Rudy Giuliani is moving up in the polls, and is even the front runner ahead of McCain in some polls, but with his past can he survive? Just before 9/11 Giuliani was considered a lame duck mayor with ratings around 40%. On May 12th at the Landmark Theatres’ Sunshine Cinema in New York City the film “Giuliani Time” will open and show a different, not so positive side of Giuliani. Here is a trailer from the film. Amy Goodman interviewed the creators of the film in January. And a good story that covers Giuliani the mayor in great detail is in AlterNet today. From the AlterNet article is a quote from Jimmy Breslin,
He was a nobody as a mayor and in one day he became a hero. This sudden career, this door opening to a room of gold, all started for Rudolph Giuliani when his indestructible bunker in World Trade Center building blew up. He had personally selected it, high in the sky, and with tons of diesel fuel to give emergency power.
And Giuliani walks on. He walks from his bunker, up Barclay Street and went on television. Went on and announced his heroism and then came back every hour or so until he became a star, a great figure, a national hero, the mayor who saved New York.
Most of this comes from these dazed Pekingese of the Press. … Giuliani was a hero with these news people. He did not pick up a piece of steel or help carry one of the injured off. [Jimmy Breslin, “He Molests the Dead,” New York Newsday, March 7, 2004]
Giuliani the hero, or is it really Giuliani the made for TV hero. There are even some that say his actions as mayor may have cost lives, and these blunders may be used against him during the campaign according to this story today in MSNBC. Rudy Giuliani was Time’s Man of The Year in 2001, and was called a hero, an icon of steadfastness in the midst of chaos. Can Giuliani maintain as an icon of steadfastness in face of such harsh attacks? Not likely, and then he will sink faster than The Dean Scream.
Alan Cosgrove