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Giuliani’s intellectual vacuity
Blogger James Poulos (via John Savage) has a long analysis of Giuliani’s Foreign Affairs article. Poulos quotes many passages from the article that suggest to me a striking intellectual shallowness on Giuliani’s part. The impression one gets is of a man who has no thought-out views on foreign policy, but just takes the mediocre received notions of the day and shifts them around a bit, as was also inadvertently suggested in Richard Lowry’s positive response to the same article, discussed here. Poulos punctures Giuliani’s empty establishment rhetoric which might be portrayed as, “We sent signals of weakness when we retreated from Somalia, so we must stay in Iraq to send signals of strength.” No, says Poulos, we weren’t sending signals of weakness; we were weak. With this kind of argument, Poulos continues, our whole foreign policy ends up revolving around sending signals about our resolve rather than actually accomplishing anything for its own sake. Of course, sometimes sending signals of resolve is very important. But there is something to Poulos’s point about Giuliani’s and the establishment’s excessive reliance on this trope. Reading Giuliani’s prose, assuming he wrote most of this, reminds of the fact, reported by Steve Sailer, that Giuliani had surprisingly low SAT scores (significantly lower than Bush’s whose SAT’s were not bad). That information, combined with this article and various recent statements of his, fits my growing perception of him as someone who is not, contrary to the conventional view, very smart. He was smart enough to articulate the issues he dealt with as mayor, and aggressive enough to resist his leftist enemies and push through his policies. (I also read recently that as mayor Giuliani delivered his state of the city speeches by heart, which is very impressive.) But to be a convincing presidential candidate and president you need to deal with issues and ideas on a higher level. And what I hear from Giuliani over and over—whether he’s talking about immigration, or foreign policy, or abortion, or his religious beliefs or lack thereof—is slogans and sentiment, crude ideas and platitudes skimming over the surface of matters that call out for a more thoughtful treatment. Giuliani’s main claim to front-runner status, the reason his supporters are ready to cast aside any vestigial commitment to traditional morality to make him president, is that he would be such a transcendently effective anti-terror warrior. But what evidence is there for this assertion? His observations on foreign policy don’t suggest any informed thought process leading to any bolder, larger strategy, but the maintenance of the Bush status quo with some adjustments of emphasis, all overlaid with establishmentarian invocations of the “international system.” If Giuliani has no larger vision of foreign policy, why don’t his supporters go for a morally decent fellow like Romney instead, who also has the “Bushism, with slight variations” positions on Iraq and terror? What the heck is so special about Giuliani?
I suppose it all comes down to the belief that he’s a ruthless gut-fighter who will oppose the left and the terrorists. But, given his social liberalism, that means he will also be a ruthless gut-fighter against conservatism. Conservatives have to be very confused to support this man, let alone to be doing so with such fervor. Email entry |