 The Strange Career of Rudy Giuliani'>
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| In a vibrant democracy, no politician deserves a free ride, and America's Mayor provides a highly valuable service: telling the whole story of Rudy Giuliani. This book is a crucial and convincing reminder that both before 9/11 and after the dust settled, Giuliani was hardly a hero. America's Mayor serves up a powerful indictment of a flawed political leader, casting a bright-as-the-sun spotlight on Giuliani's arrogance, his crass ambitions, his ethical lapses, his politics of division, and his policy failures (including those that caused NYC to be less prepared for 9/11). It chronicles the high costs that others have had to pay for his failures. No one should ponder Giuliani's future without reading this collection." —David Corn, Washington editor of The Nation |
| When it comes time for voters to judge Rudolph Giuliani's fitness for national office, this book will be the essential dossier. —John R. MacArthur, Publisher of Harper's Magazine |
| America's Mayor is a book wherein the plain truth savages a petty capricious poseur one Rudy Giuliani. No axes to grind here, no chips on shoulders, and oddly devoid of malice, this Robert Polner collection of essays focuses on a man who fooled America and some New Yorkers for years. —Malachy McCourt, author of the international best-seller A Monk�s Swimming | |
America's Mayor, American's President?
The Strange Career of Rudy Giuliani
edited by Robert Polner
with a Preface by Jimmy Breslin
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| Cloth | 5.5 x 8.5 | 224 pgs. | ISBN: 1-933368-72-1 | List: $14.95 | 05/1/2007 |
Available on Powells.com, Amazon.com, from your local BookSense store, and bookstores everywhere!
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Featuring: Revised and Expanded Edition with Michael Powell of the New York Times on Rudy & Race; Paul Schwartzman of the Washington Post on his formative years; and Richie Steier on the Kerik Affair.
About the book: Rudy Giuliani’s admirably flinty response to the horrifying events of 9-11 has made him a national hero, positioning him for his ultimate quest, the White House. But the outpouring of praise for his performance after Sept 11, 2001 has obscured many uncomfortable facts about Giuliani, one of the most polarizing figures in the history of a great and frenetic city.
This book collects the original essays and reporting of some of New York’s most perceptive authors and reporters on leading Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani. The writers have few illusions about Rudy’s turbulent reign, offering an informative and entertaining corrective to today’s simplistic celebration of "America’s Mayor."
Includes contributions from:
* Jim Dwyer (Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, author of Subway Lives, and New York Times Reporter) writes on the mayor’s Joe McCarthy-like penchant for the Big Smear.
* Tom Robbins (award-winning reporter for the Village Voice) on the myths and distortions concerning Giuliani’s Mafia-busting prowess.
* Luc Sante (Low Life) on how Giuliani drove him out of the city by attacking the things about New York he held dear.
* Susan Jacoby (Half-Jew) on Rudy’s maddeningly hypocritical crusade for civility.
* Kathleen Brady (biographer of Ida Tarbell and Lucille Ball) on Giuliani’s $12 million command center “bunker” at the World Trade Center.
About the author: Robert Polner is a reporter and editor who covered City Hall for Newsday during much of Rudolph Giuliani’s reign. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1997 for his coverage, with other Newsday staffers, of the crash of Flight 800. In 1992 and 1996 he received Associated Press 1st Prizes in Reporting for coverage of New York City issues. Polner has worked as reporter and editor for the New York Post and New York News and is the author, with Paul Schwartzman, of New York Notorious: A Borough-By-Borough Tour of the City’s Most Infamous Crime Scenes (Crown, 1992).
Jimmy Breslin was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Commentary in 1986. He is the author of Damon Runyon: A Biography and several bestselling novels, among them The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight.
From the book:
Rudy Giuliani bounded over to my desk in the pressroom of the federal courthouse in Manhattan, handcuffed me, looked me in the eyes and read me my rights. It was November, 1984, and Giuliani had begun to make a name for himself after a year and a half as the U.S. attorney in Manhattan. Already, early in his public career, he was accustomed to winning. And now he was about to turn the tables by playing a joke on a young reporter who poked fun at him.
As part of the festivities for my last day of work as a reporter for The Associated Press, I had drafted a mock indictment and press release in which Giuliani charged the courthouse press corps with an anti-trust conspiracy to avoid publicizing his great achievements to the extent they deserved. The indicment exaggerated all of those accomplishments, and the press release futher exaggerated what was in the indictment. I thought it was a pretty clever spoof of Giuliani, since the courthouse press corps knew all too well his enormous appetite for publicity and his penchant for hype. But I wasn't so sure it was a good idea for a visiting reporter from The Washington Post to bring the fake documents over to Giuliani's office. The up-and-coming prosectuor took it in good humor, returning the favor by clasping the cuffs on me a tad beyond snug.
The pressroom prank I cooked up reminds me that long before Giuliani was mythologized as "America's mayor," I had spotted in him a particular drive for self-promotion and an instinct for exaggeration. In the ensuing years, I returned to cover Giuliani in federal court and later in City Hall, watching as he created a compelling narrative in which he starred as the man who turned around the nation's largest city. As in my bogus press release, key parts of that story are exaggerated. |
