Fight to Win: America's Mayor on the Warpath

On September 11, 2001, we thought we were going to be attacked many, many times between then and now. We haven't been. I believe we had a president who made the right decision at the right time... to put us on offense against terrorists.  Rudy Giuliani 

Rudolph Giuliani wants to be President of the United States.  But why?

You will find plenty of political wizards and former New York officials more than willing to answer that question, all the while touting Rudy's credentials as a tough-on-crime pest control specialist and a stalwart leader during trying times, but the truth is that no one--least of all Giuliani--really knows why.  The closest answer, though, is probably "because."  Because he can, or thinks he can.

The wave of popularity he experienced after the September 11 attacks was nigh unprecedented.  One might even need to go back to FDR in order to find a man so universally beloved by Americans of all demographics.  And rightfully so.  In his own way, Rudy Giuliani managed to instill hope in a city that played victim to the single largest attack on U.S. soil since the Civil War, and he seemed to do it with unnatural ease.  He became America's Mayor in a country that thinks only passingly about mayors unless the name Richard Daley pops up, in which case, you will find any number of people soliciting condemnations of the Chicago politician who just might be the closest thing to an emperor this nation has ever seen. 

But Giuliani is another best entirely. 

He fucked over and around on his wives, dressed in drag, and had a penchant for the type of sordid behavior that could only be accepted and aired publicly in a placed like New York City.  Imagine that.  A U.S. politician dresses up like a woman and still has his praises sung by millions of racist, regressive homophobes from south of the Mason-Dixie Line, and all for rebuilding a city most of them never liked in the first place.

Forget Giuliani's relative social liberalism, which has been highly publicized since he decided to fight with the big dogs.  His views back then were overshadowed by the gravity of grief and intense national strife.  Most people don't give a shit what he thought just as long as he was only running a Yankee city already bought and sold by the Devil himself--overrun with queers and illegal minorities--which really makes the national outpouring of support darkly humorous considering the heat he is taking now from evangelist factions who consistently refuse to make political decisions rather than religious ones.

Where have all the flowers gone?  Indeed.

Rudy probably figured on waltzing through the Republican primaries pushing the only thing he knows how to:  his leadership during the Aftermath.  For the most part, he has tried to do just that, despite being frank when asked sensitive questions about abortion and gay rights.  In that way, he is a one-trick pony, and his recently released 12 platforms don't do much to dissuade that theory, most notably his health plan.  An African witchdoctor could have come up with something better--something involving virgins and red bush poultices--that would have more easily soothed the health care crisis.

Ha!  No, no.  Rudy is the Enforcer and plans to eradicate Islamic terrorism in much the same way that he shoved countless junkies and other dangerous folk off the streets of New York, and to hell with everything else.  That's what Cabinet secretaries are for.

It's not difficult to imagine America under the reign of King Rudy.  More war.  More reports of useless deaths on the frontlines, but he doesn't seem to grasp the weariness for this war that is coursing through the national veins, which is precisely why he will not win the election.  The nomination, maybe.  Especially if Mitt Romney starts talking cryptically about participating in privately-funded torture sessions--captured on video and for sale only to Freemasons--showing Romney hooking up a car batter to an enemy combatant's nut and whittling sacred runes of sinister device into the man's skin.

If such a tape existed, it would no doubt become instant masturbatory fodder for the more sadistic members of Romney's constituency, but that sort of image is too shocking for most people to handle.  Hell.  It might even push a wave into McCain's sinking ship, who has gained little sympathy for his stint in Vietnam where he himself was subjected to nasty shit nobody wants or cares to hear about.  Except for Mitt Romney.  You can see him grow a big rubbery one every time someone mentions the word "torture."

But none of that will really happen because the truth is that people are probably more prepared to vote for either a black man or a woman than they are a Mormon.  The former two are not choices one makes, and the tenets/mad devotion of Mormonism are too radical and irresponsible even for people like the late Jerry Falwell.  Mitt Romney will be out of the running before such a video has the chance to surface.

Actually, Rudy might have a better chance than I thought before I spat out all this gibberish.  The previous two paragraphs sound more plausible than I'd like to admit, but it doesn't change the fact that Giuliani is running a tougher road that he initially thought.  The political climate is very different than it was in his glory days, and he will have to at least pretend to care about more than the war, even if it requires his downright lying to us.  It's not as if we expect anything different.  As it is, only one candidate is speaking the truth from either side during this long, awful vortex of bad bullshit and one-liners tailor-made for attentionles evening news spots.

But that is another story.  The nut of this thing is about America's Mayor, and not some left-wing crabass from Alaska who happens to be the only alternative truly worth an enthusiastic vote.

That being said, no one will doubt Giuliani's America would be a great deal better than Bush's, which is only a minimal compliment to Rudy for reasons we don't need to hear about anymore.  The immense and mean-hearted failure of the Bush Administration is so well-documented by now that his reign will be looked upon in the same light as Richard Nixon's, with one exception:  Bush's handlers were smart enough to beat their opponents with a hickory switch, while Nixon slinked off into obscurity and Eternal Shame.  So too will Bush, eventually, but if current tides are any indication of the future, he will do so without the millstone of impeachment or forced resignation slung about his neck.

So Election 2008 is a more optimistic one than most.  After all, it can't get much worse, and with people like Rudy Giuliani running on the Republican ticket, the Democrats have a chance to stop pussyfooting around, as they have been of late.  Of course, let's hope Hillary Clinton is exposed for the egg-sucking bulldog that she is and loses the Democratic nomination.  Otherwise, things could be looking up for Mr. September 11.  It could be very dangerous for us as we have not yet experienced a moderately intelligent, sincere warmonger whose decisions are based on biased reflexes and a demented concept of patriotism rather than simply just filling his pockets.

Rudy Giuliani is when shit gets real serious, and the scars get deeper.