The
former New York City mayor may be full of it, but that won't stop him from
weighing in.
By Donald Kaul
 |
| For more cartoons by Monte Wolverton, click here |
I’m trying to make up my mind about Rudy Giuliani: I can’t
decide whether he’s a nutball or a sleazeball. For now I’m going with a sleazy
nutball, but I’m open to suggestions.
In a series of hysterical attacks on Barack Obama in recent
weeks, Giuliani has all but called the
president un-American. He’s lashed out at the man he says doesn’t
love his country, is soft on terrorism, and plays too much golf.
“I don’t hear from him what I heard from Harry Truman, what I
heard from Bill Clinton, what I heard from Jimmy Carter,” Giuliani griped on
Fox News, “which is these wonderful words about what a great country we are,
what an exceptional country we are.”
He’s full of it, of course.
Not that it will make any difference, of course.
Rudy said it so it must be true. So think the denizens of the
Republican Cloud Cuckoo Land presided over by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, who
has reported that he’s getting texts “praising
Rudy to the rooftops.”
This wouldn’t ordinarily be of any great importance. Presidents
have often had to deal with partisan loudmouths hurling insults at them.
Franklin Roosevelt had Father Charles
Coughlin, a Catholic priest at a posh parish just north of Detroit.
Coughlin, who had a nationwide radio show, was a virulent
anti-Semite. He would weekly tear into FDR for his supposedly pro-Jewish
leanings, among other things.
I think the Vatican finally ordered him to shut up. In any case,
he went away. Those guys usually do.
Giuliani is a somewhat more dangerous case, because the
Republican Party finds itself in rather odd position these days. It’s held
hostage by its least educated, most intolerant, and most rabidly partisan
cohort.
Thus any Republican vying for the presidency must constantly
look over his or her shoulder to make sure they’re not making enemies of
supporters who foam at the mouth at the suggestion of compromise.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, the leader of this year’s
presidential weathervane caucus, is a case in point. Giuliani showed up
uninvited to a fat-cat fundraiser for the governor a few days
ago and, again uninvited, grabbed the mic to deliver one of his Obama rants,
making himself rather than Walker the center of attention.
Asked afterwards what he thought of the remarks, Walker refused to weigh
in, demurring that he didn’t know whether Obama loved America.
Walker is also on record refusing to
comment on evolution, and his opposition to abortion has become more strident since
he started looking at the presidency.
If you’re trying to disguise yourself as a moderate, the last
thing you want is a clown like Giuliani stirring up the animals.
The one thing Republican candidates agree on is that the country
must be saved from the specter of universal health insurance. Month after
month, year after year, Republicans have harped on the disaster of “Obamacare.”
Except that it’s not really a disaster. The Affordable Care Act
is working reasonably well despite the Republicans’ best efforts to sabotage
it. Allowed to stand and be improved, this landmark health care reform will go
down as one of the Obama administration’s great achievements.
So it’s no wonder that Republicans can’t stomach it. Their
friends on the Supreme Court are teed up to deliver it a blow that may prove
fatal later this year.
Which is really a much bigger worry than the intemperate remarks
of a nutty sleazeball like Rudy Giuliani.
