Rudy Giuliani

is it me, or is this guy the luckiest son of a bitch in western civilization over the past ten years? here he was, this asshole, lame-duck mayor, unable to maintain decent approval ratings with his wives, mistresses, children and drag queen friends, much less among the city's voters, and a gift from heaven falls into his lap in the form of airplanes piloted by nihilistic idiots. it seems that for each inch the towers dropped, the country's memory about this asshole shrunk proportionately. nobody's ever adequately explained what he did to earn the moniker of "hero" for running around the dust and debris in the aftermath of the attacks. i can only specualte that rudy was being compared to our fearless federal decider and, relative to that short yardstick, he excelled among the chaos. but seriously, comparing someone's leadership skills to bush is kind of like comparing an adult's height to a hobbit midget. (there had to be hobbit midgets, right?)

so we've firmly established that rudy ran towards the debris, rather than away from it, as bush did. congratulations. and now we know that he has turned this horrific incident into a cash machine for himself, greedily accepting obscene amounts of cash in exchange for basically offering platitudes about himself in front of fawning audiences composed of the kind of mindless people who pay to listen to someone speak about themselves.

this is the piece of shit who hired an attorney to publicly trash his wife. this is the fucker whose children won't speak to him anymore. this is the asshole who informed his wife of their marriage's demise at a press conference. this is the manchild who has apparently never read a single book about international relations, has no ideas concerning america's past transgressions, and has never met an insult or bully pulpit that he didn't like. he actually seems well-placed to carry on the lawless tradition of the bushies, if only he, too, can find a way to steal an election away from the american people.

rudy giuliani represents the worst strands of a country that is increasingly jingoist and militarist. he is more than willing to ignore facts and play politics with the military in order to pump up his image as self-styled chicken hawk, another in a long line of tough-talking cowards who never had the balls to actually serve in the military. he is among the most virulently anti-intellectual in a country that celebrates idiocy as though it was a hard-won trophy, and gleefully displays his ignorance of the world at every turn.

it seems irrelevant whether rudy wins the republican nomination or even the presidency. the fact that people so willingly buy the faux-tough guy shtick is bad enough, and a sign that things continue to go downhill in this country.

rationale be damned - rudy's out for blood.

as long as he doesn't get hurt in the process...