Opponents Attack Giuliani’s New York Record

[AuGmENTor]

Opponents Attack Giuliani’s New York Record

August 23, 2007
By MICHAEL LUO (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/l/michael_luo/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/23/us/politics/23repubs.html?ei=5065&en=6d88caaa1ba380df&ex=1188446400&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print

Rudolph W. Giuliani (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/rudolph_w_giuliani/index.html?inline=nyt-per) has showcased his record running the city of New York as he has campaigned for the presidency. But his performance as mayor is now being turned against him as two of his opponents have begun challenging him on two of the biggest issues in the Republican primary: gun control and immigration (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/immigration_and_refugees/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier).

This week, Mitt Romney (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/mitt_romney/index.html?inline=nyt-per), the former governor of Massachusetts, started running radio advertisements in Iowa and New Hampshire referring to New York City as a “sanctuary city” in an effort to portray Mr. Giuliani as liberal on immigration, a position that would put him out of step with many Republican voters. And on Tuesday, former Senator Fred D. Thompson (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/t/fred_thompson/index.html?inline=nyt-per), who is not yet officially in the race, threw down the gauntlet with a commentary on his Web site that criticized New York gun laws and mentioned the Giuliani administration’s efforts to sue gun makers.

The criticism of Mr. Giuliani is not surprising given his continued dominance in national polls and the perception among Republicans (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/r/republican_party/index.html?inline=nyt-org) that he is vulnerable on a host of issues. But it is only now that other candidates have begun engaging him directly.

“I don’t think any of the candidates had really taken shots at Giuliani because maybe they thought his stance on social issues in particular would do the work for them,” said Chuck Laudner, executive director of the Iowa Republican Party. “It’s apparent, not in Iowa but nationally, that that’s not the case. They have to start hammering some of that stuff home.”

Mr. Giuliani’s candidacy has always been considered somewhat unorthodox, given his more moderate views on social issues like abortion (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/a/abortion/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier), which put him at odds with many in the Republican base. But he had managed through much of the summer to stay mostly above the fray, drawing few direct swipes from his rivals and surprising many with his resiliency atop national polls. That is in no small part, Mr. Giuliani’s advisers said, because of the perception among many Republican voters of his performance as mayor of New York before and after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Mr. Giuliani’s aides shrugged off any notion that his campaign could falter now that he was being directly challenged on his conservative bona fides, arguing that Mr. Giuliani had endured the second-guessing about his candidacy for much of the year.

“Eight and a half months in, we’re still standing,” said Anthony V. Carbonetti, a senior adviser to the campaign. “He’s out there on the campaign trail, and his message is resonating, and we’re very proud of that.”

Mr. Carbonetti said the campaign did not plan to shrink from Mr. Giuliani’s record as mayor. He said the campaign believed that voters would appreciate the nuance of his positions on immigration and gun control and find him the most electable candidate.

But the potency of the issues among Republicans can hardly be overstated. Even many Democrats who came to Congress as part of the new majority in 2006 were elected on pro-gun platforms. And the backlash by the conservative base over illegal immigration, which helped lead to the collapse of the recent Senate bill that offered a pathway to citizenship for the country’s 12 million illegal immigrants, highlighted its potential to reshape a presidential contest.

As mayor, Mr. Giuliani was a strong proponent of gun control, lobbying Congress for a ban on assault weapons and calling for a federal gun licensing system. A video on YouTube shows Mr. Giuliani on “The Charlie Rose Show” in 1995 likening the National Rifle Association (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/national_rifle_association/index.html?inline=nyt-org) to “extremists.”

On the campaign trail, however, he has declared himself a strong supporter of the Second Amendment and has characterized his past positions as part of an effort to reduce crime in New York that may not make sense elsewhere in the country.

Until recently, Mr. Romney’s campaign had mostly tangled with that of Senator John McCain (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/john_mccain/index.html?inline=nyt-per) of Arizona. With Mr. McCain’s campaign seen as fading, Mr. Romney has set his sights on Mr. Giuliani, believing the immigration issue affords him an opening.

Mr. Romney is highlighting an executive order Mr. Giuliani inherited from previous administrations but vigorously defended that protects illegal immigrants from being reported to the federal immigration authorities when using city services.

Mr. Giuliani has argued that the policy was necessary for public health and safety. His campaign has also fired back that Mr. Romney failed to take action against known “sanctuary cities” in Massachusetts when he was governor.

It is unclear whether Mr. Romney’s efforts to tar Mr. Giuliani on the issue will succeed, given Mr. Giuliani’s own tough talk on border enforcement as of late.

“They’re both trying to outdo each other on the enforcement side,” said John Fonte, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a right-leaning research group.

Lost amid the back and forth between the two camps is that both Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Romney appear to have moved significantly rightward in their tone on immigration over the years.

Only a closer examination of their statements on the much more complicated question of how to deal with the illegal immigrants already in the country yields a hint at the beginnings of a policy difference.

Mr. Romney has staked out the position that if the United States enforces the law, over time and through attrition, illegal immigrants will return home and be gradually replaced by legal ones.

Mr. Giuliani has articulated a slightly more nuanced position, arguing that once the border problem is solved, policy makers can turn to what to do about the existing illegal immigrants. Those who are productive citizens, who have not committed crimes, should be able to come forward, be given ID cards, learn English, pay fines and be given a chance at citizenship, Mr. Giuliani has said on the trail. Those who do not come forward, or are criminals, he said, should be deported.

Mr. Fonte said his sense was that both candidates had groped their way to a harder line on the issue than they might have held in the past, but that Mr. Romney had made the move more quickly.

“Romney might be slightly ahead of Giuliani,” he said, “but not by much.”

[Gold9472]

"I love New York..." Was that Rudy?

[Gold9472]

Nothing is better than this one (http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/newyorkstateofmind.mp3)...

[PhilosophyGenius]

On Leno a long time ago, he talked about a pole which says NY women have the most sex. Then they showed a pic of Bill Clinton with a bumper sticker which says "I heart NY". lol

[dMole]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071004/ap_po/giuliani_at_justice;_ylt=AqtjfDZ2tCXs9IRdt36ydaSMw fIE

Giuliani a force at Justice
By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 52 minutes ago


Rudy Giuliani didn't take criticism lightly in his days at the Justice Department.

When two federal prosecutors openly complained about his meeting with a defense lawyer in a sensitive corporate fraud case he was overseeing, he slammed back. "Immature petulance," he said of them, calling their charges "dangerous." The pair saw special commendation awards they were due to get suddenly held back.

Papers released by the National Archives on Wednesday show Giuliani was a master of terse memos as associate attorney general. But get under his skin — say, with an unfavorable story in the press or a challenge from a subordinate — and he was in their face.

In one instance, he wrote a four-page, single-spaced letter telling a columnist why he had done nothing wrong in having a U.S. marshal bring him a seat from old Yankee Stadium for his Washington office.

Giuliani became the Justice Department's No. 3 official at the dawn of the Reagan administration and built a reputation as a solid professional in that politically charged transition from the Jimmy Carter years. He went on to serve as U.S. attorney in New York, and later the city's mayor, before launching his Republican presidential campaign for 2008.

The papers shed light on his two years in the department — and occasionally, on his short fuse. The documents are drawn from the files of his special assistants at Justice, Ken Caruso and Robert Bucknam, and from those of Jeffrey Harris, deputy associate attorney general.

Giuliani knocked heads with department prosecutors in the McDonnell Douglas case, a closely watched test of laws to restrain U.S. corruption abroad. The aircraft maker had been indicted for making more than $1 million in payoffs to Pakistani officials and defrauding Pakistan's airline by adding that cost to the price of the planes it was selling.

In May 1981, he and Caruso met the company's lawyer to discuss the case, which was expected to go to trial that fall. They touched on the possibility of a settlement, according to a memo. When the trial attorneys Michael A. Lubin and George J. Mendelson heard about it, they were livid.

They cited their superior's "conspicuous failure" to tell them he was meeting with the opposing side in a case he controlled, and said such actions eroded public confidence in the justice system.

Those were fighting words.

"Messrs. Lubin and Mendelson displayed a disrespect for the facts and an immature petulance that gives me pause as to the judgments they may have made during their period of service in the department," he said in a letter to the criminal division chief. "It is dangerous, to say the least, for prosecutors to shoot from the hip without checking the accuracy of their charges."

He said he saw no wrong in listening to arguments against proceeding with the case, and no need for the trial attorneys to attend. The department, he said, "is vitally interested in hearing from all sides."

Three months later, Giuliani dropped criminal charges against company executives in return for McDonnell Douglas' guilty plea to wire and mail fraud and making false statements. The company was fined $55,000 and settled a civil suit for $1.2 million.

An internal investigation cleared Giuliani of wrongdoing. Files on that investigation were among documents held back from release because of their sensitive nature. The federal trial attorneys at odds with Giuliani got their awards only after they left to work in private practice, according to James B. Stewart's book, "The Prosecutors."

Caruso later complained about "a bunch of crybabies" in the criminal division.

Before the age of e-mail, Giuliani typed a stream of memos to underlings, often two to six words, initialing them in ink.

On a turf war between agencies over which one would investigate attacks on interstate pipelines: "What do you think?" (The FBI won.)

On a request to investigate election fraud in California: "Please advise me."

On a secretary's complaint that a less qualified paralegal was getting better treatment: "What is this all about?"

On a Missouri official inviting consideration of his study of the insanity defense: "Draft a response, please."

On the need for air conditioning in more offices: "Please help, we're suffocating."

He wrote a long letter to journalist Jack Anderson detailing the saga of how a wood and cast-iron seat from the old Yankee Stadium came to reside in his Justice Department office eight years after an assistant had given it to him.

A Marshals Service retiree had complained that another marshal fetched the seat, at taxpayer expense, to curry favor with Giuliani. But Giuliani insisted the marshal was traveling to Washington anyway on business and simply checked the seat as baggage.

"I am certain that ... you will find it, as I do, an instance of a reporter attempting to manufacture a story out of an insignificant and entirely innocent matter," Giuliani wrote about Anderson's colleague Tony Capaccio, who had interviewed him for the piece. "He has displayed a reckless disregard for the truth and is acting maliciously."

The files, released at the request of researchers, contain reports on organized crime and tell of a 1982 case in Youngstown, Ohio, in which the FBI showed up just in time to stop three mobsters from killing the owner of a garden nursery.

"Intervention by the FBI proved timely for the victim," the report said, "inasmuch as his head had been wrapped in duct tape."

___

Associated Press Writer Libby Quaid contributed to this story.

[dMole]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071004/ap_on_el_pr/giuliani_communion
Bishop would deny Communion to Giuliani

By CHERYL WITTENAUER, Associated Press WriterThu Oct 4, 1:05 AM ET


Roman Catholic Archbishop Raymond Burke, who made headlines last presidential season by saying he'd refuse Holy Communion to John Kerry, has his eye on Rudy Giuliani this year. Giuliani's response: "Archbishops have a right to their opinion."

Burke, the archbishop of St. Louis, was asked if he would deny Communion to Giuliani or any other presidential candidate who supports abortion rights.

"If any politician approached me and he'd been admonished not to present himself, I'd not give it," Burke told The Associated Press Wednesday. "To me, you have to be certain a person realizes he is persisting in a serious public sin."

Asked if the same would apply to politicians who support the death penalty or pre-emptive war, he said, "It's a little more complicated in that case."

Asked about Burke's comments Wednesday while campaigning in New Hampshire, Giuliani said:

"Archbishops have a right to their opinion, you know. There's freedom of religion in this country. There's no established religion, and archbishops have a right to their opinion. Everybody has a right to their opinion."

Burke says that anyone administering Communion — ordained priest or lay minister — is morally obligated to deny it to Catholic politicians who support an abortion-rights position contrary to church teaching.

Burke published an article in April in a church law journal that explored whether it is ever appropriate to deny Communion. Some U.S. bishops interpret church teaching to say that an individual examination of conscience, not a minister, should dictate whether a person is worthy to receive the sacrament.

Burke said denial of Communion is not a judgment. "What the state of his soul is is between God and him," he said.

The nation's bishops are expected to discuss the question again in meetings next month. Burke said he has made no policy proposal, simply laid out his thoughts in the article.

Burke will not be attending the bishops' meeting because of a prior commitment in Rome.

His stance on Giuliani was made public earlier Wednesday in an interview with The St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

A number of other Catholic presidential candidates also have abortion-rights stances in apparent conflict with church teaching. Giuliani is the only Catholic among the top-tier candidates.

Giuliani, a Republican, sometimes evokes his Catholic upbringing as he campaigns for president, yet he declines to say whether he is a practicing Catholic. He has been a longtime supporter of abortion rights.

While it is unlikely Giuliani or any other presidential candidate will present himself to Burke for Communion in the next few months, the archbishop's comments revive an issue that could be a factor for churchgoing voters.

In 2004, Burke said he would deny Communion to Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee who supports abortion rights. Several other bishops have said politicians should refrain from the sacrament if they oppose the church on such an important issue.

As for Giuliani, when a voter in Iowa asked him in August if he was a "traditional, practicing Roman Catholic," he said: "My religious affiliation, my religious practices and the degree to which I am a good or not-so-good Catholic, I prefer to leave to the priests."

Last week, Giuliani compared the scrutiny of his personal life marked by three marriages to the biblical story in which Jesus said only someone who was free of all sin should try to stone an adulterous woman.

"I'm guided very, very often about, 'Don't judge others, lest you be judged,'" Giuliani told the Christian Broadcasting Network.

"I have very, very strong views on religion that come about from having wanted to be a priest when I was younger, having studied theology for four years in college," he said.

"So it's a very, very important part of my life," he said. "But I think in a democracy and in a government like ours, my religion is my way of looking at God, and other people have other ways of doing it, and some people don't believe in God. I think that's unfortunate. I think their life would be a lot fuller if they did, but they have that right."

Republicans have been most successful with religious voters — President Bush, a Methodist, won the Catholic vote over Kerry, a Catholic, in 2004 — but Democratic candidates are fighting back and have spoken frequently about their religious beliefs this year.

___

Associated Press Writer Holly Ramer in Nashua, N.H., contributed to this report.

[PhilosophyGenius]

good, anyone but him,