Rudy Giuliani is a mess - By Robin Givhan

[DonViejo]

By Robin Givhan
Senior critic-at-large
November 18, 2020 at 7:20 p.m. EST

To be clear, Rudy Giuliani was never America’s mayor. That nickname was a bit of media gloss that was spread so thickly and indiscriminately that Giuliani had no trouble dining out on it for years. Many Americans lapped it up, too.

President Trump has been like a steady stream of acid on that veneer. And now Giuliani is a raw, smoldering mess.

His return to federal court as a practicing attorney, for the first time in nearly three decades, would not be the worst of Giuliani’s water-carrying for Trump, but it was, perhaps, the saddest. It was so small and petty. He was in Pennsylvania court Tuesday not to tell a convoluted tale of international intrigue about shadowy figures and powerful people skulking around in Ukraine. His story of malfeasance was closer to home and it was simply mean. Giuliani argued that a vast swathe of perfectly reasonable, good-hearted Americans masterminded a huge scheme that cheated Trump out of reelection. Giuliani couldn’t offer any evidence that this awful plot existed, but nevertheless he was sure it did and it just so happened to be centered in places like Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Detroit, which have substantial populations of Black and brown people.

As a culture, we like to believe that with age comes wisdom. The truth of it may be that age only makes people more obviously what they’ve always been. Freed of the urgent need to prove and define themselves for a future that’s yet to unfold, people can simply be. Giuliani, at 76, has revealed himself to be a man who believes that he can summon truth from falsehoods, bend the law to his will and conjure whatever reality suits him simply by speaking his hopes and dreams aloud.

-snip-

Robin Givhan
Robin Givhan is senior critic-at-large writing about politics, race and the arts. A 2006 Pulitzer Prize winner for criticism, Givhan has also worked at Newsweek/Daily Beast, Vogue magazine and the Detroit Free Press

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/11/18/rudy-giuliani-is-mess/

[NoRoadUntravelled]

1. What's up with Giuliani?

He may not have been the mayor that media made him out to be nearly 20 years ago but he wasn't a stark raving, groveling ass licker either. I've never been a fan but it's humiliating to watch him sink so low that swamp mud has stained his face.

Too much alcohol? Russian mind experiments? Psychotic break? Just wondering....

[KPN]

2. Giuliani reminds me of Idi Amin. He eventually died in exile of advanced syphillis. In fact, both

Ghoulie and tRump remind me of Amin.

[NoRoadUntravelled]

3. Hmmm.. I hadn't thought of that.

But now that you mention it. Yes, this makes a lot of sense.

[Marcuse]

6. He reminds me of Al Jolson.

[Skittles]

4. what is up with ALL of these people humiliating themselves for that buffoon

it is mind-boggling

[NoRoadUntravelled]

5. Ikr?

I will never understand it. It'll be interesting to see how this part of our history is portrayed in the future.

[tblue37]

7. Alcohol and a desperate need to have money, power, and a seat at the table with

the big players.