Rudy on the Ropes: Reconsidering Giuliani's time in the ring.

On the day the towers fell, one man rose like a phoenix from the ashes. So goes the mythology of Rudy Giuliani, whose political fortunes were virtually nil on Sept. 10, 2001. One day he was censoring the Brooklyn Museum, the next he was showing off his mistress. The man, you might say, appeared to have lost all method. But then came the fateful day when he brought calm amidst crisis, and in the aftermath morphed into the "Mayor of the World."

Though much more focused on the last few years of the Giuliani regime, Jack Newfield’s new quick-hitter does throw a few jabs at the larger-than-life Rudy as well. The Full Rudy is Newfield’s 10th book, and is in some ways the veteran scribe’s attempt to regain his street cred on the left. In the work, he admits to supporting Rudy in 1993 while saying nothing about his position in 1997. But those brave enough to read Murdoch’s rag may recall Newfield’s front-page assault on Ruth Messinger, in which he lambasted her for being "self-serving," "pushy" and all the other things politicians tend to be.

Newfield’s position on various figures often seems determined by his personal relationship with them. That’s clearly the case for Newfield and Rudy, who were buddies for twenty years and frequently talked shop over dinner. Whether a journalist personally likes a pol should be beside the point, but of course it never is. See Adam Nagourney’s arm-drag takedown of Andrew Cuomo in the New York Times Magazine last summer–an assault made doubly tragic because the candidate tried so hard to win the guy over.

But Newfield’s dinner conversations with Rudy have apparently ended, and the writer’s gloves are off. Newfield takes us back to a recent time, before everything changed, when the phrase "Giuliani-esque" meant to act as a petty tyrant rather than as a healer. It seems that politicians, at least, have second (and third) acts in American lives.

The Full Rudy opens with an overview of Giuliani’s sustained assault on the First Amendment, during which the ACLU beat him in court 27 out of 31 times. Among other things, the mayor believed that only his beloved Yankees should have access to the steps of City Hall. And he sought to keep in jail overnight anyone arrested in a protest. Not since Nixon’s hardhats clubbed antiwar protesters in the streets had New York seen such a formidable foe of dissent.

Then in the fall of 1999 came the ill-fated attack on the Brooklyn Museum. As he attempted to cut off the museum’s funding because of an exhibit he found offensive, Giuliani called the artists in the show "pedophiles on parade" and implied that both museum director Arnold Lehman and his prospective opponent for Senator, Hillary Clinton, were anti-Catholic. District Court Judge Nina Gershon ruled in favor of the Brooklyn Museum that fall, which the mayor called "the usual knee-jerk reaction of some judges." When Giuliani then "pronounced the judge ‘totally out of control,’ he should have been looking into the mirror," writes Newfield.

The strongest chapters of the book assess Giuliani’s approach to race relations. In refusing to meet with nearly every black or Latino political leader, and in ending the city’s affirmative action hiring, Giuliani repeatedly and aggressively pushed racial buttons. Newfield attributes these and other actions to Giuliani’s anger at not receiving minority support in his 1989 race against Dinkins. In so doing, he overlooks the extent to which Rudy’s tough stand on race served him well with his white constituents.

As for the former mayor’s handling of police brutality cases, only the most diehard loyalist could say that Giuliani acted with dignity. His forceful response to the Louima incident occurred in August of the 1997 campaign season; by March of 1998, Newfield was "astonished" by Giuliani’s wholesale rejection of his own Louima commission’s report calling for reforms of the police department. Newfield maintains that what most irked Rudy was the commission’s call for raising the salaries of police officers.

Giuliani later called the Diallo protests "silly," and did nothing to rein in the Street Crimes Unit. When Patrick Dorismond was shot by an undercover officer, Giuliani sunk to new lows, ordering the victim’s juvenile arrest record to be unsealed and declaring "he was no altar boy" when, in fact, Dorismond had been one. As Newfield observes, "such a rampage of meanness toward a dead man, killed by the police for saying no to drugs, drove a whole segment of the city away from Giuliani, in a recoil of revulsion."

For the most part, Newfield views Giuliani’s stances as opportunistic, and quite often miserly and vindictive. He seems amazed that Rudy–once a First Amendment lawyer, spokesman for the homeless and racial liberal–could so drastically change his positions. Newfield’s voyage into Giuliani’s heart of darkness may have in some ways led him astray, though. Giuliani just as easily could be viewed as a creature of the Manhattan Institute, for which no social policy can be too punitive, and of the Murdoch Empire, for which race-baiting politics makes reliable tabloid fodder.

Did Rudy emerge out of the chaos of 9/11 a transformed man? Newfield’s answer would be publicly yes, but personally, no. His sins of the preceding years were not so much forgiven as forgotten. And as Newfield shows, it was Rudy, along with his very powerful supporters, who, only ten days after the tragedy, initiated the campaign to keep him in office past his term-limited tenure. The Post even wanted Rudy to stay "as long as it takes to get the job done."

It was Freddy Ferrer’s refusal to accept Giuliani’s proposal for a 90-day extension of his term that threw the first wrench into Rudy’s plans. Then it was up to the state assembly’s Black and Puerto Rican Caucus to pressure Sheldon Silver to stop Giuliani’s power play. Newfield narrates this cautionary tale well. If Rudy ever does come back to office, his war with the city’s black and Latino politicians is likely to get even uglier.

Where Rudy goes from here is an open question. He was a successful stalking horse for an extremely reactionary party in the midterm elections. And now he promises to "clean-up crime" in Mexico City, a task beyond the reach of most mortals. But Newfield is skeptical of all the options–a run for mayor in 2005, senator in 2004 or 2006, vice president in 2004 or president in 2008. Instead, he simply wants to drive home the point that the "irrational devil in Giuliani’s psyche" will surface no matter what position he takes on.

That same devil may cause him to get impatient about being out of power. Giuliani could run against Bloomberg in 2005, calling him too liberal on matters of taxes and race. And he could run for president in 2008, by which time the Republicans will need to expand their base beyond the Christian right. Whatever Rudy decides to do, he will be dangerous. Those who doubt this should read Newfield’s book.