UPDATED: MAY 9, 2007

"THE POLITICS OF FEAR, PART 1: ON RUDY GIULIANI”

On April 24, 2007, Rudy Giuliani, former Mayor of New York City, gave his famous New Hampshire speech in which he said that if Americans elected a Democrat President in 2008 they should be afraid, very afraid.  He invoked the specters of 9/11, of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, of the terrorists coming out of Iraq, of the necessity of “fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here,” of terrorist attacks sprouting like weeds in the US should the Democrats take office, and so on and so forth.  “Only Republicans can keep America safe,” he averred.

Giuliani promotes the vision of huge waves of al Qaeda fighters coming out of Iraq.  That every intelligence and military estimate tells us that al Qaeda is a minor factor in Iraq doesn’t matter to him.  (As I have said on more than one occasion, one has to be very careful with right-wingers: please, don’t confuse them with them facts [and boy, did George Tenet, whatever his personal ethics, have a lot to tell us on that one!])  That al Qaeda was a non-factor in Iraq before the invasions doesn’t matter to Giuliani either.  One fascinating piece of information coming from Tenet, and new to me at any rate, was that the CIA had an asset highly placed in the Saddam Hussein regime and that that asset told the CIA that not only did Saddam have nothing to do with bin Laden, that he hated him and would never have anything to do with him.  But again, let’s not confuse the right-wingers with facts.

Giuliani claimed that “the nation is united around terrorism.”  What he failed to note is that the nation is hardly in agreement about what, exactly, “terrorism” is, nor is it united on what to do about it.  Indeed, the major US victories against terrorists, like the recent capture of yet another “high al Qaeda operative” in Iraq, seem to come from intelligence/police actions, not from military action.  In fact, with the US military occupying at least parts of the country, why would al Qaeda, which seems to have some fairly smart operatives, set up any recruitment centers or training camps there?  They would likely want to do those things as far away from any major US military actions as possible, don’t you think?  Another reason why they might not want to spend too much time in Iraq is the recent killing of yet another al Qaeda leader by, guess who? Sunni insurgents.  And we all thought that they were our enemies.  How confusing. 

But none of this stops Giuliani.  Nor does it stop Giuliani that the American people have heard all of these arguments before, endlessly, and still do, from Bush, Cheney, Rice, Hadley, and etc., and incessantly, in bellowing terms, from the Privatized Ministry of Propaganda.  Nevertheless, a majority of that same American people tell the pollsters, over and over again, that they want a pull-out, and when given the opportunity have expressed that wish at the ballot box.  The majority of the American people want to: “Support the troops; bring them home now.”  Yet there is Giuliani dancing the same dance as Bush, although perhaps with better style.  Why?

A number of reasons.  Giuliani really wants to get the Republican nomination but even more so, he really wants to be President.  And boy-oh-boy would he be a dangerous one.  Just imagine a Bush with a brain that works.  Just imagine a Bush that doesn’t need a Cheney to pull the strings, who is indeed his own Cheney.  (Believe me, you would never see Giuliani’s Vice-President, nor his Secs. of State or Defense, nor his National Security Advisor.  Actually if he could have all of those portfolios, just as Hitler was both Chancellor [Prime Minister] and President of Germany as well, he would be so happy).  Just imagine a Bush who is an attorney, a very smart one, who has worked on the issues of twisting the law and the Constitution to suit Right-Wing Republican ideology since he was a Deputy Attorney General in the Reagan Administration.  Just imagine a Bush who is an effective orator, a Bush who could get up that balcony overlooking that square in front of the Vittorio Emmanuele II monument in Rome and hold 200,000 people in the palm of his hand.  That’s Giuliani.  Yessir.  Be afraid, very afraid.

Now, you might ask, could he get the Republican nomination?  I have said previously in this space that I think that indeed Giuliani will be the Republican nominee.  How could that be, you ask.  What about his positions on gay rights, on immigration, on abortion?  Well, he handles those very easily.  On immigration he is already changing to take the full red-meat position.  Flip-flopping?  Well neither of his two major challengers, McCain and Romney, can get anywhere using that charge since they themselves have been massive flip-floppers on a variety of issues. 

And don’t worry about Brownback, Huckabee, and etc.  They will get little money and less notice.  One note on the latter.  A few months ago he was saying that the number one issue in the next Presidential election is “bringing the country together, a renewal of bipartisanship to solve the nation’s problems.”  Well he has already flip-flopped on that one, now adopting as hard right a posture as he can on every major issue.  But he will be going nowhere.  As for Fred Thompson, also a fairly recent convert to the Far-Right (and with him, one can never tell when is he is acting and when he is real, just like a certain former President), no one with lymphoma, dormant or not, is going to be elected President of the United States.  Dry drunk?  Yes.  Cancer patient, no. 

On the so-called “moral” issues, Giuliani will simply say, “well, those are my private views, and they will not influence me on policy.  I know what is right (Right indeed) when it comes to policy.”  He is already using the proper right-wing code words on the gay rights and abortion issues: “strict constructionist” for his projected Supreme Court nominees.  He will also be able to say that, unlike Romney and McCain, in holding to his personal views, and they are indeed just personal don’t you know, he has been consistent.  You’ll hear that word over and over again.  On his marriage/divorce issues, he will say that all that stuff is personal, none of anybody’s business.  He will use the line about “the liberal mainstream media just want to attack me because they are all a bunch of liberals and as you know well they just hate Republicans.”  As Mayor, Giuliani was one of the very best practitioners of the highly developed Republican art-form of “killing the messenger,” to avoid, at all costs, discussing the substance of the message.

McCain has cast himself as the “I’m Bush but better” candidate.  Romney has cast himself as the “I’m going beyond Bush” candidate. They are both looking past the primaries to the general election.  Giuliani is smart enough to know that you don’t get to the general election if you don’t get the nomination first.  So Giuliani has cast himself as the “I’m Bush” (but, sotto voce, smarter) candidate.  There are several reasons for this.  One is that one big chunk of voters in the Republican primaries is the Limbaugh “ditto heads.”  Those people are not in fact Christian Rightists first and foremost.  First and foremost they are Bush people, who just plain love him for a whole bunch of reasons, most reflecting fantasy, not reality, which the rest of us just cannot understand. 

Another chunk of Republican primary voters is the Christian Rightists.  Now they are uncomfortable with Giuliani’s positions and history on the “moral” matters.  But they don’t trust McCain (why not, I do not understand, but they don’t) and Romney is a Mormon (and you know you just cannot trust Mormons unless they are named Orrin Hatch.)  They want to win too, because they know that at least some of the movement that has been made towards theocratic fascism under Bush will be rolled back if the Democrats win.  Further, they want to get that critical “secure fifth seat” on the Supreme Court.  They know very well that a Brownback-Huckabee ticket will just not cut the mustard.  So for them, Giuliani it is.  Another chunk of Republican primary voters is the unreconstructed Republican Economic Right that also wants to win.  They know Giuliani from New York City.  They like the guy.  They are for his policies and they will fund him.

And so, to be Bush-but-smarter, Giuliani has to run on fear, just as Bush had the Republicans do in 2002, did himself in 2004 (gee, ever wonder what ever happened to all of those Homeland Security alerts), and tried once again to do in 2006.  Thus Giuliani has determined that a) to win the Republican nomination he is best advised to use the same theme, and b) if he has any chance at all of winning in 2008, fear is his only usable platform.  For he can hardly run on the Bush record of war, destroying the Constitution, corruption, massive financial waste, incompetence, the massively widening gap between the ultra-rich and everyone else, the massive deficit, the unsolved problems in health care and education, non-action on global warming, the destruction of the domestic environment, and so on and so forth.  He’s got to run on fear.  But why, you might ask, is he doing it so early?

Because right now he is going after the biggest political prize that the Republican Party has to offer: the evil genius of Karl Rove.  Rove is looking at the upcoming departure of BushCheney.  (That is, if they indeed depart.  My regular readers know that I think that they may try to not leave after all --- think “terrorist attack,” “national emergency,” “sequestration of the Congressional leadership for their own safety,” “postponement of the elections, indefinitely.”  But that is another matter.)  Rove is not ready to retire.  Rove still has his dream of establishing the permanent Republican Majority, or if not a true majority, then at least a Permanent Republican Government.  (Hitler never got more than 38% of the vote in a free election, so the latter could be done.)  So here is Giuliani showing Rove that Giuliani indeed ought to be Rove’s new guy, because he knows just how to run on fear, the Rovian magic potion.

 While McCain is offering earnest programs for “winning in Iraq” and Romney is spouting “lower taxes, balancing the budget, and small government,” no longer winners for the Republicans, there is Giuliani doing the Rove fear thing.  Giuliani is using fear just the way Hitler and Mussolini did.  First to finally establish the political dominance of their party.  For if given the War and etc. the Democrats manage to lose in 2008, they will be an electoral non-factor for many elections to come.  Second, if Giuliani can win, he can then finish off the project that BushCheney have started so effectively since Jan. 20, 2001: the establishment of the “Unitary Executive.”  As I have illustrated many times in this space, it is nothing but fascism by another name.  And boy, does that make Giuliani Rove’s boy.  Rove is a political genius, an evil one, but genius nevertheless, and he doesn’t want to stop working his evil magic now.

OK.  Let’s stop to take a breath.  Next week I will share with you my recommendations for how the Democrats should respond to all of this.

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