Giuliani, in London, reveals his out-of-control ego

Last April I wrote:

Giuliani since leaving office at the beginning of 2001 has changed from the lean and hungry civic reformer he once was into a gross ego-balloon of a celebrity, attached at the hip to his grasping third wife with whom he’s infatuated and to whom he is evidently in thrall. His candidacy thus seems to be about Rudy and Judi and their drama rather than about the country and how he would lead it.

On August 11 I wrote:

The Rudolph Giuliani of 1989 to 2001, as candidate for mayor and as mayor, was preeminently a man who wanted to do a job….

The Giuliani of today is someone whose main activity is to promote a heroic image of himself, based on his past accomplishments as mayor and on his conduct of New York City after the 9/11 attack.

I’ve written before that Giuliani has become a big balloon of swollen ego and celebrity, and that this is an entirely wrong basis for a presidential candidacy and a presidency.

Today the New York Daily News reports:

On U.K. schmooze tour, Rudy Giuliani boasts of his fame

LONDON—Rudy Giuliani took a star turn on the world stage here yesterday, huddling with prime ministers and expounding on The World According to Rudy.

But with one offhand remark, the Republican presidential hopeful ended up sounding more like a world-class braggart than a world-class leader.

“I’m probably one of the four or five best-known Americans in the world,” Giuliani declared to a small group of reporters at a posh London hotel.

Asked to name the four better-known Americans, Giuliani replied, “Bill Clinton … Hillary,” before being whisked away by aides to another engagement.

Apparently, President Bush didn’t make the top of Giuliani’s list, to say nothing of Brangelina, Madonna, Oprah or others too famous to have more than one name. Aides were unable to fill in the blanks later.

In any case, it was an eyebrow-raising moment in the middle of an otherwise well-scripted day for Giuliani.

The former mayor had an audience with Prime Minister Gordon Brown at 10 Downing St., an honor usually reserved for world leaders.

He channeled the spirit of his hero, Winston Churchill, by chatting up the former prime minister’s granddaughter, who declared that Giuliani is “Churchill in a baseball cap.” [cont]

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 20, 2007 07:44 PM | Send