Rudy’s Falling Star

One of the most brutal things about politics is that it doesn’t matter how much good a person has done – or is perceived to have done – it will always get diminished by the inherently distasteful game of having to prove oneself better than the next guy. One small mistake that can be misinterpreted or overspun will get more play than any great previous acts of integrity or success… at least until the politician is dead and history gets its chance to put the entire political life in a perspective.

A rule of thumb seems to be that all deeds done in one political office are erased when a person runs for a higher office – in the sense that what those deeds say of the man has almost no bearing on what will be said about him – especially by opponents – in the mud-pit of electoral politics.

So if I’d have been the respected (even beloved) mayor of NYC on 9/11 and had the reputation of turning one of the most dangerous metropolises in the developed world into one of the safest, I might have taken care to avoid the one thing that could mess up my legacy or popularity – a run for the Presidency. Credit, perhaps, to Rudy for not being focused on legacy or popularity. (The world would be a much better place if politicians studiously ignored both). Strange to think that Rudy’s popularity has fallen so far only because he’s entered a popularity contest.

According to an article in the Dutch newspaper Elsevier, entitled What has Happened to the 9/11 Hero, Rudy Giuliani?, and translated by Watching America.com, Rudy’s star is falling, falling, falling… and making room, ironically enough, for a presidential run by another NYC mayor, Mike Bloomberg.

Says Elsevier,

“Giuliani is finished,” the director of the new Hampshire University Center for opinion research told the Sunday Times. “He has possibly run the worst campaign I can remember.” ….

Suddenly it seems that no one in America is still interested in Guliani‘s constant breast beating over his heroism on 9/11.

Read What has Happened to the 9/11 Hero, Rudy Giuliani? on Watching America.com