I’ve never asked this before, but cite?
Perhaps my memory is skewed - in the traumatic weeks following 9/11 many people pushed for Guiliani to stay in his post for a few extra months, but IIRC he said the democratic process must carry on.
Am I remembering this incorrectly?
Zebra’s right. I remember Guiliani floating the idea that the election might be “postponed” and he might stay on “temporarily” until the crisis was over.
New York Times, Sept. 24, 2001, p. A21:
He cleaned up Times Sq., so if porn’s not your thing, hooray I guess. He also took a firm stance against the Brooklyn Museum and the NEA when it came down to artistic freedom vs. Religious Purity. He had a rep for shipping bums to Jersey to get rid of them, but as a high-schooler at the time who doesn’t feel like doing the pertinent research right now, all I have to offer on that one is hearsay.
His presidential campaign is very funny.
This is a great analysis of Giuliani (and I think I may steal it).
In his first term, he really was Batman, cleaning up some major problems caused by decades of entrenched Democratic leadership beholden to various pressure groups. The crime reduction efforts were continuations of programs from the Dinkins administration and the Times Square revitalization was largely driven by state agencies (and dated from well before he was in office), but he drove and encouraged these programs. It was really a brilliant effort, and to the extent he stepped on civil liberties or tried to control information flow, it didn’t seem too bad because of the progress he was making. One particularly troubling incident was his firing of Police Commissioner Bill Bratton for the apparent reason that he was taking too much of the spotlight on the crime reduction efforts away from Giuliani.
Personally, he was like Batman, too, available 24-7 to come rushing in whenever and wherever needed. It seemed like he’d be there whenever a cop got into a fender bender or a fireman coughed three times after leaving a burning building. (In contrast, Bloomberg leaves town for the weekend and doesn’t tell the media where he is going, often taking his private jet to his house in Bermuda. This caused the media some frustration when he wasn’t immediately available for a comment on every little thing that happened in the City, but they got over it.)
By the end of his first term, he had defeated all of the real villians. But what is Batman to do if the Joker, the Penguin and their ilk is gone? He goes racing around Gotham pouncing on whatever infractions caught his eye. That guy didn’t clean up after his poodle – race there in the Batmobile, tie him up and deposit him on the Commissioner’s desk for punishment.
In his second term, he repeatedly turned his focus on little things that offended him but were innocuous to most New Yorkers, Ferrets, newstands, taxis, the exhibits at the Brooklyn Museum to name a few. When something offended him, he would go against it in the most heavy-handed way possible – causing his administration to be repeatedly held in violation of the First Amendment and other civil rights. It also became apparent that he was managing the City’s finances by using one-off revenue events and other shady accounting to put off necessary tax increases until his successor’s term (something which Bloomberg tackled in a very straightforward manner, earning initial enmity but eventual support).
What Giuliani’s tenure as Mayor teaches me is that were he elected President, he would continue (or even increase) the Bush Administration’s secretive and authoritarian tendencies.
In addition to what other posters seem to have read that’s already posted throughout this entire thread, don’t forget this lawsuit that had to be initiated against Giuliani by New York’s Independent Budget Office to get basic information regarding the City’s budget.
“Mayor Giuliani refused to comment directly on the lawsuit, but he described the plaintiffs as ‘the most partisan group of Democrats, who are the most left-wing.’”
A control freak, if ever there was one.
I think he is a seriously flawed leader, and find this hard to reconcile with his basically decent position concerning gays rights issues.
Thanks
Giuliani also sold off plenty of city-owned property to temporarily boost revenues at the expense of city gardens, parks, and recreational areas. Here is another article about Coney Island which states the following:
Simply put, Giuliani is a bully and a thug who has not problem using the power of gov’t to shakedown people who disagree with him. Someone so vindictive would make an awful president.
Rudy has the issue, forgivable in a mayor, of thinking his personal prejudices are the only true and proper way for the world to work. He has no room in his mind for alternate perspectives.
If something goes against his personal morals, it has to be illegal.
He’s an attack dog. He’d make a great Attorney General, a lousy President.
He cleaned up the fish market, don’t forget. Really broke the Mob, over the years.
Actually, Rudy as AG might even scare me more than him as President. I can really see him as engaging in vindictive prosecution and disregard for civil rights, perhaps even more than the current AG.
When he was US Attorney the common complaint was that he made big showy arrests, but was weak at carrying things through to conviction. He also focused on high-profile areas like securities fraud and the mafia, to the arguable neglect of the more bread and butter areas of federal prosecution.
Yes, but he’d be working at the directive, hopefully, of a good President.
Also partially in response to E-Sabbath.
Just an observation here: As a New Yorker, I’ve always wondered about those shows of going after the mob.
Yes, publicly there seems to have been some “progress,” but who really knows how many of those types of charges were brought, trials held and convictions obtained.
I’m not even trying to suggest he was mobbed up, but could there have been some behind-the-scene deals made, i.e., “I’ll be very public about going after you over here and you quietly continue to operate over there.”
P.S. When you say he “broke the mob, re: the fish market.” The fish market only moved to the Bronx within the last year. To me, that implies the Mob wasn’t bested during the Giuliani years because they were the ones resisting closing the Fulton Fish market and moving it.
Rudy, over many years, broke the Mob.
You and I are probably going to continue to disagree on this and that’s okay.
While that wiki entry you graciously (thanks, it helps) supplied enumerates many indictments and convictions that Guiliani spearheaded, and specifically states, overall, they helped make his career, nowhere does it say he broke the mob.
As a matter of fact, two mobsters were murdered mob-style in the New York area just in the last couple of weeks, which indicates to me (i) there are still a few around, and (ii) there’s *enough * of a mob still around for something to be worthwhile enough to gun down rivals.
Not to mention how many mob crimes probably “go unreported” on a daily basis.
While true, the Mob still exists, it’s a shadow of what it used to be. It had a great firm hand over many city services, and over much of the real estate of NY.
It’s like the USSR. Russia still exists, but… it’s not what it was. It’s hard to tell the difference if you weren’t there.
I have to side with E-Sabbath on this. The mob was broken, not eradicated. It’s a shadow of its former self. You’ll never truly get rid of it, but it’s stranglehold over many, many areas has been diminished.
This statement I can agree with and if E-Sabbath* has said diminished, crimped the style of, or even hobbled and not broken (i.e., does not work anymore), I would have agreed also.
Giuliani did a lot of good (though fanatical) work as a federal prosecutor; however, neither he and nor RICO and the Predicates will ever totally eradicate the Mob – it’s just too lucrative.
Besides, you get to wear a pinkie ring, order gabba goo regularly and it’s de rigueur to have a goomar.
I’m just north of Ozone Park and Howard Beach, another place with low-life mob activity.
Broke: Broke the grip of. Not ‘eradicated’, wrong meaning. Broke does not mean ‘does not work any more.’ It means ‘broke free of.’ Still there, but not what it was.
Again, the USSR was broken, but Russia and the other countries still exist. We still have to worry about Putin… but not as much as we did before.