Sutherland on Giuliani
Howard Sutherland writes:
Concerning this long and substantive thread on Rudolph Giuliani, should we look at what we know of his personal life and character in evaluating him as a presidential candidate? Absolutely. It is just as revealing of the man as his track record as Reagan Justice Department lawyer, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Mayor of New York. Those public and private records are all we have; to ignore one of them is refusing to see the man whole. So I agree with Messrs. Auster and Kalb: the private Giuliani is completely relevant.
Traditionalism in every form is under attack in America today, as it is throughout the West. (Isn’t that what VFR is all about?) That was true all through the last century, and it continues unabated in this. We can date part of the attack from the French Revolution, another part even back to the Reformation. Since the 1960s (Giuliani’s formative years, remember), the attack has become an onslaught. It has transformed Giuliani’s country just as it has transformed his Church. And what is Giuliani’s response to it all? Not just to go along with the onslaught to get along, to say nothing of resisting it, but instead to welcome and celebrate it. His private life shows a pattern of heterosexual flouting of traditional morality and the teachings of the Church he hypocritically claims to be faithful to. His public life features celebration and affirmation of homosexual flouting of traditional morality, enthusiastic endorsement of unlimited abortion, and defiantly abetting illegal aliens’ breaking our immigration laws.
From what we can see of his private life, Rudolph Giuliani is a man driven by an overpowering desire to have what he wants now, no matter what it costs others and whom or what he must betray to get it. From his public record, Giuliani is a Northeastern liberal driven by the desire for power above all; to the extent principles affect his pragmatism it is almost always in a liberal direction. (To those who protest that he was a law and order mayor: I would agree, up to a point—what about the glaring lawlessness of his perpetuation and expansion of illegal alien sanctuary?—and note that most crime victims in New York are non-white, as are almost all the perps. If New York crime were overwhelmingly non-white perps on white victims, I suspect Giuliani would have done less about it as he wouldn’t want to be called racist.)
So there is no evidence, from the public or private spheres, that Giuliani has any inclination whatever to “conserve” anything except our rush to total disorder. He would be as radical an agent of social dissolution—through his subverting morality—and national destruction—through abetting mass immigration—as Senator Clinton or any other Democrat. Among the GOP, he would be no improvement over McCain, as bad as the insane Arizona senator is.
The only argument that seems to have some resonance, that Giuliani is a tough hawk who will defend America, rings false with me. Giuliani is a social and political liberal. His talk-tough reaction to September 11th is no more than what I hope any man in his job would have been able to muster. How would the tough Giuliani improve on the Bush record in defense and foreign policy? Does anyone believe Mr. Sanctuary Mayor of New York would do anything to control the borders and reverse the illegal alien flood, to say nothing of restricting legal immigration? Does anyone think this PC liberal is going to act to end Moslem immigration, and call jihad jihad? The best we may expect of Giuliani is more Bushism: fruitless foreign interventions to look tough, while allowing America to be invaded demographically—all the while giving preferential treatment to the invaders because they’re not white.
In every way that matters to traditionalists, a vote for Rudolph Giuliani might as well be a vote for Hillary Clinton. Don’t be a Cal Thomas; don’t fall for him.
- end of initial entry -
David B. writes:
I read Howard Sutherland’s post in which he advises us “not to be a Cal Thomas.” It reminded me of an exchange we had a few years ago concerning Cal Thomas. I told you of seeing him host a show he had on the former NET channel.
Thomas had the black leftist, Jullianne Malveaux, on with David Horowitz. Malveaux started out by announcing that she was a Christian. She had Thomas in the palm of her hand for the rest of the show. Malveaux shouted down Horowitz (who couldn’t profess that he was a Christian) throughout the program as Thomas looked on with the simpering expression Beltway conservatives have on TV. [LA is LOL.] Many liberals (Ted Kennedy for one) have played Cal Thomas in this fashion.
You told me that you promptly emailed Thomas about this and he angrily replied, “I’ve been on television for thousands of hours and I get criticized for that? I was letting her talk so as to hang herself.” Not sure if it was his exact words, but Thomas said something like that. I told you that it didn’t look like that to me. Thomas was fawning over Malveaux as soon as she claimed to be a strong Christian.
Thomas is basically just another Beltway type. His idea of the “war on terror” is to keep an American army in Iraq permanently while they continue to get blown up by roadside bombs. Thomas tells us that Giuliani’s supposed support for this is enough to cancel out extreme in-your-face open borders, and far-left social liberalism. Incidentally, we don’t really know what he will do on the war.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 15, 2007 06:44 PM | Send