Over the weekend President Pervez Musharraf declared a State of Emergency in Pakistan, instituting martial law, suspending the constitution, and firing the chief justice of the supreme court. Police have also begun rounding up scores of lawyers, judges, and activists, and the state has taken control of many of the private television stations and raided newspaper offices. This puts the Bush administration in a nearly impossible bind: oppose a Musharraf dictatorship or continue to support a leader who has been one of America’s lone allies in the region in waging the war on terror. All this under the specter of a nuclear power teetering on the brink of failed statehood …
“One of the key differences between me and all my opponents is I’ve had the safety and security of 8 million people on my shoulders. Being continually tested in crisis situations gives me the credibility and experience to control our borders.”
That’s a quote from Rudy Giuliani from one of campaign flyers about illegal immigration. But whatever the topic is, I love the idea behind it. I’m in New York City right now. As far as I know, my security is in the hands of the US military, the FBI, the CIA. I could rattle off various other agencies and officeholders. But Michael Bloomberg wouldn’t show up prominently on my list.
I know the NYPD is protecting me from getting mugged or shot or having my apartment broken into. But every mayor in the country is responsible, either directly or indirectly for that. But that’s not national security exactly. And when was Rudy Police Commissioner?
In other words, in Rudy’s imagination, New York City is a separate country. And he was the commander-in-chief for eight years protecting the city from various foreign threats.
Anyway, it’s really all of a piece: like when Rudy was a 9/11 clean-up worker, or when he was a CIA interrogator.
Late Update: Note too that, by my count, at least two of Rudy’s opponents were governors (Romney and Huckabee … Am I missing anyone?). And they actually at least have state National Guard troops at their disposal. But Rudy’s tenure as Mayor trumps that.
Even Later Update: An acquaintance of mine actually works in the NYPD’s counter-terrorism/intel division. So this is a good point from TPM Reader MC. But as he notes, this all happened post-Rudy …
As William Finnegan documented in the New Yorker a couple years back, the NYPD, unlike almost any other American municipal police force, has an extensive intelligence section, including agents who are sometimes deployed overseas. And they have been known to lend translators (drawn from the rank and file in our polyglot city) to federal
security agencies who don’t have enough translation manpower.But pretty much all of this innovation occurred after Giuliani left office, under Bloomberg’s police commissioner Ray Kelly.
Much Later Update: A number of readers make a pretty good point. Does Rudy really want to run under his new claim that he was Commander-in-Chief of New York City from 1994 through December 2001? If New York really is its own military jurisdiction, those eight years really didn’t go too well.
Okay, so surprise surprise, ‘it’s not bribery, it’s the latest innovation in lobbying’ didn’t pan out as a defense for Duke Cunningham briber (finally liberated from the utterly hollow ‘alleged’) Brent Wilkes. Guilty on all thirteen counts. So who’s next?
Let’s break this down. Mitch Wade started cooperating with prosecutors more or less immediately. And remember, that was way back in mid-2005. Duke himself held out for a few months before pleading out. But Wilkes waited … well, too long.
So can he do anything now to knock some years off his term in the slammer?
Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) doesn’t appear to have had much direct involvement in Duke Cunningham’s corruption, though he did seem to oversee a lot of the earmarks and favors Cunningham got bribed for. But Wilkes himself is tied to the Lewis investigation through his old mentor, congressman-turned-lobbyist Bill Lowery. And on the stand at trial Wilkes actually said that Lewis was more important for him than Cunningham — a statement I’m sure Lewis appreciated to no end.
Now, I don’t know what Wilkes knows that’s recent enough to bring Lewis down. But I’ll bet his memory is in for some refreshing.
Why is an Army lieutenant general speaking favorably of waterboarding?
Rudy on whether he knows more about torture than John McCain …
I have had a different experience than John. John has never been — he has never run city, never run a state, never run a government. He has never been responsible as a mayor for the safety and security of millions of people, and he has never run a law enforcement agency, which I have done.
More here …
The Mukasey confirmation is on auto-pilot now, and Senate Democrats’ efforts to stop it were half-hearted at best.
The attorney general nominee goes to the full Senate, as predicted, on an 11-8 committee vote. Schumer and Feinstein were the only senators to break party ranks.
So far Rudy Giuliani has told us he was a 9/11 recovery worker, an expert on torture and ‘enhanced interrogation’ techniques from his days as US Attorney and now commander-in-chief of New York City.
In today’s episode of TPMtv, we ask the question … Rudy Giuliani, Grade School Fibber or World Class Megalomaniac?
You watch, decide and send us your answers, which we’ll read on the show next week … (and yes, option three, “both” is available.)
Watch this episode on YouTube.
Late Update: As you can see from today’s episode we focused in on Rudy as Recovery Worker and Rudy as Torture Expert. But as we were putting the show together, my sense was that there were several more of these crackerjack boasts that we’d forgotten about. If you remember more, let us know.