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"Scam" ads the norm Trail Mix: Hillary haters spam cyberspace Gunning for the center Democrats make Hillary legit The blundering pundit Don Giuliani Campaign video: |
Has Rudy gone too far?
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March 21, 2000 | NEW YORK -- That all ended at roughly 6:40 p.m. Monday night. It took her a few days, but she finally attacked New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani for responding to the city's most recent police killing of an unarmed man by releasing the victim's arrest history (including a juvenile arrest). That's when she took on the mayor loved by many for his successful war on crime for displaying virtually no compassion for the war's casualties. Clinton apparently decided she is comfortable exploiting the mayor's dark side, a tactic that could easily spill over into even more revelations about his perpetually-awkward relationship with people whose skin color happens not to be the same as his. Whether this tactic will work through a full campaign is one question. As of Tuesday evening, it looked like Giuliani was behaving just as Clinton desired: as a guy simply too mean to lead."
Speaking before a mostly African-American, standing-room-only crowd Monday, in the stuffy confines of the Bethel AME Church in Harlem, Clinton unleashed a verbal barrage against the mayor. The Mayor, she charged to thunderous applause, "has hunkered down, taken sides and further divided this city." Reading from a prepared text, she added: "At just the moment when a real leader would have reached out and tried to heal the wounds he has chosen to divisiveness." Some background: early last Thursday, Dorismond, a Haitian-American, was shot and killed in midtown Manhattan after an apparent struggle with undercover police who were finishing up a night of marijuana busts. One officer allegedly approached Dorismond, who worked as a security guard, asked him if he had some marijuana. The request apparently enraged Dorismond, a scuffle ensued and in a matter of seconds he was shot and killed by one of the other officers. Giuliani quickly ordered the city's Police Department to distribute Dorismond's arrest history -- which included convictions for disorderly conduct and a previously-sealed record of an arrest when he was 13 years old. Dorismond, Giuliani explained to a Fox News Sunday audience, may not have been"an altar boy." The move prompted a firestorm of criticism, from local African-American officials and activists (and even some normally tepid Democrats) revolted by the mayor's latest attack. Democratic State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver yesterday announced a committee would probe the propriety of the release of the sealed juvenile court records. "New York," the Illinois native later added, her hands glued to a podium, "has a real problem and all of use know it -- everyone it seems except for the mayor of New York City." The mayor, however, remained unbowed. Speaking to reporters Tuesday he defended the release of the dead man's juvenile arrest record ("you cannot libel a dead person"); cast further doubt on the unarmed man's character ("that Mr. Dorismond has spent a good deal of his life punching people is a fact"); and lit into the reporters who questioned the move ("I am just giving you facts that you resist printing"). But perhaps most significantly, Mayor Giuliani resorted to a reliable part of his arsenal: the specter of Al Sharpton.
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