FRAMESHOP:FRAMESHOP: SEX, LIES AND CROOKED GUYS

   

Watching Giuliani go after Mitt Romney on the CNN debate last night made me wonder if America's mayor is starting to crack.   

All Giuliani wants to do is stand up in front of America and repeat "9/11" over and over again, but darn it if the independent media just won't let him.  One has to wonder if Giuliani's sagging prospects in Iowa aren't linked to all the sex, lies and crooked guys that have been linked to him in recent weeks.  It sure seems that way.

But hold on to your wig:  appearances can be deceptive, particularly when we are talking about Republicans.

Standing For Everything They Hate
t a certain point, even dyed-in-the-wool Rudy crusaders must be having a hard time finding blinders big enough to prevent them from seeing where Giuliani has been putting his hands--and how much his record of "leadership" as mayor and businessman conflicts with the shrill nationalism that poisons the Republican primary contest.

Carrying on an extra-marital affair while mayor?

Championing and partnering with chief of police with known ties to organized crime?

Doing business with a Qatar Sheik with well-known connections to the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks?

Family values.  Rule of law.  Fight against terrorism.  These are not just small contradictions, but are the very essence of Giuliani's carefully constructed and relentlessly self-promoted mythology. 

In other words, it appears that Giuliani did more than just turn Oprah Winfrey's accolade ("America's Mayor") into a election strategy. He built an image of himself that was built on a series of strategic falsehoods.  The very qualities of leadership he claims to exemplify--the very successes he claims credit for--all are in direct conflict with the life Giuliani lived--a life whose salient details are now springing up like flowers on a compost pile.

And here is the key point that should end Giuliani's campaign:  Giuliani--the national front-runner of the Republican Presidential primary--is not just a man with a sordid past, but a politician who stands for everything the Republican Party currently stands against.

In other words, if the Republican Party were to nominate Rudy Giuliani to be their standard bearer in the 2008 Presidential election, they will have nominated a man who contradicts just about every line of the GOP platform. 

How could they possibly do this?

For years, Republicans have lambasted the Democrats for living by sexual mores that undermine traditional marriage.  Rudy Giuliani cheated on his wife, broke up his marriage, and hurt his children in a tabloid affair that scandalized the city.  How can the Republican Party of 2008 champion that?

For years, Republicans have lambasted Democrats for being soft on crime.  Rudy Giuliani recruited and promoted a man with known corruption ties to organized crime--Bernie Kerik--and then, after leaving office, entered into a high-profile business venture with him as a partner.  How can the Republican Party of 2008 champion that?

For years, Republicans have lambasted Democrats for not taking the fight against terrorism seriously.  After 9/11, Rudy Giuliani entered into lucrative business dealings with Middle Eastern leaders who had well-known, well-established ties to the terrorists who proposed and planned the 9/11 attacks.  How can the Republican Party of 2008 champion that?

It seems that for Rudy Giuliani to become the 2008 GOP nominee--given all that has come to light in the past few weeks--there will need to be a worldview shift in the Republican party that would make the Copernican revolution seem insignificant by comparison.  Suddenly, the party of family values, police, and anti-terrorism would have to believe that none of that really mattered.   And all this would be true even before adding abortion and immigration to the pile--two issues that continue to enrage the GOP base and which have earned Giuliani loud boos when he voices his views.

The Drug Of 9/11
Giuliani fits about as well into the Republican Presidential ideal as Trent Lott would fit into the Democratic Presidential mold.  It just makes no sense.

And yet, because it makes so little sense, I cannot help but wonder if this is precisely what the Republicans will do.  Can it be that the fortunes of Rudy Giuliani are, more than anything else, a grim portrait of what the Republican Party has become in a post-Cheney-Bush world?  No matter how much a particular candidate stands in opposition to the GOP platform, so long as they satisfy the uncontrollable 9/11 addiction of their base--and accuse Democrats of hating the military and plotting to destroy America--that is enough to win.

At the end  of the day, no matter how ugly it may look for Giuliani--no matter how many incriminating photos float up to through the muck of the primary campaign--I am not quite ready to believe my lyin' eyes.

With 9/11 on his lips, Giuliani can still beat his past of sex, lies and crooked guys.

©  2007 Jeffrey Feldman, Frameshop