A comedy of terrors

It's fun to poke fun at Rudy Giuliani. I mean, the man is basically a walking punchline. For one, he's a Republican cross dresser, which I personally find insanely funny in a parallel universe sort of way. He's also been divorced like a thousand times, yet he opposes gay marriage on principal, which is funny in a confusing sort of way. You laugh, and then you think: "Wait. What?"

And don't even get me started on his face. He looks like something out of a Brothers Grimm nightmare. Every time I see him on TV I think gophers have finally engineered the perfect killing machine, and oh fuck it's running for president, and oh shit it's a front-runner. The gophers may seem cute and cuddly now, but they're really bent on world domination!:


But hey, want to know something about Rudy that's not so funny? Him being president.

I say this with full knowledge that he's the only seemingly electable Republican who is pro-choice and, one might assume, the most socially liberal of the bunch. But this is all bullshit, like his fake tears over Sept. 11, most of which he sheds at sanctimonious speeches he gives shortly after taking a swim in the millions of dollars he's stockpiled on the backs of those 3,000 dead Americans. Before reading on, do me a favor and take the idea that Rudy gives a fuck about your liberties and flush it down the toilet with the rest of yesterday's business. Because if he's elected, Rudy will destroy this country, and we won't have the fortune of him being incredibly incompetent like George W. Bush. He's smart, cunning, manipulative -- and worst of all, completely misunderstood.

Here's how I know Rudy is full of shit with his whole middle-the-road schtick: He was just endorsed by America's most insane evangelical zealot, Pat Robertson. Think about that for a second. Think about Rudy Giuliani, who has not been timid about his pro-choice views, who has been divorced several times and estranged from his own children, and who has vehemently defended gay rights. Then consider some of the things Pat Robertson has said:

"(T)he feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."

"Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It's no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians."

"Many of those people involved with Adolf Hitler were Satanists, many of them were homosexuals--the two things seem to go together." (Interestingly, like Hitler, Rudy is a Catholic).

So the question is, why would a man like Robertson endorse a man like Rudy? Some have argued that Robertson was just being practical: He couldn't back Romney, because he's a Mormon, which many evangelicals consider a cult. And he couldn't back McCain, because he can't possibly win. So the only natural choice was Giuliani, despite his pro-choice, pro-gay, New York sensibilities.

But think about this: Do you really think Pat Robertson, who agreed with Jerry Falwell that Sept. 11 was God's revenge for the ACLU, and who essentially influences the votes of millions of religious people with his daily dose of propaganda, would endorse a candidate unless he was confident such an endorsement would pay off? Rudy isn't pro-choice. Rudy is pro-whatever the fuck gets me elected. And if he gets elected, he'll be pro-whatever keeps me in office. So my guess is Rudy told Pat Robertson something powerful enough, convincing enough, that he was (theoretically) able to win a significant segment of the Christian vote. A guy like Pat Robertson does not dole out that kind of political gold unless he knows something we don't.

What really scares me is that Rudy Giuliani is just crazy enough to be endorsed by somebody like Pat Robertson. I figure Robertson, who has a fetish for bombing non-believers, probably read the same New York Times article I did:

Rudolph W. Giuliani’s approach to foreign policy shares with other Republican presidential candidates an aggressive posture toward terrorism, a commitment to strengthening the military and disdain for the United Nations.

But in developing his views, Mr. Giuliani is consulting with, among others, a particularly hawkish group of advisers and neoconservative thinkers.

Their positions have been criticized by Democrats as irresponsible and applauded by some conservatives as appropriately tough, while raising questions about how closely aligned Mr. Giuliani’s thinking is with theirs.

Mr. Giuliani’s team includes Norman Podhoretz, a prominent neoconservative who advocates bombing Iran “as soon as it is logistically possible”; Daniel Pipes, the director of the Middle East Forum, who has called for profiling Muslims at airports and scrutinizing American Muslims in law enforcement, the military and the diplomatic corps; and Michael Rubin, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who has written in favor of revoking the United States’ ban on assassination.

Now when I read about Rudy Giuliani, I don't laugh much anymore.