Rudy's Lost Chance

It's this last development that fascinates us particularly. Giuliani, for years secure in his own brutality, now professes regret at having, infamously, smeared Dorismond in the wake of his death. Meanwhile?and this, too, is rich?the Dorismond family plays hard to get, coyly rejecting a tete-a-tete with the Mayor, manifesting a sublime dignity it must have absorbed from its adviser, Al Sharpton. What a nasty little joke it all is.

In all seriousness, though, Giuliani's detour into humility points toward the lost opportunity of his mayoralty. The question is thus: What if Rudy had decided to show humility five years ago? Life in the city might be better now; there might be greater interracial harmony, a nice thing to have around if, unlike Giuliani, you ride the subway. (Indeed, there might even exist enough political capital that someone would tell the truth about the grimy outrage known as the Puerto Rican Day parade.)

For there was a time, not too long ago, when Giuliani had the chance to be a revolutionary mayor; a time when, occupying a triumphant position as the leader of a city entering a period of unprecedented prosperity and civic peace, he could have even forced a political realignment, winning core Democratic constituencies away from that party's corrupt urban-liberal ideology. In other words, he could have?perhaps early in his second term, when he had nothing more to prove to his base?at least pretended to care about the Patrick Dorismonds, Amadou Diallos and Abner Louimas of the world. What would have been lost? Nothing?and there was everything to gain. But of course it's Giuliani's nature always to gratuitously twist the knife, whether it means harassing street artists, smearing victims of police violence, humiliating his own wife or performing any other of the cruelties that seem constitutive of his personality.