Giuliani was not the mayor during the Repugnant Neocon Carnival (what many of us living in New York called it at the time). However, the suppression of dissent by Bloomberg was following in the footsteps of Giuliani’s suppression of dissent that existed long before 911.

It took several court victories before Giuliani stopped denying protest permits to any groups he disagreed with.

Also, Giuliani certainly does not believe in keeping the government out of peoples’ lives when it comes to government spying on Americans.

“Freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.”

I somewhat agree. Overtly he does. Big picture, he’s very laissez-faire. As far as spying and activities against those who don’t toe the party line, he’s quite a different case, and that’s very, very dangerous.

As for the RNC, mea culpa. I do stick by the latter half of that sentence, though, and that is where my mistake sprang from, as the RNC debacle was a logical extension of the policies that sprang from Giuliani’s iron-fisted rule. To argue that he was so successful and that it was good thing, it to say that the ends inevitably outweigh the means. I do not. Check out this story, Rudy Giuliani: One Good Fascist, One Great Leader. It’s pretty distressing and indicative of the style that Giuliani employed to “get results.” That’s along the same lines (NOT to compare their deeds at all, though) as saying Hitler “got results” in bringing Germany back from World War I. At what cost to society does this thugocracy come?

Well-written article. I would tend to disagree that Giuliani is a fiscal neocon. The major flaw of Bush’s economic policy (in my view–which is to say the view I’ve plagarized from many notable fiscal conservatives) is deficit spending and the idea that a deficit pays for itself. Giuliani was not a deficit spender during his tenure as mayor. In the debate, he simply cited an example from his term when he was able to increase tax revenues for infrastructure by %40 by cutting income tax %25. It’s not an endorsement of deficit-spending, it’s just a statement that you don’t necessarily have to cut taxes to raise money (and in the past it has had the opposite effect).

Additionally, Giuliani is not well known for the implementation of new and suspect tactics against protesters during the “outrageous crackdowns” during the 2004 RNC. That’s because he was not mayor of NYC during that time (that would have been Michael Bloomberg).

Say what you want about Giuliani (and you did), as quite possibly the only man who could and did clean up New York City, he is arguably the most successful executive since FDR. If he gets in the general election, it will be hard for me to not vote for him.

There’s some kind of “brown baby” surprise waiting for him there. The only question is who will spring it.

1) The GOP is so nutty right-wing that a conservative like Giuliani seems relatively moderate.

2) By portraying a conservative like him as a moderate, the corporate media works to narrow the range of acceptable political views.

Anybody get the title reference, bonus credits worth nothing!

The scientifically impossible I do right away
The spiritually miraculous takes a bit longer