Giuliani's Record
December 3rd, 2007
Rudolph Giuliani has campaigned for president as though his years as mayor were an unmitigated triumph. Love him or hate him, New Yorkers know the truth is far more complicated. After months of hosanas, the downside of the Rudy years is starting to get national attention, and the questioning coverage shows no sign of abating.
Politco fired a key shot last week, when it reported that the expenses racked up by Giuliani’s security’ detail when they accompanied the married mayor on trips to see his then girlfriend, Judith Nathan, had been attributed to obscure city agencies – like the Loft Board – whose officials have little need for security or trips to the Hamptons. Over the weekend, city papers chimed in.
The Daily News, for example, reported that Nathan had security even when she was not with the mayor. “Taxpayers were paying to ferry Nathan on long-distance trips without Giuliani” the paper writes. Detective drove Nathan around the city and obligingly walked her dog. If you’re wondering how that happens the News has the answer: “The detail was approved by Giuliani pal Bernard Kerik.”
Meanwhile, New Yorkers also had to pay to protect Giuliani’s then wife, Donna Hanover, and their two kids. According to the Post, as her marriage dissolved, Hanover sought the solace of her parents, who lived in California. ”She was accompanied by an NYPD security detail that ran up at least $110,000 in credit-card charges for airfare, lodging, car rentals and gasoline,” the Post reported.
But the scrutiny of Giuliani extends beyond his personal life and the effect it had on the city budget.
The Times, last week – in a news story – accused the mayor of lying as he paints himself as a tough on crime, tight-fisted conservative.
And today in New York Magazine Chris Smith takes aim at the whole Giuliani mythology. In a lengthy article, he charges that the mayor has exaggerated his role in fighting crime, distorted his record on fiscal policy and misrepresented the slashing of the welfare roles during his administration. Smith even says Giuliani was not a very good manager nor the bastion of integrity he would have us believe. He writes, “Giuliani’s supporters trumpet his personal incorruptibility, but as mayor he larded his administrations with unqualified cousins and cousins-in-law”(to say nothing of http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/09/AR2007110900442.htmlBernard Kerik and http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/22/nyregion/22harding.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/H/Harding,%20Russell%20A. Russell Harding).
“Giuliani says he wants to do for the country what he did for the city. Yet the tactics he used in New York are either inapplicable or irrelevant,” Smith writes> “What would certainly be transferred to the White House, though, is Giuliani’s character…. He’s selling his strength of will as an indispensable trait in a tough world. But we know from eight years of firsthand experience that Giuliani’s strength would also mean degrading his enemies, a contempt for the press and Congress, a mania for secrecy, and the rewarding of personal loyalty at the expense of competence.”
In category: Electoral Politics, Gotham City | 3 Comments »


December 3rd, 2007 at 4:16 pm
COME ON.
It is irrefutable that Rudy is the biggest flip flopper in history (I’ll debate any historians you can find) and the biggest liar in history.
He faked EVERYTHING b/c he knows humans are dumb as a stump. EX: as crime went way UP under his tenure, everyone believed Rudy’s lies, and few figured out that the “improvements” to, say, the East Village were 100% the result of GENTRIFICATION by artists. The govt had 0% to do with this.
THE MAN HAS ALREADY been convicted of thousands of serious crimes, from violating the First Amendment (maybe no one knows that the Constitution is LAW?) to the Freedom Of INformation Law, to the rest of the Bill of Rights, to the Recycling Law (which he BOASTED he would break, hence the media spinning Rudy as “tough on lawbreakers”!)
WHY ISN’T HE IN PRISON for illegally destroying all the evidence from Ground Zero? That’s a serious federal offense, and Prosecutor Rudy knows this.
WHY ISN’T HE IN PRISON for any of his convictions or other crimes.
THAT IS THE ONLY TOPIC THAT SHOULD BE DISCUSSED when the media talks about this criminal.
Hey, did you see his speech about the “evil govt monopoly” of public education!
This, from the clown who has HAILED communism on thousands of occasions! EX: Rudy says the US military, then NYPD, and the FDNY are the BEST.
Am I to believe he’s so insane and retarded that he didn’t NOTICE all are govt-run monopolies????
Oh wait. No one else but me noticed this either.
Wow.
We are doomed.
Now, will Gotham Gazette be the first to list some of the 30,000 Giuliani LIES and FLIP FLOPS?
Watch and see.
(My esp says no way.)
December 3rd, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Oh yeah:
GiulianiSCANDALS.blogspot.com
Read everything the media will never tell you!
December 5th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
We have covered Giuliani over the years — and reported on his failings in such areas as education and respect for the Constitution. But whatever the individual opinions of some of the staff here may be, we’re a NYC policy site, not a let’s get Giuliani site. We covered the latest brouhaha because it concerns city government and transparency, something clearly in our bailiwick.