In it for himself

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Who? Why, Rudy Giuliani, of course. (By the way, did you know he was mayor of NYC on 9/11? Huh.)

He may very well be worse than Bush and he would surely be the fearmonger-in-chief in the Oval Office, an Orwellian leader forever mythologizing 9/11, America's Great Historical Event, talking up terrorism like Stalinists talked up Trotskyites, rhetorically keeping the country on the brink, imposing vigilante justice from above, whipping up patriotic fervour with neo-McCarthyite lust, a blood-thirsty authoritarian spying on dissidents and torturing suspected evildoers and other enemies of the state with rapturous glee, a father figure hell-bent on order, mein Führer, order!

And without much of a clue about anything.

On this cluelessness, specifically on his "shrugged blow-off of [the Iraq Study Group]," see Steve Benen (and Fred Kaplan). This is "a glimpse at the darker side of America’s Mayor: that he’s in it not for the country, but for himself".

I would add that that "darker side" includes a penchant for brutality that needs to be explored further in the media. This is no man fit to lead a free and democratic country.