Letters to the Editor

Re-waging the battle of the sexes; vouchers won't fix our schools.

By Letters to the Editor

Topics:Rudy Giuliani

The humiliation of Bryan Winter
BY GENTRY LANE

(05/11/99)

As a heterosexual male, the phrase “archetypically arrogant male brush-off” got me steamed.

Yes, the story sounds like a hoax, and yes, Gentry Lane grasps the craziness
of the medium quite eloquently, but I’m offended how all judgment on
the women who fervently condemn Bryan is brushed off. They have a lot of nerve
sitting on their moral high horse and rallying around their “sister”
just because she cries “foul” at a guy during courtship rituals.

These women should be told loudly to grow up. If “overworked young
professional” women are so persecuted in the club scene, they should
stop going so there’s more room at the bar for me and my friends. In
the meantime, try building substantive personalities instead of
dolling up the role of “victim” in the battle of the sexes.

I understand this sounds harsh. I know you can give me 1,001 reasons why
women have it worse, but I am absolutely fed up with the
bashing of the male as this brutish, emotionally barren engine of
destruction, incapable of giving or seeking fulfillment, and out to
break women’s hearts and ego. It is easily as insulting as saying
“you’re just a girl” or “all women cannot drive.”

– Jeff Patterson

Hartford, Conn.

Thank you for the piece about Bryan White’s humiliation. I found it
viscerally satisfying and therapeutic to hear what happened to this
egomaniac. It’s not spiritual or kind of me, but I hope he’s real. I have received messages that make this one, real or fictional, sound like something written by Emily Post. I did the personal ad thing and could not believe the lack of couth that is out there. One fellow offered to send his photo and I received a lovely visual of a gigantic male appendage.

– Theodora Knight

Ventura, Calif.

Giuliani flunks school-voucher test
BY SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN
(05/12/99)

The most profound trouble with the school voucher issue is that it has not been thoroughly analyzed for its long-term effects. Clearly, our
urban public schools are in trouble. Vouchers, however,
will only serve as a short-term fix for a much larger problem.

Taking some students out of the poorest schools will not help
the troubled schools to improve. The “poor” schools will not receive more
money for their smaller student populations — in all likelihood these schools
will lose money and teachers due to lower enrollments.

Those students who do attend private or parochial schools
through vouchers, will not necessarily receive better educations than their
public-school cohorts. Have we
forgotten that different students can and do receive very different types of
educations within the same classroom, often based upon social factors such
as race, class and gender? Students get tracked. Are we
naively assuming that private schools are above such discriminatory
behavior?

We must also ask what will happen to these private and parochial
schools, once voucher students are admitted. The white flight that occurred
during the advent of de jure desegregation could just as easily occur
within private schools. It is entirely possible that those parents who pay
private-school tuition will not want their children attending a school
where voucher students are admitted. It seems terrible, but reality is not
always pretty.

We need to heal our ruptured public schools, not euthanize them.

– Hilary Lochte

Buffalo, N.Y.

Freedman writes, “Hillary Clinton could easily be assailed as a
symbol of the class inequality that vouchers seek to correct: She sent her daughter Chelsea to posh Sidwell Friends at the same time her husband was rejecting legislation to give vouchers to Washington’s most destitute and maleducated children.

Is Freedman saying that someone other
than the Clintons paid the fees at Sidwell Friends? He makes a parallel with
President Clinton rejecting vouchers for D.C., but the proper parallel
would be if the president supported legislation barring parents
from sending children to private school.

The president has little or no responsibility for schools in D.C. To the
extent any federal organization has responsibility, it is Congress.

– David Margolies

Oakland, Calif.

Quake, Doom and blood lust
BY WAGNER JAMES AU
(05/12/99)

Au is right to say that some of the defenses of gaming are overblown,
but what he seems to ask for reminds me most strikingly of the Comics Code,
introduced in the 1950s. In response to shock at the gore in the horror
comics of the day, the comics industry agreed “voluntarily” to limit not
only particularly gory visual imagery, but any depiction of society that
wouldn’t be approved of by Ward and June Cleaver. Heroes always had to be
good, the police were always honorable, and drug use was never depicted even
to disapprove of it. While this helped ensure that comics were nice and
wholesome for youngsters, it also helped ensure that no one over 12 could
have any interest in the medium whatsoever, because it was impossible to
provide any characterization or nuance unsuitable for a Disney movie.

Video games currently have relatively little aspiration to be high art, but
that doesn’t mean that the entire medium needs to be dumbed down and
replaced with Tipper Gore’s idea of what children should be doing with their
time. And just as banning horror comics didn’t lead the children of the ’60s
and ’70s to be more innocent and wholesome than the kids of the ’50s, it’s
unlikely that stifling creativity in video games will do much more than
disappoint and anger people who enjoy spending their free time gaming.

– Andrew Norris

Austin, Texas

Wagner James Au’s equating of his
own personal experience with some sort of universal truth is an
obviously problematic way to approach the subject.

For a select few, such as Mr. Au, this prolonged effect may well be the
case. And it is obvious that some lack the ability to differentiate
between the virtual and the real. But it is not a universal truth. As evidence, I can only offer myself and my many co-workers [at GameSpot], who
spent countless hours playing Quake, only to return to our lives
unaffected.

Whether it is Ozzy Osbourne songs or a game of Quake, products meant
for entertainment have played a factor in any number of tragedies. The
question is whether they are the cause, or just small
elements of a much deeper, individual problem. I do not claim to know the answer, but I know that for me, personally, the truth is very different that the scenario Au
describes. If a simple death match really does cause such dark
urges in the author, I hope those close to him keep him away from the
keyboard.

– Ron Dulin

If games were created that rewarded players with images of erotic
and sensual loveplay were created, a howl of protest quickly
followed by legislation to ban sales of such products to minors would inevitably
follow. Interesting that a slap is considered less harmful to view than a caress?

– Rayner Garner

She’s all chat
BY MARY ELIZABETH WILLIAMS

(05/04/99)

I like Oprah just as much as the next girl, but comparing Oprah with
God? Have we fallen off our rocker? Not only do I
find that offensive, but the reference to Oprah with the phrase “if she’s not
God” is sacrilegious and downright ridiculous. Furthermore, closing out the
article by insinuating that God is a woman simply shows that the writer is
full of New Age ideologies. The writer of this article could have gotten her
point across without shoving her offensive references to the Almighty God
down our throats. Those of us who have a personal relationship with Him are
extremely offended when He is misrepresented.

– Sanya Brown

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First Dick Cheney, then Rudy Giuliani suggests Gingrich may be the toughest candidate in the GOP field

By Joan Walsh

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, left, and Newt Gingrich (Credit: AP)

Topics:Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Dick Cheney, 2012 Elections

What does it mean that two of the nastiest men in the Republican Party are saying nice things about Newt Gingrich? On CNN Monday night Dick Cheney warned the GOP not to “underestimate” Gingrich, and lavished praise on the disgraced House speaker for his formidable political skills.

Today, also on CNN, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani likewise had kind words for Gingrich, arguing he’s more electable than Mitt Romney in a race against Barack Obama.

“My gut tells me right now as I look at it that Gingrich might actually be the stronger candidate, because I think he can make a broader connection than Mitt Romney to those Reagan Democrats,” Giuliani told Piers Morgan. “You won’t have this barrier of possible elitism that I think Obama could exploit pretty effectively.”

With a straight face, Giuliani explained why charges of “elitism” wouldn’t fly against Gingrich. “One of the strengths he has is he’s got a common touch, he’s able to talk to people, he comes from a poor family, understands poverty from that point of view. He doesn’t come from the American elite. It’s going to be hard to paint him that way. There are a lot of other ways you can paint him, but you can’t paint him that way.”

You can’t? The man with the half-million-dollar Tiffany credit line? The guy who wants to do away with “truly stupid” child labor laws? The one who thinks the poor lack a work ethic? The “historian” who earned just under $2 million from Fannie Mac and took in another $37 million for his healthcare think-tank? The candidate whose tax plan overwhelmingly favors the super-rich? How many ways is Giuliani wrong there? More ways than he and Gingrich have wives between them.

Can we also acknowledge there is no such thing as a “Reagan Democrat” anymore? There are white working-class people who now permanently vote against their own class interests, and they’re Republicans, not Democrats. Then there are white working-class people who are understandably sometimes confused about which party represents them, because Democrats have spent so many years sucking up to Wall Street and playing down their populist past. Some of those voters — the ones who are public workers, or union members, or close to retirement and listening to proposals to raise the eligibility age for Social Security and Medicare — are starting to realize that they have become the GOP’s latest scapegoat, the 21st century welfare queens, and they’re taking another look at Democrats. Some white working-class voters stayed Democrats. But the Reagan Democrat analysis hasn’t made sense for a long time.

Finally, I love the fact that Gingrich and Giuliani have six wives and two marriage annulments between them. Add in Donald Trump, who seems to be leaning toward Gingrich too, they can start a Three Wives Club. Way to go, family values party!

I’ll be talking about the latest on the GOP field with Ed Schultz and Ezra Klein on MSNBC’s “The Ed Show” at 8 ET.

: Joan Walsh is Salon's editor at large. More Joan Walsh

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Does America's mayor really still think he could be president?

By Alex Pareene

Former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani attends a Republican luncheon, Thursday, June 2, 2011, at Vito Marcello's Italian Bistro in North Conway, N.H. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty) (Credit: AP)

Topics:Rudy Giuliani, War Room, 2008 Elections, 2012 Elections, 9/11, Gay Marriage, New York, New York City

Rudy Giuliani, a petty little crypto-fascist who used to be the mayor of New York, thought, for a while, that he could be the Republican nominee for president, because of 9/11. Back in the good old days, the one single, solitary admirable thing about the man was that despite being a hateful race-baiting Republican politician, he was cool with gay people.

After Giuliani left his (second) wife in 2001 by announcing his infidelity at a press conference, he moved in with his good friends Howard Koeppel and Mark Hsiao, a gay couple who’ve been together since 1991. They were so close, these three, that Koeppel asked if Giuliani would perform their wedding ceremony. Giuliani said he would, once gay marriage became legal in New York.

: Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon. Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene

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Trip stirs speculation that the former New York City mayor may enter 2012 race

By Beth Fouhy, Associated Press

Topics:Rudy Giuliani, 2012 Elections

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is heading to New Hampshire next week, stirring further speculation that he may jump into the 2012 Republican presidential field.

Giuliani will spend Thursday in the state, which is scheduled to host the first presidential primary next February. He’ll headline a fundraiser for the state Republican Party and have lunch with several GOP activists. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney will formally kick off his campaign in New Hampshire the same day.

Giuliani was widely praised for steering New York through the tumultuous days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. He sought the GOP nomination in 2008 but placed a distant fourth the New Hampshire primary that year.

A CNN poll released Friday found Giuliani topping the field of potential GOP candidates.

: More Beth Fouhy

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He wants us to believe he might jump in the presidential race -- four years after his epically disastrous campaign

By Ben Adler

Then Republican presidential hopeful, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, speaking at a campaign rally in Clearwater, Fla., Monday, Jan. 28, 2008.

Topics:2012 Elections, Rudy Giuliani, War Room

On Sunday night, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., floated a Rudy Giuliani trial balloon, claiming to reporters that the former New York mayor has been quietly lining up donors and is seriously considering another presidential campaign. Byron York of the Washington Examiner, who is well-sourced among Beltway Republicans, reported on the possibility with surprising credulity, noting that Giuliani placed third in the most recent New Hampshire poll.

Polls this early are, as York should know, total hogwash. It’s a contest based on name recognition, long before most voters have started to pay attention. That’s why Giuliani led the Republican field in national polls throughout 2007, with Fred Thompson in second. Both candidates crashed and burned dramatically in the early primaries and were gone before Super Tuesday. There were four main reasons Giuliani’s campaign failed last time, and none of them have been ameliorated since:

His political record is too socially liberal. This is a guy who started his mayoral campaign in 1989 running to Ed Koch’s left and compared himself to liberal lion Fiorello La Guardia (whom he called New York’s greatest mayor). Although he shifted right when David Dinkins got the Democrats’ mayoral nomination, Giuliani remained pro-choice and pro-gay rights: He even once bunked with a gay couple and famously dressed in drag. Giuliani endorsed Mario Cuomo for governor in 1994. He was a New York Republican, not the sort who can play in South Carolina. His stance on abortion — Giuliani gave up on his brief attempt to pretend he is anti-abortion rights when it was revealed that he had donated to Planned Parenthood, the GOP’s new ACORN — would be a major sticking point. Elite national Republicans like King and York don’t actually care about abortion — see the sections in “Game Change” on how McCain advisors had no objection to putting Joe Lieberman on his ticket — but actual Republicans do. That’s why McCain reluctantly concluded that he couldn’t choose Lieberman. A pro-choice Republican nominee would either trigger significant defections from the religious right to a third-party candidate or simply prompt many of those voters to stay home next November.

He wasn’t terribly popular or successful as mayor. National Republicans may not know this, and New York Republicans like Peter King may have conveniently forgotten, but Giuliani’s political career was over before Sept. 11, 2001. His abrasive manner and controversial policies had resulted in lousy approval ratings. He was trailing carpetbagger Hillary Clinton in the 2000 Senate race before he dropped out. His vulnerabilities have never been seriously exploited by an opponent, but don’t think Mitt Romney would hesitate to unload on him in a close race, especially now that we’re four years further past Giuliani’s post 9/11 beatification.

Speaking of vulnerabilities, Giuliani has nasty skeletons in his closet, even by the standards of a Republican politician. He has been twice divorced: His first wife was his second cousin, and he dumped his second wife for his quirky mistress, Judith Nathan, at a press conference before informing his wife in person. During the last campaign Ben Smith of Politico reported that Giuliani improperly used police escorts to take Nathan to trysts in the Hamptons. To be fair, Giuliani’s pecadillos pale in comparison to those of Bernard Kerik, a Giuliani crony who started as his driver and was ultimately promoted to chief of the NYPD. When Giuliani recommended Kerik to be secretary of Homeland Security after the 2004 election, a bevy of embarrassing revelations ensued, from his affair with publish Judith Regan in apartments near ground zero that were paid for by taxpayers and intended for rescue workers, to accepting favors from contractors with alleged mafia links.

He also has no message. Giuliani events in New Hampshire in 2008 were depressing affairs. Small crowds, silently bored to death by Giuliani droning on about the importance of lowering the corporate income tax and the various taxes he cut as mayor. It seemed that Giuliani figured he had the national security hawk vote lined up and needed to focus on fiscal conservatives (since he surely could not count on social conservatives). But his only line that drew applause was a throwaway at the end when he would mention the need to “stay on offense” against Islamist terrorism.

But that brings us to the point that Giuliani’s one major selling point — that he happened to be mayor of New York on 9/11 — has been surpassed by events since the last election. President Obama just killed Osama bin Laden, so Giuliani can hardly claim that he would be more committed to taking out al-Qaida. The Iraq war, which Giuliani vociferously supported, is viewed by everyone who doesn’t work for Fox News as a failure. Even the war in Afghanistan is increasingly unpopular. Meanwhile, the news out of the Middle East is of the Arab Spring, which gives us hope that the region will accommodate itself to modernity and democracy rather than being a fount of anger and frustration looking for a target. Giuliani’s dour and militaristic view of Middle Eastern affairs seems especially out of step with the times.

Mostly, Americans are just worried about the economy, and Giuliani already proved last time that he can’t win the nomination with an economic policy focus. Giuliani is unlikely to run, and if he does, he is virtually certain not to win the nomination. The discussion of a Giuliani candidacy is evidence of nothing so much as the desperation of Republicans who want an alternative to their current uninspiring field. But they should take heart: Michele Bachmann might still run.

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Judith Regan taped the Fox News honcho telling her to lie to federal investigators to protect his political crony

By Joan Walsh

Roger Ailes and Judith Regan

Topics:Fox News, Rudy Giuliani

Back in 2007, it was hard not to enjoy the muddy brawl between publishing diva Judith Regan and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., her former employer. It featured the best cast of conservative bad guys around — George W. Bush, Rudy Giuliani, Giuliani’s former bodyguard, police commissioner (and Regan lover) Bernie Kerik, plus those lovable guys who bring us Fox News, Murdoch and Roger Ailes. The former allies fell apart, you’ll recall, when Murdoch fired Regan, News Corp. claimed she was an anti-Semite who had blamed her troubles on “a Jewish cabal,” and the brassy Regan sued.

Among Regan’s many charges against her old employer was the claim that a top News Corp. executive told her to lie to federal investigators about her affair with Kerik, when he was (unbelievably) being vetted to head Bush’s Department of Homeland Security in 2004. (He dropped his bid when legal troubles came to light, and he’s currently in prison for tax fraud.) The exec told her to lie, Regan said, to protect Giuliani, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination and a close friend of Roger Ailes. Fox-haters speculated the “high executive” was Ailes himself, given the fawning coverage the former New York mayor got from Fox, but Regan settled the lawsuit for a cool $10.7 million payment from News Corp., and the matter seemed to end there.

Today the New York Times reveals that it was in fact Ailes who told Regan to lie about Kerik – and the paper says Regan had tape recordings to prove it. Fox isn’t even bothering to deny it; where in 2007 a News Corp. spokeswoman told the paper “the company saw no merit in the filing,” Wednesday a spokeswoman said only that News Corp. had a letter from Regan “stating that Mr. Ailes did not intend to influence her with respect to a government investigation,” adding, “The matter is closed.” (News Corp. officially retracted its claim that Regan was anti-Semitic as part of its settlement.) Regan’s lawyer insists News Corp. is misrepresenting Regan’s official statement, but he declined to say more.

He doesn’t need to say more: Affidavits reviewed by the Times show Regan’s former lawyers discussing “a recorded telephone call between Roger Ailes, the chairman of Fox News (a News Corp. company) and Regan, in which Mr. Ailes discussed with Regan her responses to questions regarding her personal relationship with Bernard Kerik.” The lawyer also said, “The Ailes matter became a focal point of our work” in preparing Regan’s case against her former employer. Key to Regan’s case was her claim she had been smeared with charges of anti-Semitism to preemptively discredit her in case she ever said anything about Kerik that could hurt Giuliani. “Regan believed that Ailes and News Corp. subsidiary Fox News had an interest in protecting Giuliani’s bid for the U.S. presidency,” he wrote.

You’ll recall that, in fact, back when Giuliani still seemed a viable presidential candidate, Kerik was a serious blemish on his record. Giuliani was regularly grilled not only about whether and when he knew about his former police commissioner’s many personal and legal troubles, but also about why he would recommend the man for a cabinet post. (The Bush administration was not amused.) Days before Regan dropped her legal bombshell, the Times revealed that Giuliani had in fact been briefed about Kerik’s ethics troubles by the city’s investigations commissioner before Giuliani appointed him to lead the police department in 2000.

After the Times story, the GOP candidate blithely told the Associated Press: “There were mistakes made with Bernie Kerik. But what’s the ultimate result for the people of New York City? The ultimate result for the people of New York City was a 74 percent reduction in shootings, a 60 percent reduction in crime … What Bernie Kerik did wrong did not implicate what the results were for the public.”

Classic Giuliani: Arrogant and stubborn. Now we have classic Roger Ailes: using his media power to protect a Republican political friend. Giuliani officiated at Ailes’ last wedding, and helped when Fox couldn’t get a New York cable channel. The man who started out as an aide to Richard Nixon has never left behind his party politics, despite his claims of being “fair and balanced.” We’ll see if Fox reports on the Times story.

Fittingly, the whole mess came to light because Regan’s former lawyers are now suing Regan herself, claiming she fired them on the eve of her settlement with News Corp. to cut them out of their contingency fee. The affidavits the Times reviewed were mistakenly left public; they have since been removed from the public case file. What a tangled web.

Judith Regan was last seen on the Bravo television hit “Millionaire Matchmaker,” which sets up lonelyhearts moneybags with appropriate partners. (Her TV date went well; no affidavits have come to light revealing whether she found true love.)

Bernie Kerik was last seen on Twitter, railing against the so-called ground zero mosque — from prison. It all makes sense: Fox helped gin up the mosque non-story; Park51 is only blocks from the apartment for 9/11 rescuers that Kerik used as a love nest during his affair with Regan, which Ailes wanted Regan to lie about.

And Rudy Giuliani? His presidential bid imploded in 2008, he had to fold his consulting firm last year, but the New York Post claimed last month that he’s looking at a 2012 presidential bid. The Post is, of course, owned by News Corp.