What’s left of Giuliani, the former Inevitable?

Following an entry by John Podhoretz at the Commentary blog on the hideous bureaucratic maze that has rendered New York incapable of building anything at Ground Zero seven years after the 9/11 attack, a commenter half-seriously wonders whether Rudy Giuliani should be appointed as tzar of the project. Another commenter then delivers this fatal riposte:

The best answer to your question of “Why not Rudy?” is his awful presidential campaign. Whatever the man’s past greatness, he is now nothing more than a banal motivational speaker. Also, my recollection is that Rudy’s position on the question of what to do with Ground Zero has always been to pander to the families of the victims by turning the entire site into a sterile and self-pitying memorial, rather than to rebuild to reestablish the site as a part of the NY economy and skyline.

“Whatever the man’s past greatness, he is now nothing more than a banal motivational speaker.” The comment reminds me that in the midst of this disastrous and depressing presidential year, there is one compensation that can’t be taken away from us: the utter collapse of the ridiculous and inappropriate Giuliani candidacy, which was puffed up to gargantuan proportions by the entire neocon camp, most of all by the ridiculous John Podhoretz himself.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 02, 2008 05:54 PM | Send