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Gangster Giuliani: The GOP’s Worst

Saturday, November 10th, 2007

If a potential Giuliani presidency in any way resembles a Giuliani mayoralty, then the country would be in for a truly awful time.

It is a supreme irony that Rudolph Giuliani became mayor of New York City because his opponent and predecessor, David Dinkins, is a black man. The myth of the always liberal white New Yorker was proven to be just that on election day in 1993. White voters deserted Dinkins in droves and elected a Republican mayor for the first time in 30 years.

Giuliani, a former prosecutor, took office and immediately began treating New Yorkers, particularly black New Yorkers, like criminals. He specialized in pleasing white people by beating up black people. Under his leadership the police were unleashed and given the right to arrest for petty offenses and even to kill when they felt the urge to do so.

When Haitian immigrant Patrick Dorismond was killed by a police officer, Giuliani illegally released his juvenile justice records to police. Adding insult to injury, he smeared the dead man by stating that he was “no altar boy.” The Dorismond case was one of the tipping points that made even some white New Yorkers long for the day that Giuliani would be their former mayor.

His public actions involving his private life also took the bloom off of the Rudy rose. In 2000 Giuliani informed his wife he was leaving her for another woman. He brought her that news via press conference. New York sophistication should not be confused with moral laissez faire. The tacky behavior was never forgotten.

On September 11, 2001 New Yorkers were giving collective thanks because term limits legislation insured that Rudy would soon be gone for good. Only a small number of dead enders were still in his thrall. But the terror attacks on the twin towers put him back in the spotlight. He was dubbed “America’s mayor,” and made a Knight of British Empire. He then made a bundle by forming Giuliani Partners and making up to $200,000 for a single speaking engagement, marketing himself as a terrorism expert because he managed to look calm for a few days.

Now Giuliani is running for the Republican presidential nomination and he is the very worst of a bad lot. He unabashedly supports the occupation of Iraq and a military attack on Iran. He doesn’t think simulating drowning via water boarding is torture and agrees wholeheartedly with the Bush destruction of civil liberties.

If a potential Giuliani presidency in any way resembles a Giuliani mayoralty then the country would be in for a truly awful time. As mayor Giuliani promoted the worst, least competent people to high positions in New York City government. Bernard Kerik, an undercover cop, had the shrewdness to put himself in the right place at the right time when he volunteered to drive Rudy around during his mayoral campaign. Despite the lack of any other credential, his rise to power was swift. First he was made a Deputy Commissioner at the Department of Corrections, then Commissioner.

Kerik was nothing but a crook. Fully aware that Kerik was under investigation for taking money from a construction company with organized crime connections, Giuliani nonetheless appointed him Police Commissioner. While others insist that they informed Giuliani of Kerik’s mob ties, Rudy claims not to remember. He certainly didn’t remember when he recommended his pal for a cabinet level position as Secretary of Homeland Security. When Kerik imploded under an avalanche of bad publicity Rudy just shrugged his shoulders, confident that he would continue to get away with doing whatever he wants.

Giuliani has credibility with most Republican voters because of his warmongering and inclination to inflict physical pain on dark people. He is still in trouble with conservative Christians for his pro-choice position as mayor of New York City and for publicly treating his wife and children like dirt. He plans to make up for that by being more overtly racist.

He will remind white Republicans of the good old days when he cut the welfare roles. He did so by breaking the law and denying benefits to eligible people, but no matter. He knows his audience. When they hear the word welfare they will salivate like Pavlovian dogs and decide that Rudy is their man.

There is every reason to believe that Giuliani will act out his every sick fantasy if he were to occupy the oval office. There is no reason to believe that Democrats would finally behave like an opposition. A Giuliani presidency is a nightmarish scenario. We will all be Patrick Dorismond, assumed to be guilty of something and therefore worthy of punishment. It is hard to imagine a worse president than George W. Bush, but Rudolph Giuliani fits that description perfectly.

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Mukasey Confirmed as Bush’s Third Attorney General

Saturday, November 10th, 2007

By James Rowley

Michael Mukasey, whose statements on torture and interrogation of suspected terrorists touched off a partisan Senate fight, has won confirmation to be the next U.S. attorney general.

Mukasey overcame opposition from Democrats who said he should have taken a less ambiguous position on torture. The late- night vote yesterday was 53-40 with six Democrats and Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, an independent, supporting the nomination. Four Democratic presidential candidates and one Republican, John McCain of Arizona, didn’t vote.

The new attorney general, the third to serve under President George W. Bush, will assume leadership of a Justice Department that has been damaged by charges of partisan politics. Supporters of Mukasey said he would restore morale at the department.

“Judge Mukasey’s confirmation comes at a critical moment for the Justice Department and for our nation,” Bush said in a statement released after the Senate vote. “Judge Mukasey is a man of strong character and integrity, with exceptional legal judgment.”

Mukasey, 66, a retired federal judge, is set to be sworn in at the Justice Department’s Washington headquarters later today, said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.

“He’ll begin meeting with staff right away,” Fratto said.

Mukasey succeeds Alberto Gonzales, who resigned in August after his inability to explain the ouster of nine U.S. attorneys cost him support among Republicans and Democrats in Congress. Congressional committees are still pressing Bush to let presidential aides testify about their involvement in the firings.

`Chance for Change’

“This is our chance for change,” said California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, whose complaints about the U.S. attorney dismissals triggered the probes that drove Gonzales from office. Mukasey “will be a non-political, non-partisan attorney general.”

During confirmation hearings, Mukasey pledged to keep politics out of criminal prosecution and vowed to resign if Bush were to ignore his advice that an important initiative would be unconstitutional. These statements drew praise from most Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Mukasey’s nomination encountered trouble when he refused to say whether waterboarding, an interrogation technique that simulates drowning, was illegal torture.

That and other harsh interrogation techniques became an issue following reports that the Central Intelligence Agency used waterboarding to extract information from three al-Qaeda operatives after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

`Repugnant’ Practice

Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont and seven other Democrats on the panel opposed Mukasey. His nomination cleared the panel with the votes of just two Democrats, Feinstein and Charles Schumer of New York, and nine Republicans.

Mukasey said he found waterboarding “repugnant” yet refused to say whether it was illegal torture.

“If waterboarding is torture, torture is unconstitutional,” he said at the hearings last month. In a written response to a letter by senators seeking a fuller explanation, Mukasey refused to give a legal opinion based on “hypotheticals” instead of “the actual facts and circumstances.”

Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, said “Judge Mukasey’s position on waterboarding is troubling” because “he wouldn’t answer direct questions about other torture techniques” even though military officials consider them to be torture. “Sadly, he said time and again that his answers would depend on the facts and circumstances.”

`Put People at Risk’

Republicans defended Mukasey’s refusal to render a legal opinion about the legality of interrogation techniques that are classified.

“Judge Mukasey found himself in a situation where an expression of opinion by him would put people at risk” of prosecution or a civil suit, said Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter.

The Bush administration hasn’t said whether intelligence agents ever engaged in waterboarding, which is outlawed as a military technique. Still, Bush has insisted that the government has never used torture.

Schumer recommended fellow New Yorker Mukasey to replace Gonzales. He and Feinstein argued that new leadership was needed at the Justice Department to restore the agency’s political independence and boost low morale caused by the controversies that led to the resignations of Gonzales and other top officials involved in firing the U.S. attorneys.

“The Department of Justice, one of the crown jewels among our government institutions, is now adrift and rudderless,” Schumer said. “Politics had been allowed to infect all manner of decision-making” and now the agency “desperately needs a strong and independent leader at the helm. I believe Judge Mukasey is that person.”

Gonzales, who was White House counsel during Bush’s first term as president, succeeded John Ashcroft as attorney general in 2005.

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