Opinion: Rudy Giuliani’s long, hard fall
In the two-plus decades since he earned the sobriquet of “America’s Mayor,” Giuliani has been involved in so many dodgy, questionable and just-plain-weird incidents that he has become a favorite of late-night talk show hosts and Saturday Night Live impersonators.
He has become a caricature of himself, but it is Giuliani alone — not the comedians who mock him — who has turned his life into a tragicomedy.
The apex of his career is easily pinpointed to the painful autumn of 2001. But what is the nadir? Has it occurred? Or is the one-time-prosecutor-turned-attorney-to-former-President Trump still falling?
But, of course, that might not be the end of his legal troubles. And it certainly isn’t the beginning.
During his two terms in office, violent crime dropped precipitously, as it did in a number of big cities in the 1990s. Giuliani became known for cracking down on squeegee men, shuttering X-rated theaters and essentially making New York safer and more livable for the mostly White people who gentrified Manhattan and populated working-class neighborhoods of other boroughs. The phrase “Giuliani time” became a common refrain among those who were well served by the mayor.
Was turning a blind eye to police brutality towards Black people rock bottom?
Oprah Winfrey called him “America’s Mayor.” Time magazine made him person of the year. It took a national tragedy, but Giuliani met the moment and reached the pinnacle of his success. And he was right: New York would rebuild, but primarily under Giuliani’s successor, Michael Bloomberg, who took office Jan. 1, 2002.
Bumps in the road, but not rock bottom.
People died. Democracy hung in the balance. Rock bottom?
But now things are serious for the wide-eyed former mayor. Now there could be legal consequences in Georgia and possibly elsewhere.
Perhaps Giuliani has finally hit rock bottom. Or perhaps one of the myriad investigations of…
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