Giuliani -- Threat or Menace

Spnited, "us NY metro folks," is a limited group. I can show you a ton of people who thought he was a very effective mayor.

The article says over and over again what a horrible human being and miserable mayor he was. But the substance of the article--the evidence--shows how effective he was. That was a horribly poor piece of persuasionary writing. Take out him telling me what a dick Giuliani is, over and over again, and the substance of the article is more likely to make me vote for the man.

As attorney general he went after the Ivan Boesky's and organized crime. And he was very effective. The writer dismisses that out of hand, without any reasons for why Giuliani doesn't deserve credit. And according to him it's a bad quality that he humiliated them by staging perp walks with lots of cameras. A lot of people would say "fuck em," or "maybe that will deter others." Giuliani may have been a bully and he may have grandstanded. But he did good and he succeeded in doing things that others couldn't. He cleaned up the Fulton Street Fish market, which had been controlled by organized crime for decades. He went in there, army-style, kicked their asses out and made sure they couldn't come back. Dismiss it as if that was nothing, but how many others were able to do that? How many even tried (you'd have had to have found someone not taking kickbacks)?

The writer throws out all kinds of assertions such as, "Many have questioned whether Giuliani's hardcore policing methods were really responsible for New York's metamorphosis." and "What is certainly true is that some of the city's success in fighting crime was despite Giuliani, instead of because of him."

But that just has no basis in reality. What actually IS certainly true is that the city was a much safer place under Giuliani than it was under David Dinkins. Quality of life was much better under Giuliani. Crime was down. That is supported in EVERY way possible. Sure you can juke statistics. But I lived here under both. Qualitatively, you'd be hard-pressed to find a New Yorker who won't tell you quality of life went up under Giuliani.

The writer's evidence? "During the Giuliani era, it was routine police procedure to handcuff and jail New Yorkers over minor infractions like smoking a joint in public, and then to drop charges. If you wanted to prosecute the police for misconduct after such an experience, you couldn't do so without opening your own case back up."

Well, yeah. Why is that a bad thing? Don't smoke a joint in public, idiot, and the police won't harass you. Cracking down on those quality of life crimes is what brought about the reduction in more serious crimes. By going after the guys who were hopping subway turnstiles, they prevented more serious crime in the subway.

The writer takes his argument to its ridiculous conclusion when he blames Giuliani for pushing strip joints to the margin of the city. He actually pines for the days of seedy strip joints, and hookers and pimps owning 42nd Street: "Some residents really missed the lap dancing," he writes. Yeah, right. I hate the Disneyfication of parts of NYC as much as anyone. But no one in their right mind pines for those good old days, when you couldn't walk down 42nd Street at night and feel safe.

I actually liked the fact that I could ride the subway at 3 a.m. without having to worry my ass off that I was going to get mugged.

 

That's a very reasonable point of view, Webster.

I'm not sure how I feel about him for president. I think he has as much integrity as you can expect from a high-level elected official. And I like that. I also think his leadership style will probably make for a poor president. In NYC, it isn't about party affiliation or issues. It's about getting shit done; and that is incredibly difficult here. Tammany Hall is still alive, in effect. The only kind of person who can buck that is someone like Giuliani. It's also why Ed Koch was a very effective mayor. And why David Dinkins sucked. It takes a strong personality and the ability to be a major league asshole. You have to have an independent streak.

I don't think that is a great quality in a president. It's good to a point. But a president needs to be able to play political games, strike compromises and give a lot to get a little. I am a afraid President Giuliani would walk into Washington D.C. and tell everyone to go fuck themselves. And while that cuts through the bullshit in NYC, in Washington that is a recipe for disaster.

 

Really disagree. On the surface, they appeared to be about the same things. But Dinkins couldn't get shit done. He was too busy trying to make everyone like him (when he wasn't flying off to the Bahamas or playing tennis).

When Koch took over as mayor, the city was in desperate financial shape. Things had gotten so bad under Linday (who was a Dinkins-like mayor), because he didn't have the personality to stand up to people. It was business as usual.

Koch marched in and did the budget-cutting that was necessary for a city on the brink of bankruptcy, and he made it almost palatable with his, "How am I doing?" personality. The city's bond rating was in the crapper when he took over. Within a few years, he was able to restore the city's credit and start raising capital funds again. The result was that he was able to double his operating budget and a good chunk of that money went into projects that boosted the city's economy in the 80s.

You can't overstate what he did. Sure, on the face of it, Koch was a good, old-fashioned liberal politician. But he basically inherited a mess, and changed the "business as usual" crap that had created the mess by being a major league asshole and forcing people to do the right things.