new lawyers Trump has hired-- Starr and
Derkowitz.
2
Excellent, thank you for this. We need to hear it.
20
Excellent article. Thank you. But you left out what I saw/see as an excellent example of today's exposed Giuliani: I lived in NYC during Giuliani's reign. 9/11 happened just months before New Yorkers were scheduled to elect a new mayor -- Rudy's replacement -- because at that time a mayor was limited to two terms. He tried hard to have the mayoral election put off to some, as I remember it, undefined time because only he could help the city out of the crisis. New York wisely rejected his suggestion.
65
@Judy Didn't Bloomberg buy a third term?
On a side note, I am very leery of his candidacy (and Steyer as well) wondering if I am the only one concerned about the self-financing of presidential campaigns from uber-wealthy. Seems to fly in the face of democracy; one man, one vote and all that.
I lived in NY in the 80's and early 90's. We always thought Giuliani was a kind of a wiseguy and by that I mean exactly what you think.
I seem to be one of the few people who remember that right before 9/11 he was about to run out of town on a rail.
He hasn't changed a bit. He's always been cheap flim flam man.
48
@mj
I suppose by calling Giuliani a "wiseguy," and writing "by that I mean exactly what you think," you're implying (or stating) that Giuliani is what he is because of his Italian ancestry. Because bigotry against Americans of Italian descent is so commonplace and accepted, I sometimes wonder why I bother to object, but here I go. Giuliani is narcissistic, greedy, a showboater, dishonest, and possibly deranged and amoral. However, those attributes aren't exclusive to Americans of Italian descent. To imply that his venality is due to his ethnicity is bigotry.
12
@Linda
Trump isn't Italian and lots of people refer to him as a "wise guy."
Lighten up. The reference is to the behaviour, not the heritage.
5
@Linda, it's not because he's Italian. It's because he's Rudy, possessor of darn near ever negative attribute ascribed to him.
6
Please see this article which appeared in City Limits on Monday. It reveals a Vulnerability Study that Rudolph Giuliani commissioned to identify his political and personal weaknesses as he prepared to run against Mayor David Dinkins in 1993. The article provides links to the full study. Giuliani ordered that all copies be destroyed. This revealing report foreshadows what he became over the last thirty years and is especially timely and relevant to understanding his current behavior of the national and global level, as well as the relationship he has with Donald Trump. He hasn't changed in boldness and shamelessness.
https://citylimits.org/2020/01/13/meet-the-new-rudy-same-as-the-old-rudy-1993-study-exposed-vulnerabilities-now-on-view/
14
People not of overarching vision, but of appetite...
Not the body politic, but the cancer.
14
@Fairokian
As a cancer survivor I object to the comparison...as mine was at least curable.
6
Thank you for this illuminating, nauseating look at one of the great sleazes of all time.
38
@Linda : I've always been amazed as to his resemblance to a silent film actor who played the vampire 'Nosferatu"! We have a successor to the role....."Nosferudy"!
4
Excellent piece. Ugh. Feel like I need a shower.
31
Nothing really happened to Giuliani. He was never "America's Mayor" except in the lazy world of the media and their mindless followers. Many of us knew him for what he was---ambitious, arrogant, and crudely ignorant. One iconic video shot, and from it, a still picture of Rudy walking around Ground Zero, was presented as proof of sainthood to a shocked public. We know why he was on the street and not in his [wrecked] Emergency Response Center, aka his love nest. We know he appointed Bernie Kerik as NYPD commissioner before Bernie became notorious for his own love nest and before his time in prison. Rudy just met his own demons without the bright lights of the media to hide them.
32
It has been said that he tried to control donated $ to victims /survivors after 911 by installing his girl friend in charge of doling out those funds over an extended period and she would get a six figure salary to boot. he was stopped.
15
What happened? The MONEY. Lots of it. The old joke: Lawyers will do what lab rats won't. Holds true here.
16
Giuliani's obsession with the Godfather movies is sort of explained here. Feeds into several narratives about his adulation of Trump and the idea of the "Deep State" where the real power is wielded by one man who has many "lieutenants" who keep a sharp eye on their own "territories" and keep in line for the godfather - unknown to the average, law-abiding but "naive and stupid" citizens who unwittingly keep them power. The truth is - the mob or any other criminal enterprise - I would include Giuliani and Trump in those categories - couldn't organize a trip to the toilet without a fight or a shout-out to Fox News.
14
Great article. However, I feel slimmed. Rudy has a price to pay but the silly man child can not see it. Rudy, when the anvil falls on you don't bother to look surprised because the people that matter won't be looking.
6
Mahler has given readers the words, the phrases, that explain the surge of intense anxiety triggered by the very sound of Trump’s voice.
Shamelessness!
This analysis is penetrating and comprehensive. Giuliani and Trump and their many cohorts are destroying the basic sense of ethics in our country.
The bad guys are winning and the good guys are handicapped by their decency.
28
Jonathan Mahler's profile of Rudy Giuliani, with its references to Donald Trump and others in their bald shamelessness, reminded me of another literary reference: Mario Puzo opening "The Godfather" with a quote from Balzac: "Behind every fortune is a crime." The stench of crime permeates the Trump Administration and everyone connected with it.
32
At this point in time Giuliani has a deep self interest in insuring the future sucess of President Trump. There is little doubt Rudy's actions will result in legal ramifications withoit the protection the current administration offers.
10
He has changed. He has not aged well; perhaps he should dress in drag again, so long as he stays out of the public eye.
For the media: keep calling him "Rudolph." Makes me think of a reindeer.
6
Trump and Giuliani seem like the perfect couple. Maybe they should get married. Do I hear "Presidential Pardon" for Rudy in 2020. Thank you for writing this story. Let's hope that both of them fade into the history books after November 2020.
11
"While in office, Clinton racked up big private legal bills; Trump didn’t pay Giuliani, nor does he appear to have reported his work as a gift, which he is legally bound to do. "
But the quote above really illustrates both the commonality of Trump and Giuliani, with one exception: Nobody can out-Trump Trump in terms of corruption.
To take the free services and then not report them symbolizes the president's unbounded greed and contempt for the law. Giuliani is just as self-aggrandizing, and shameless, but it's done against at least a semblance of background structure--the church, the law (yes, even Rudy has limits), or the opinion of those he truly cares about.
In that, Giuliani, as annoying and lowlife as he is, elicits more pathos than Trump. Trump doesn't care about anyone, and it shows. In terms of sociopathy, he has no equal.
Giuliani has remnants of a conscience, which is could be why he drinks too much. He has to tamp it down so it doesn't rise up to deter his schtick, whether for his "boss," or himself.
20
As a White person who grew up in NYC from the mid-1950's to the early '70s and then worked in the city in the 1980's and '90s, I always saw Rudi Giuliani for exactly what he was. Possibly the only good thing to come out of the current Trump era is that the media is finally reporting exactly what some of us knew and experienced during the age of Mayor Giuliani.
19
So, is there a courageous Attorney General somewhere in the US who takes Guiliani and his godfather Trump to court for violations of the RICO act? This seems such a clear-cut case that I am surprised it hasn't been pursued yet.
10
@W
Parnas says he is afraid of AG Barr and I think there may not be any federal investigation into Rudy with Barr at the helm of the Justice Department.
So a state level case would be the only way for justice to be served at the moment.
Remember, Don the Con changed his residence to Florida as he knows NYS is after him. Florida is corrupt -as was telling in the Epstein case.
It is truly up to the Democrats to sweep the elections this year. If they can’t pull it off, say bye bye democracy, bye bye rule of law. Hello dictatorship, hello Oligarchs, hello authoritarian rule. A scary potential fate for the US and the world.
19
As we all navigate the dark days, we fall to despair. Just please remember, we owe it to ourselves and those we care about, as we have only one life, to keep the flame of caring for each other (and for ourselves by so doing) alive.
Here's to hope and positive action!
64
@Susan Anderson Thank you I needed this
9
@Linda
Thank you. Every little bit helps!
1
>>has said that it was the prospect of celibacy that kept him from the priesthood <<
Did he really mean celibacy which refers to being unmarried or chastity which has an entirely different meaning?
11
Why has shamelessness so disproportionately infected the Republican Party? Rudy Giuliani is one of scores of Republicans who have adopted shamelessness as a way of operating in the world. Think back to Newt Gingrich cheating on his wife while excoriating Bill Clinton for his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Bob Livingston, who would have succeeded Gingrich, had to decline becoming Speaker of the House because his own extramarital affair was exposed.
Recently, Chris Collins resigned in the wake of his insider trading indictment, which he vigorously denied before pleading guilty, and he is currently awaiting sentencing. Duncan Hunter disgracefully accused his wife of mismanaging his campaign finance funds before admitting his own guilt. And what of the fact that both were re-elected to Congress while they were under indictment. What does that say about the Republican electorate?
The list goes on and on and on. Trump has raised shamelessness to historic proportions, but he is carrying on a tradition that is deeply rooted in Republican politics. Look at current officeholders like Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan and Devin Nunez who will say anything to support Trump and his lies.
I don't even know where to begin when it comes to Mitch McConnell.
To be sure, Democrats have had their share of disgraced and shameless politicians, but they pale in comparison and in number to Republicans whose hypocrisy knows no bounds.
390
@Morals Matter
Addendum to my comment...
Chris Collins was just sentenced to 26 months in prison.
Too lenient, in my view, but nonetheless reflective of his arrogance in thinking the law didn't apply to him.
And lest you forget, he was the FIRST sitting member of Congress to endorse Trump during the 2016 campaign.
It boggles the mind to think how many of Trump's supporters, associates and cabinet members have been indicted and/or sentenced, or resigned in disgrace.
How people support such a corrupt man and corrupt administration, especially so-called evangelicals, I'll never understand.
102
@Morals Matter
I feel your and our pain.
35
@Morals Matter I think it reflects the difference between liberal and conservatives. Liberals question things, conservatives have a fixed viewpoint. It's built into the very definitions of the words. Because of this, conservatives are very Machiavellian. If there is an absolute truth, it doesn't matter how you get there. This makes for some real dirty politics. So like Jonathan says the playing field isn't level.
Evangelicals have a fixed truth- really it's much less work- once you have accepted Jesus, you can stop thinking about it. Now not all conservatives or evangelicals are extremists, of course, but the rise of Fox and social media has amplified the voices of the extremists, the one who feel no shame. And that has swept along the moderates.
29
"Did he change — or did America?"
Neither. Far more likely, he finally revealed his true self.
40
Read article in this week’s City Limits online. It provides access to the Rudolph Giuliani Vulnerability Study. This is a 464 page study that Giuliani commissioned to find weaknesses in his professional and personal life that he feared could be used against him as he prepared to run against Mayor Dinkins. It came into Wayne Barrett’s possession before Giuliani had all copies destroyed. Barrett wrote the definitive investigative biography RUDY! In 2000. His book and City Limit’s revealing article linked to the Vulnerability Study show Rudy today is an extension of what he always has been. No change in character, beliefs, tactics, actions. But, perhaps, at one time, he felt some shame.
44
@Fred Smith
Link:
https://citylimits.org/2020/01/13/meet-the-new-rudy-same-as-the-old-rudy-1993-study-exposed-vulnerabilities-now-on-view/
1
@Fred Smith
Thanks to you and wavedeva: what a report!
What a truly disturbed man, utilizing his offices like a mob enforcer. The curious thing: seeing the fault-lines in print didn't him on some sort of quest to save his soul, he just doubled down on his negative personality traits.
1
In the modern "Republican" world it seems this is the only truth:
Do whatever is necessary to "win".
Lie steal cheat and deceive, foment hatred and violence, it doesn't matter. Do harm and blame victims and Democrats for the result.
This is why old-fashioned ethical Republicans have left the new sleaze in droves.
Reality matters. The truth matters. There is nothing else in the end. The planet will teach us if we don't get some wisdom and compassion and start working together to make things better.
106
@Susan Anderson
Amen. That's why I'm a former Republican. The party started its decline with the nastiness of the "Tea party" and now the party is owned by President Trump.
29
@Susan Anderson
The GOP:
The party of crooks, liars, conspiracy and propaganda generators, ruthless, cruel, and most importantly, disgusting.
Add Graham and McSally to that list.
The GOP are abhorrent.
27
@Susan Anderson : "Truth is not truth!" Rudy Giuliani.
7
"tThings seem to have gotten a lot worse for Giuliani"? I'm not so sure. He (like his partner, Trump) thrive on notoriety and fame.
For as long as he's noticed by everyone and the hoped-for target of interviewers and news people, he will be happy and see himself as a success.
As with Roger Stone, heading off to prison will go a long way toward reducing his self-importance and smugness.
76
@JFR
I’m afraid any chance of a prison term for Rudy (or Roger Stone) will be taken care of by a timely pardon from Trump. While I can hope he might hang them out to dry, they both likely possess plenty of incriminating information about him.
39
@Caroline Fraiser : Roger Stone is the G.Gordon Liddy character of this sad drama. He'd rather fall on his sword than give up Trump.
1
@Caroline Fraiser
Even if both go to prison they will keep their mouths' shut. For one thing they will wait in hope for a Trump pardon during his second term. For another they will fear the same fate as Epstein. By that I don't mean to suggest Epstein actually killed himself, or would they.
1
”Shamelessness is not an art or even a skill. It’s simply a way of operating in the world that informs all of your actions and interactions, for good or ill.“
This describes Giuliani and Trump himself, of course, but also William Barr, Mitch McConnell, Mick Mulvaney, and the House Republicans who, with their sneering dismissal of witnesses and evidence, transformed the impeachment proceedings from a somber affair into a farce. It’s how they operate in the world. Shamelessly.
235
Like Trump Rudy believes money will buy admission to old guard high society. Instead they buy buffoonery. Cash doesn't buy class.
75
"In 2020, the obvious answer is the rise of an all-consuming media ecosystem in which truth is no longer meaningfully litigated."
The source of much indignation, not least for Democrats. But was it litigated before or was it just controlled by an elite of media moguls who gave us their version of the truth? The swamp hasn't been drained, it's just been circumvented. as suggested, it's a brand that we are seeing replicated around the world and it ain't leaving anytime soon.
10
My mind is bursting with adjectives to describe this essay and I could comment on almost every paragraph. As a native New Yorker who grew up with both Giuliani and Trump, I'll simply say: Excellent!! And thanks for lifting the fog, not for me but for the larger community, nationally and globally.
246
@Gayle
True. We always knew. I can say that even I only came to the City 25 y.o. - but it was evident after just a few years.
15
Burlesque, low comedy and farce. It's as if today's national politics had been snatched from the headlines of the NATIONAL ENQUIRER.
68
“ Politics is Show Business, for unattractive People “.
Nothing more needs to be said.
118
@Phyliss Dalmatian
Sadly, when I grew up (a good while ago), public service was a thing. It still is: see people like Elizabeth Warren and many of the Democratic stalwarts - and even a sprinkling of Republicans, though almost all of the good ones have been driven out.
38
Mr. Giuliani's first mayoral action post-9/11 was a self-serving attempt to stop the election of a new mayor. No. He has not changed. Media is finally paying attention to him in a critical - rather than laudatory - way.
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
107
Neither Giuliani nor America so much changed as they simply devolved into their own worst caricatures.
41
Let's hope Trump and Giuliani both end up in prison, penniless and alone like Boss Tweed.
381
As a New Yorker born in Queens, educated in Queens and attended college in Manhattan, the slogan "America's mayor "was a tag line created by the white media.
Rudi was a terrible mayor and a shameless show man. David Dinkins had started the reduction in crime way before the Mafia Rudi was elected. Mafia, because Rudi's daddy was a bagman for the mob, Rudi's first wife was his first cousin. Rudi deliberately insulted, arrested black people support of the NY police department as they spit on Mayor Dinkins. He was responsible for the out of control police force where millions were paid out to citizens in regards to law suites. Mayor Dinkins negotiated the deal with Disney to turn 42th street around not Rudi.
Rudi spent the summer before 9/11 trying to take away funding from the Brooklyn Museum He didn't approve of the exhibit. Rudi didn't upgrade the communications system between the police and the firefighters. The media named him America's mayor to cover up the issues associated with his indifference to the people in New York. That way because of the horrors associated with that day no one would be pointing the finger at Rudi for his own incompetence.
He was a terrible mayor , as a minority I will state he was good for white people but a bigot for the rest of us. He hated Bratton, and anyone else in his administration that were more popular than him.
Now he is in the fog of old age
308
@Tony Well said. And what he did in the wake of Patrick Dorismond's wrongful killing was an unspeakable obscenity. From that alone, there is no coming back.
91
@Tony I believe that Rudi's actions and politics can't be 'good' if they're not good for others in the city beisdes whites. Trump's not 'good' for white people either. We suffer if you suffer. Aren't we all Americans? Shouldn't our leaders do good for all? Your comments and insights are much appreciated; I am from the other coast and had no idea what was really taking place there in NYC.
55
@Tony
Exactly correct. It was very satisfying when he appeared at a Yankees game a year or two ago and when they announced over the PA that he was there and it was his birthday, he was greeted with a loud chorus of boos.
Nobody deserved it more.
88
Yeah, it's always someone else's fault, Rudy.
You waste our time. Clear the deck and go to prison.
86
Wow. Thank you. Now I need to take a shower.
171
@Olivia and a drink...
2
@Olivia I noted a distinct drop in the national
water pressure as this article went "to press".
Could it be that others as well are needing a refreshing quick dip upon reading this?
2
Thank you, this is so informative. About half way through I realized I had become physically nauseated. I had to take a break and will finish when I have the strength to do so. Then I will recommend to everyone who can’t quite put their finger on how nasty this man is, and what role he is playing in propping up 45 and in dismantling of the last shreds of American dignity.
162
Bravo! Thank you. What happens in NYC now happens everywhere.
24
Fascinating and informative. Shows how the creation of the myth of someone, if repeated often and loudly enough can become a reality, especially if said person flaunts those things that are perceived as "desirable" by societal constructs. We live in a time of vicarious wanting. $230,000 a month for "living expenses?" On six houses in tony real estate, and smoking imported cigars to go with it? Why not, and if we just idolize these people, try and be in their orbit, surely some of this largesse will manifest in our lives.
But at what cost? Gain the whole world, and lose our souls, for what profit, we are admonished. What fragility of ego, what pain, manifests in a life without empathy, without shame, without truth? All illusion and will disintegrate once the vacated mortal coil is all that remains of the person. Yes, the history books may record a judgement, but you still have to wonder how such people manage to sleep soundly at night. No thanks, I'll pass on such a life, and have far more empathy for those they trod upon in their elephant rampage. Perhaps Rudy can find redemption, but he first has to far so low that the only direction is back up. A position he'd fight tooth and nail to be in.
39
@Patrick Gosh, his confessional time must be really amusing.
1
I didn't turn to Giuliani for comfort after September 11. I knew too well how much he enjoyed crushing the pleasures and opportunities of powerless people, from community gardeners to ferret owners (!) to plein air artists to "squeegee men."
62
“--it has become impossible not to wonder if there are any limits to shamelessness at all.
“The ability to move through the world like Giuliani does — without concern for consequences — is a gift; one that endows those who possess it with a power that others will invariably want to tap.”
Shamelessness-- a crass indifference to honor, to the consequences of indecent acts-- is not a gift or talent. It is the opposite. It is an ignorant weakness that leads only to misery for the one who lacks it and any who choose to follow that path of fools. When McCarthy was famously called out for having no shame, it was understood that shame was a protection of virtue and honor. That is what we are losing now, and one who has no shame is not gifted but is depraved.
76
A very revealing piece of journalism, excellently written.
Dozens of things could be said about it, but I'll keep it to one: I sure hope future historians will note the prominent role of that speeding vehicle for lies and innuendo called "Twitter" played in the downfall of US democracy.
Talk about shameless. Thanks for helping to ruin America's grand experiment, Jack Dorsey! It's clear that "anything goes" as long as it brings in the filthy lucre.
What's really amazing is that most folks still try to be decent, law-abiding citizens. As time goes on, the more I wonder why we even bother, when it seems the greatest "successes" in this country are based on lies, if not outright crimes.
144
@Ambient Kestrel this is spot on.
22
@Ambient Kestrel: Facebook cannot be left out this equation, especially after Zuck's multiple endless lies in front of Congress and refusal to take down clearly false political ads. Plus, his reach is far wider than Twitter's and has caused endless suffering for untold millions around the world due to the spreading of misinformation in that platform.
14
@Ambient Kestrel and please don't forget Peter Thiel
8
Now that I am 60, I am beginning to understand how the brain changes, even just a bit, as we move into old(er) age. Without going into it in depth, the brain seems begins to slow, a little bit at a time -- the ability to synthesize thought, tolerate feelings, etc. begins to change.
This may be what "happened" to Giuliani. He can no longer contain his ego and desire for power. His thoughts and actions are no longer filtered and he's simply showing the world the real jerk that he is.
39
@Rich
Rudy has ALWAYS been shameless. with a corrupt approach to life & politics!
13
@Rich
I’m well past 60 and still know the difference between right and wrong and act accordingly. Don’t give Giuliani an out simply because of his age, his faults are his own and manifested long before he reached old age.
22
@Rich You missed the point of this article. Did you read any of it? Nothing has happened to Giuliani. He's always been like this.
7
"The Boy Who Cried Wolf" is just one of the cautionary tales that warn us of these defects in people and how to deal with them. Shun them.
I think the shame and shameless issue is down to propaganda and the deliberate confusion of what is actually shameful.
An honest man can be accused of shameful things and won't be shamed.
A dishonest man can honestly be accused of shameful things and won't be shamed.
How does one differentiate? Look for the truth, be honest and think rationally not emotionally. Rational thought in the public discourse has been broken, people no longer think first and that is down to coaching by outlets like Fox in how to "not think properly" as a GOPer.
Which takes us back to the lesson of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf". I think 2 lies, surely no more than 3 lies, is enough to simply ignore and ban liars from coverage by honest reporting press outlets. Even if they are in office. Coverage in that case should focus on the previous lies and the need to remove the liar.
"And yet instead of seeing the historical parallel of his situation, Giuliani doubled down on asymmetrical shaming and reality-manufacturing." How is it possible for you to say this as if you do not understand? He knows that to answer directly demonstrates consciousness of guilt, thus the deflection. This deflection to avoid self incrimination, is part of the pattern of creating an environment for him and his co conspirators crimes to succeed
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The only limits on the shameless are those that decent people impose. And we have to use a heavy hand.
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I keep thinking the country can only withstand so much incompetence and corruption. Sadly, I continue to be proven wrong.
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Giuliani was good at taking credit for other people's achievements. Mayor David Dinkins began the revitalization of Times Square and Midtown. Chief of police William Bratton brought crime down (that, and in the 90's crime plummeted all across the country). By 2001 most New Yorkers hated Giuliani, if it hadn't been for 9/11 and his milking it for all it was worth, we all probably would have forgotten him after he left the mayor's office.
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@Sallie
Spot on! Thank you!
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@Sallie
Don't forget that it was also Dinkins' "Safe Streets Safe City" program that secured funding for 6,000 more officers to be put on street patrol that really started NYC on the downward crime trend. True to form, Giuliani took credit for it.
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More proof that the system is working exactly as designed.
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@Bill Palmer
That statement is a lot more ambiguous than it seems.
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Giuliani's transformation into the weird, unhinged person he is today began after 9/11 when he decided to permanently use that tragedy as his personal calling card. Not for nothing did Joe Biden once quip that everything out of Giuliani's mouth was a noun, verb, and 9/11.
Since then he became a high-priced influence peddler and "security consultant," and then hitched his wagon to Trump who was not smart enough to realize that Giuliani's judgment had deteriorated to the point where he was a dangerous loose cannon.
It would be at once highly informative and entertaining to see him forced to testify under oath.
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@Pat, Are you sure Giuliani ever had any judgment at all? This article and everything else I have read about him suggest otherwise. It seems that he is just carrying on the same shameless persona he always had.
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@Pat
It is questionable that he ever was an undiluted good guy. Did you read the whole article?
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@Pat
Naw. He was weird an unhinged before. Actually he and Trump are cut from the same sleazy grandstanding cloth. A reality show mayor with a reality show president.
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Great Journalism....a Pleasure to read all night long....BRAVO, Maestro!
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Great Journalism....a Pleasure to read all night long....BRAVO, Maestro!
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Bravo; your quotes below define the leaders who we have shackled ourselves with and are destroying the America I grew up in:
"Today, anything seems possible for those who are willing to say and do anything (and) The ability to move through the world without concern for consequences, The evolution of the modern media facilitated their rise, and the unregulated platforms of social media have now eliminated the final barrier to their ascension."
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Question...did Rudy change or did America? Short ans..in nutshell..condensed version...BOTH !!
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@Dave
I lived in CT at the time, working in admin. for a multi-State home heating oil company. We had employees in all the NY boroughs; I remember the deaths and the funerals for the fire fighters in the Towers. The NYPD helos hovered outside trying to warn them to get out; the fire fighters were unable to receive the warnings because their radios lacked the necessary bandwidth. Rudy had denied the funding for new radios. When the firefighters died in the Towers, "America's Mayor" was safe in Brooklyn. He later made his grand entrance in a motorcade. We donated money, clothing, and food for their widows and orphans. Our service techs delivered everything to their homes and central drop-off places using our service vans. It was good to see the NYFD go to Florida to knock on doors and inform voters who Rudy Giuliani was. He didn't get the nomination he was shamelessly campaigning for. Not surprised to see him in league with another grifter.
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