In the days following 9/11 Rudy Giuliani was cast into the national spotlight as a mayor that had to deal with one of the worst national tragedies in American history. Losing nearly 3,000 people in the towers and the ensuing chaos in Lower Manhattan was a tremendous toll.
Immediately afterwards the two heroes that emerged in the eyes of the media and the public at large were President Bush and Mayor Giuliani. Since then Bush's popularity has dropped precipitously due to his gross mismanagement of our country and leading us into an unwinnable war.
However Rudy in the same amount of time has built a profitable company, annoited his successor Michael Bloomberg and risen to national prominence with his own candidacy for President in 2008. Now is the time for Rudy to be put under the microscope and through the gauntlet.
The Daily Gotham and new contributor Richard Rothstein takes a look at the Rudy before 9/11:
On September 10, 2001, Rudy Giuliani was an extremely unpopular mayor and considered to be one of the most polarizing politicians in the history of New York City. Many New Yorkers saw him as a racist and borderline fascist. In fact, some newspapers, columnists and community groups had nicknamed him the Mussolini of Midtown and Hitler on the Hudson. But a few hours and two crumbling towers later he was Crusader Rabbit. Today, the nation perceives him to be America's most beloved and treasured mayor and a viable Republican candidate for the White House, made national hero by a baptism of sacred white ash.
The mayoralty of Rudolph William Louis Giuliani III was based on one of the narrowest electoral margins in city history, barely 53,000 votes. In fact, he lost the popular vote in Manhattan, The Bronx and Brooklyn. His victory was based on wide margins in conservative Staten Island and conservative white sections of Queens. His other ace in the hole was the inability of the Democratic party to come up with a competent and less than painfully dull candidate coupled with that party's relentless and very public infighting. (Where have we heard that before?)
This guy sounds like the next George Bush, a man who has already proven to emulate the decider in gaining political points from national tragedies. The article continues to show how Rudy transformed parts of New York into a capitalistic treasure at the expense of genuine NYC artistic talent and people of color. Although gentrification of the city didn't start with Giuliani, it certainly sped up under his reign. Please read the rest of the article, as it exposes the litany of offenses the 'saint' committed upon our city and portends what he could do to our nation following the despotic George W. Bush.
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