Rudy Giuliani's Southern Comfort

[Doondoo]

It sounds like a lead-up to a cheesy joke and it goes something like this:

So this guy from New York who's been married three times, wed his second cousin, supports abortion rights and gun control and used to live with a gay couple goes to conservative South Carolina and asks the locals to help him become the Republican president of the United States.

And here's the punch line.

The good folks of Spartanburg meet him over at their firehall, call him an American hero, make him honorary fire chief for the day and don't bother with all that messy divorce, gay and abortion stuff.

Just how long can Rudy Giuliani keep this up?



http://www.thestar.com/News/article/185259

[uppityperson]

1. Advertising works.

I feel bad. I don't want to feel bad. They tell me I deserve to feel good. If I (*) I will feel good, better than anyone else even. Which is what I deserve. So I do (*)! Go Rudy!

[Wapsie B]

7. The gop successfully marketed a person

who is probably the most unqualified person to sit in the White House in modern history. Selling Rudy to the national public will be a cakewalk.

[yardwork]

2. Most social conservatives are hypocrites

so this doesn't surprise me. I realize that the statement "most social conservatives are hypocrites" is a broad statement that sounds biased. In fact, I am biased against social conservatives. Over the course of nearly fifty decades of life, I have found them to be hypocrites, over and over again.

Personal baggage hurts Democrats because the Republican Party has control of the media and doesn't hesitate to hit below the belt. Personal baggage rarely hurts Republicans. Reagan was divorced and remarried and the darling of social conservatives, while Jimmy Carter - long married to one woman - was loathed. w - who rarely sees the inside of a church - is considered a "Godly man" by the social conservatives while Bill Clinton, who went to church every single Sunday and in-between as well, is loathed.

I could go on and on. The evidence is everywhere. Anyone assuming that Giuliani's personal background is going to be a problem for people inclined to vote Republican is mistaken.

[Gabi Hayes]

3. this is it: St. Rudy, in the process of being officially canonized by the M$M.

here's the crux of the issue, and the one we ignore at our peril, because it's the way it IS with the M$M. They determine the narrative, and NEVER deviate from it. Just ask Al Gore or John Kerry:

from your link:

''Whether this is a honeymoon with name recognition keeping Giuliani aloft before Republicans take a hard look at their 2008 dance card will become clear in the months ahead. But this is a party with a history of sticking with their frontrunner through the entire marathon.''

it's not just the party; it's the corporate media. RG has become their pony, and they'll do their best to ride him into the WH, just as they did Bush during the last two elections

just watch

[Gabi Hayes]

4. During the most crucial period of 911, Giuliani violated his OWN protocols,

and LIED about it later. surprised?

There should have been a unified command center set up, with both the NYPD and FDNY participating. Since the command center was in Bldg 7, they moved it, but separated the command. What happened during this time has been discussed at length in many places. here's one

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0635,barrett,74322,6.html/full

..........

"Whatever the mix of reasons, Giuliani has never been forced to explain, by investigators or reporters, how he squares the two-post decision with his own rules for how the police and fire departments were supposed to behave. John Farmer, the 9-11 Commission's top investigator for the city response chapter of its report, says Giuliani can't. "I don't know if he thought of it that day, but yes, it was not consistent with the protocol he established," Farmer says. "I think what he would tell you is that he thought coordination was occurring. He had Kerik with him, and the reality of these situations is that the coordination has to be not just two guys at the top; it has to be more integrated." Asked if Giuliani should be held accountable for this and other disarray that day, Farmer said, "Of course, the answer is yes. If you're the top official, you're accountable."

The 9-11 Commission members reached conclusions similar to Farmer's, but so quietly that no one noticed. The commission report never described Giuliani's step-by-step actions that day, though it chronicles just about everyone else's, and it certainly never mentioned his role in creating two posts. But when it reached its ultimate conclusion that the fire department was not "responsible for the management of the City's response as the Mayor's directive would have required," the very next line was "the command posts were in different locations." Thus, the commission's best example of the violation of the mayor's directive was the mayor's own action.


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The National Institute of Standards and Technology added: "Unified command was hampered by the fire department and police department setting up separate command posts." It also found that the governing fire department protocol that day—issued in 1997 when Von Essen was commissioner—said that at a fire like this, "the departments act as 'one organization' and are managed as such." Instead of "several posts operating independently," the department circular provides that "the operation is directed from only one command post." Daniel Nigro, the only top fire chief at West Street to survive, said, "I think there should have been one command post. It should be run according to the incident command system, and that system puts one person in command and all the other agencies are there and they work from a single location."

Ray Kelly, the police commissioner who preceded and followed the Giuliani years, said in an interview, "Sure, the separate command post was a violation of the protocols. The radios would have been no problem if they had been at the same command post, if they'd been face-to-face. The Office of Emergency Management was supposed to make that happen under the protocols, but Jerry Hauer wasn't there any-more. OEM had the power to direct that to happen. Giuliani had the power to direct that to happen."

[nevergiveup]

5. It is not a matter

of whether we have the "goods" on him it is rather a matter of whether anyone will pay attention. When it comes to his past personal problems the conservatives will look the other way. They have an American hero and a winner and they know it. Hopefully I am wrong but I personally think he is close to having a lock on the nomination.

[Gabi Hayes]

6. couldn't agree more. The narrative is already established.

corporate media have annointed him over McCain. they know the sheeple love a "hero" and his campaign of self aggrandizement (set in stone by his 2001 Person of the Year Award) has worked almost perfectly so far, as nothing negative is being repeated, as always happens, endlessly, to those unannointed--read democratic hopefuls.

[Benhurst]

8. He can keep it up forever down here. One thing good old boys know

is how to treat a lady.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

9. Whether Rudy has an unpleasant collision with "social conservatives"/fundies re: his

adultery etc. depends entirely on whether the Republican Party decides to give him an early coronation, thereby bypassing any such unpleasantness, or whether the ambition and determination of his opponents is such that they won't let it rest.

Should he get a "coronation" and bypass any unpleasantness from Republicans, then it will be up to the Democratic nominee to determine whether they want to play tough, or be a gracious loser.