wasn't there a time when Rudy Giuliani was "America's Mayor"?

Politics & Elections
#1

You guys HAVE to have done a thread on this at some point, and if so, please provide me the link. I’ve tried the SDMB search, the backdoor Google search (using the terms ‘Giuliani AND “America’s Mayor”’) and I haven’t found any relevant threads - not that that means they don’t exist.

Wasn’t this dude a total fucking ROCK to the rest of the country 17 years ago? What the hell happened, age? politics? some weird devotion to Trump specifically?

I think I remember reading a story about him cheating on his wife, which yes that makes him a prick of a human being, but I suppose shit happens. It happened for Bill Clinton. It happened for my own Dad. I’ve come to forgive all three of them for that indiscretion.

Maybe this is more a question for NY Dopers - was Giuliani always this much a miserable prick of a human being, and maybe I (as a lifelong Texan) was just so disconnected from him prior to 9/11 that I gave him a ‘free pass’ (as I’m sure most of the country did) and looked up to him as a “hero”?

Did his complete nuttery (for lack of a better word) over the last two years come as a total shock to you, or is it just me?

#2

IIRC, it wasn’t just his marital indiscretions that led to his loss of respect from both sides of the aisle. Unless I’m mistaken, there were also allegations of abuse of his office* for the purpose of concealing some indiscretions from other indiscretions, as well as from the public.

Including the falsification of certain accounting documents, if I read his Wikipedia entry correctly.

#3

He has always seemed a bit smarmy to me. Sort of a creepy used car salesman in the 1950s. I guess 9/11 gave him a national stage, but I never trusted him.

#4

I was 15 when 9/11 happened; I was not exactly following the inner machinations of NYC politics leading up to it. Prior to 9/11 I do remember relatives from New York expressing some relief that Giuliani had “cleaned up the city.” I mean, the quotes are there because those are the words they used, but they don’t necessarily mean it’s not true to a degree. I do remember visiting my family in NY in the early 1990s, and it was kind of a scary place. Not just to my young and naive eyes, looking at all the squalor and graffiti and hearing the omnipresent police sirens, but also to witness how scared my relatives who lived there were. They were terrified of the subway. They were petrified of having their car stolen, or their house burglarized (it was wired to the gills with alarm systems, something I’d never seen before growing up in a cozy suburb) and every morning the trashy “Daily News” on my grandparents’ breakfast table was covered in blood-soaked headlines.

So I imagine that, even with the racial tensions arising from police brutality under Rudy’s watch - which shouldn’t be hand-waved away and were worth calling out - he was still perceived in the main as someone who was an asset to NYC.

I also imagine that, given Trump’s profile in NY, his backroom deals and ceaseless political maneuvering within the city politics that oversaw the real estate industry, there was some mutual favor-trading between D.T. and R.G. in the 90s, during which they probably established a degree of personal alliance. And that probably influenced Giulinani jumping onto the Trump Train.

#5

he should get along great with Trump since he’s had 3 failed marriages and cheated on his wives. Birds of a feather flock together.

#6

9/11 massively boosted both Guiliani’s and GWB’s popularity. Stand on a pile of rubble with a flag in the background and say empty words about how we’ll never be defeated and the country will love you. Simple as that.

#7

No one in the history of American politics burned through his public goodwill and political capital as quickly as Giuliani. The dust was still settling on the towers when he suggested that they postpone NYC mayoral elections and just keep him in office and then he immediately became that guy who something noteworthy once and then wouldn’t shut up about it.
During the GOP primaries he milked 9/11 so hard pundits were openly mocking him about it.

#8

It was about the same time that the Beach Boys was America’s rock band, and the Dallas Cowboys were America’s team.

#9

Giuliani really did preside over NYC becoming a much, much more safe and livable city. All US cities improved during that time, but I think NYC did better than most. Other cities copied some of the methods NYC used, like concentrating on smaller nuisance crimes which seems to lead to residents caring more. (This is ironic, given his current stance that smaller crimes by the president aren’t worth going after)

I think Giuliani had a hand in that improvement – he hired good advisers and police leaders. He was a bit dictatorial, but maybe NY needed that at the time. However, by his third term, he was running out of ideas and ticketing jaywalkers and other stupid offenses.

On 9/11, he seemed like a real leader (as did GWB – ha!). Of course, people forget that he put the police emergency office into the WTC, even though it had been a target just a few years prior. I think that’s when he started to become America’s Mayor :rolleyes:.

I’m no psychiatrist, but I think 9/11 really broke something in him mentally. I know other people who were around on that day and still get anxiety when going into the city. He seemed to become more authoritarian, with the mentality that we have to do whatever it takes to defeat these terrorists, who seem to be everywhere, even if it means undermining our own ideals. He saw it as a existential threat against the US.

Lately, though, he’s just a crazy old man. He’s great, though! He’s constantly giving Mueller more and more crimes to go after!

#10

Before 9/11, everything I heard about him was good: His “broken window policy”, to prevent crime by cracking down on all crimes, including minor ones like vandalism, seemed to be working.

On the day of 9/11, his conduct was certainly exemplary. None of the networks were able to show anything else, but there wasn’t really very much to say, so they filled air time by interviewing everyone notable they could get their hands on. Every interviewee but one politicized the opportunity, but Giuliani restricted his comments to the situation at hand: Telling people which streets to stay on which side of to avoid interfering with emergency responders, and to donate blood (it turned out that donating blood wasn’t much help, since there were very few victims who were injured but alive, but it was at least a good-faith effort).

During his Presidential campaign, yes, he talked about it incessantly, but that’s understandable, because every candidate will talk about their biggest successes.

But where he really went off the rails was when he started, in the name of partisanship, denying that 9/11 had even happened.

#11

as Biden said all Rudy said was “a noun, a verb, and 9/11”

#12

Wut?

#13

“There were no radical Islamic terrorist attacks while Bush was President”

#14

Ah. OK, fair enough. I thought he became a truther or something. He also claimed that Hillary Clinton was nowhere to be found on that day, then the picture shows up with her right behind him and GWB. He’s just a partisan idiot now.

#15

It is interesting to note he’s not the only old lawyer who’s gone off the deep end; Alan Dershowitz has fully beclowned himself.

It may simply be a coincidence, but it might also be that with age some stubbornness and inflexibility, an unwillingness to admit even to yourself that you have been duped.

#16

Giuliani is one of the most consequential politicians of our time. As a prosecutor he was instrumental in breaking the mob’s hold on the city. As a mayor he presided over the revival of New York City from miserable hell hole to the safest big city in the country. The amount of positive change he presided over is hard to believe if you did not live through it.

However he is also a lawyer and is currently acting as Trump’s lawyer. That means acting as a total advocate and not caring about the truth.

#17

He had a reputation for cleaning up New York City, but he wasn’t really a household name until 9/11, where they even had him on SNL. He had some scandals and faded into the background soon after.

#18

Yeah, Rudy went from someone I didn’t like but at least respected, to full on sycophantic servant faster than I had ever seen. I personally think that after 9/11 he became addicted to fame. He got used to being a rockstar that everyone was talking about, he even got granted a honorary knighthood. He tried to turn this celebrity into a presidential run, but his entier plaform was “I was mayor during 9/11” . After some 10 years out of the lime light, Donald Trump offered him an opportunity to get his name back in the papers for the small price of his loyalty, his dignity, and his soul.

#19

Giuliani was well known before 9/11, having even appeared on a Seinfeld episode in 1993. He was credited with “cleaning up” NYC, but then people started questioning both his methodologies and his results. The documentary Giuliani Time from 2005 explored his legacy. 9/11 revived his reputation, but being Giuliani he couldn’t help himself and reverted to his true self. He reminds me of Chris Christie who got high marks for his response to Hurricane Sandy only to blow it all on petty partisanship.

#20

So what was it then? A charity car wash gone awry?