Fearing Rudy

One thing I'm wrestling with is finding a way to convey how terrified I am of the prospect of a Rudy Giuliani presidency in terms of its impact on our foreign policy. The Bush administration has been so bad, and characters like Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson so absurd, that I think it's hard for a lot of people to seriously credit the notion that Giuliani would represent a quantum leap of lunacy and just the time when the country desperately needs a clean break and a lurch in the other direction. Josh Marshall tries to get at some of this here:

But the danger of phoniness, aesthetic or otherwise, cannot hold a candle to the truly catastrophic foreign policy Giuliani would likely pursue if he got anywhere near the Oval Office. Watching him campaign it's pretty clear that the guy has no real sense that posturing and pandering to ethnic paranoia in New York City simply isn't the same as running a national foreign policy. The people he's coalescing around himself as his foreign policy advisors are the ones who are going to help him learn as he goes. And they are simply the most dangerous, deranged and deluded folks you can find in American political and foreign policy circles today.

That's right. And, of course, there's a nexus here as a disproportionately large quantity of Giuliani's advisors spent years before 9/11 toiling away in semi-obscurity with their stock-in-trade being precisely fostering a climate of ethnic paranoia and then exploiting it -- offering up lurid tales of the perfidy of the Arab and of Muslim infiltration of American society. Another way of thinking about it is that the "a squad" of neoconservative foreign policymaking has basically been discredited by their conduct inside the Bush administration, so Giuliani, in reaching for the non-discredited, has wound up just reaching into the deep bench rather than trying to find anyone with sounder views. It seems to me that he almost certainly won't win, but if he does I think we may all wind up nostalgic for the Doug Feith Era.

UPDATE: Check out the latest TPM TV epsidode that runs down Giuliani's advisory team. The part where Daniel Pipes calls on Israel to raize more Palestinian villages is especially sweet.

Comments

I've seen this argument all over the blogosphere, that Giuliani's foreign policy team is the equivalent to the ring wraiths from the LOTR. What I would like, though, is a list someplace of these guys and a short blurb for each of what's so scary. Why is this so hard?

Someone should do this, and then whenever someone writes a post about they have nightmares of a Giuliani presidency, they can link to this post.

Posted by CKT | October 16, 2007 10:31 AM

How is the title of this post not "Benchwarmer Neocons?"

Posted by ProfD | October 16, 2007 10:34 AM

What I would like, though, is a list someplace of these guys and a short blurb for each of what's so scary. Why is this so hard?

It's all in the works....

Posted by Matthew Yglesias | October 16, 2007 10:36 AM

Newsweek tried it, but screwed up all the pictures (sorry for the powerline linkage):

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2007/10/018744.php

Posted by Sam | October 16, 2007 10:41 AM

It's all in the works....

As Mr. Burns would say, "Excellent..."

Posted by CKT | October 16, 2007 10:42 AM

There's also Giuliani's apparent comfort level with thugs and criminals as subordinates. Odd, you'd think, for a former prosecutor. But maybe not.

On the other hand, if Giuliani is nominated, we'll have a measure of the size of the fascist vote in the US, so there's some interest there, from the poli-sci viewpoint.

Posted by MattF | October 16, 2007 10:44 AM

Unfortunately large segments of the U.S. populace want a foreign policy leading to death and destruction. You have those seeking Armageddon and the Rapture, tickets to heaven and Jesus' return to earth. You have the racists and xenophobes still reeling from 9/11 and wishing death upon everyone brown, Arab and Muslim. You have the fascists wanting the evil Left spied upon, marginalized and imprisoned for the heresy of doubting and disputing George Bush. For these groups and many others Rudy Giuliani's lunacy (as Matt aptly describes it) has a strong appeal. They want a bull in the china shop. Despite 5 years of ass kicking these citizens feel the truly big guns have remained holstered. Charles Bronson made a mint bringing extrajudicial vigilantism to the big screen. Rudy wants to play the part for real.

Posted by steve duncan | October 16, 2007 10:53 AM

TPM video of the day runs down four of the Giuliani foreign policy team. An informative piece, indeed.

ask and ye shall receive...

Posted by CKT | October 16, 2007 10:53 AM

Right, but what about the goat sex?

Posted by lambert strether | October 16, 2007 11:06 AM

I lived in NYC during Guiliani's second term, and for several years after 9/11. I agree with everything you've written here, and I am also chagrined to see him backpedaling from his few more socially liberal positions (e.g., tolerance of gays, not hassling immigrants for their legal status to encourage them to work with the police, gun control, etc.). It's like we're losing the few modest checks on his behavior that probably all flew out the window anyway in his post-Mayor of America days.

I was really struck by his response in last week's GOP econ debate when questioned about London possibly surpassing NYC as the financial capital of the world. Not only did his spluttering, thin defense of NYC's supremacy sound like he wasn't aware of London's rising stature, but his way of recovering was to heckle and shame the moderator for even questioning NYC's position in the world. He sounded like such an ignorant bully, and I thought we were tired of that kind of leadership by now.

Of course, as another commenter points out, some want Rambo for President!

Posted by Redstar | October 16, 2007 11:21 AM

M.Y., ease up on the incredibly large close up photos of Republicans. I don't mind a photo, but back it off a little so they're far away and fuzzy or about 1/4 the size they are now. It's not even 9am and I'm barely into my first cup of coffee, these are a bit jarring.

Posted by Fred F. | October 16, 2007 11:55 AM

Matthew, did you see this thing from Joe Conason that DeLong linked to?

This stands out clearly:

"We screwed up and left Saddam Hussein in power. The president [then George H.W. Bush] believes he'll be overthrown by his own people, but I rather doubt it," he quotes Wolfowitz lamenting. "But we did learn one thing that's very important. With the end of the Cold War, we can now use our military with impunity. The Soviets won't come in to block us. And we've got five, maybe 10, years to clean up these old Soviet surrogate regimes like Iraq and Syria before the next superpower emerges to challenge us ... We could have a little more time, but no one really knows."

"Clean up old Soviet regimes [including Somalia, Sudan, Libya]". Dude, they are still Team B, and it's always 1977.

max
['Which also explains the Putin thing.']

Posted by max | October 16, 2007 12:21 PM

Everybody calm down- Giuliani will never, ever be president.

Posted by Dan | October 16, 2007 12:57 PM

Re Daniel Pipes

Daniel Pipes prescription for homicide bombings is rather tame. Better to follow the example of Hafaz Assad and impose Hama rules.

Posted by SLC | October 16, 2007 1:07 PM

"Ethnic paranoia"?

Why the coded language?

Posted by jp | October 16, 2007 1:12 PM

I think an important job for those of us opposed to a Giuiliani presidency on, shall we say, sanity grounds, need to formulate a real effective way to communicate those concerns to your traditional voter. I know what a disaster a Giuliani presidency will be. Matt knows what a disaster a Giuliani presidency will be. And if I wanted to convince a fellow policy wonk, I would point to his stable of advisers and his diatribe in Foreign Affairs. Unfortunately, I can't make these arguments to Joe Schmoe during a general election campaign. Dem candidates will similarly be unable to do so themselves in a general election debate. Instead this frame needs to be begun now and it must become some kind of prevalent wisdom when the Giuliani campaign gears up against the Dem nominee. The problem is that Giuliani doesn't necessarily come across as crazy on the campaign trail. He comes across as "likable" and "tough" and that's how people will vote (look at some of the recent reflections on The Plank). Your median voter simply doesn't know enough about US-Iranian foreign relations to hold Giuliani's "more war all the time" attitudes against him.

Posted by Augie | October 16, 2007 1:15 PM

"It seems to me that he almost certainly won't win."
This is thoughtless wishful thinking. In all the head-to-head polls against Clinton, Giuliani is in striking distance, in many, he's ahead.

In the prediction markets--source of the best evidence--the Democratic nominee is only a 6-4 favorite.

Think how Giuliani seems to have induced Clinton to back off her baby bond proposal, and how he attracts more social liberals than have past Republican candidates, and may do as well or better at evoking our worst fears of the Muslim menace.

"Almost certainly" is unsupportable.

Posted by Cassandra | October 16, 2007 1:20 PM

OK, so the guy out-neocons the neocons, and sure enough he gets the backing of all pro-war and islamophobic lobbies, he gets money, the fox news channel, the whole nine yards. That's good politics. Where's the evidence that he means anything of what he's saying - as oppose to just being a two-bit politician doing everything he has to do to get elected?

Posted by abb1 | October 16, 2007 1:38 PM

I notice that Marshal leaves out Martin Kramer who was opposed to the Iraq war eventhough Matt has incorrectly posted twice that he was.

Posted by Dave | October 16, 2007 3:51 PM

Kramer wasn't against the Iraq war, he was against trying to create Iraqi democracy in its aftermath.

Posted by M. Duss | October 16, 2007 4:15 PM

Where's the evidence that he means anything of what he's saying - as oppose to just being a two-bit politician doing everything he has to do to get elected?

Wouldn't you rather not take that chance? I would imagine that if you ran a survey candidates who promise one course of action on the campaign trail more often follow that course than those who oppose it on the campaign trail. That being the case, a vote for Giuliani is indefensible for those who seek a departure from the War Party policies. If you want more of the same only crazier, vote for Rudy.

Posted by notabb1 | October 16, 2007 4:27 PM

Who said anything about voting for him?

Posted by abb1 | October 16, 2007 4:39 PM

List of Giuliani's advisers, and those of five other presidential candidates:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/opinions/documents/the-war-over-the-wonks.html#giuliani

Posted by Neil | October 16, 2007 7:48 PM

"Where's the evidence that he means anything of what he's saying - as oppose to just being a two-bit politician doing everything he has to do to get elected?"

Brilliant question - NOT.

What's your actual point here? That Rudy is another politician who lies? Big surprise.

Or is your point that YOU think Rudy will NOT start a war with Iran if he wins?

Based on what? The POSSIBILITY that he might be a liar?

Oh, that makes me real happy.

So, in other words, since we don't know what he - or conceivably any of the other candidates - might do, therefore we should choose our votes on the basis of...what? Looks? Sex appeal? Hillary's cleavage (is that for her or against her?)

Truly, your point is just meaningless.

Unless you meant that there's no reason to PANIC because Rudy might be lying about his policies.

Same response - sure, don't panic. But also make sure the asshole doesn't win BOTH because he might be a liar and if he isn't, he's even worse.

Here's an equally significant "what if" question? What if Rudy is actually the Anti-Christ like Damien just waiting to start global nuclear war to allow the Devil to take over the world?

Makes about as much sense as what you're asking.

In other words, his policies are either going to be better or worse than what he's claiming them to be. Other than his words and past actions, what basis does anybody have for judging this?

So you go with his stated words. Obviously.

And with Rudy, this would be a nightmare for the US.

End of story.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 16, 2007 10:29 PM

Some politicians are true believers, megalomaniacs. Others are more like power-grabbing cynical opportunists. It's true that both kinds can (and do) cause damage, but I feel it's important to understand their motivations. I also feel that a 'true believer' kind is much more dangerous. That's all I'm saying.

Posted by abb1 | October 17, 2007 1:48 AM

"It seems to me that he almost certainly won't win..."

Then what are you scared of Matt. He cant beat a democrat so no problem right? (sarcasm off)

Posted by phoenix | October 17, 2007 2:53 AM

My God -- does Rudi look like a Beaver in this picture, or what?

Posted by Karl Maurer | October 17, 2007 3:54 PM

There is indeed a very serious chance that Giuliani will win the White House -- in fact, he's the ONLY Republican I now give any serious chance of doing so. (McCain could if he got the GOP nomination, but it seems very unlikely to me that he'll get that far). This month he seems to be trailing Hillary in all nationwide polls, but by only a few percent.

May I suggest, though, that the next stochastic factor to stir the election pot could be Bernard Kerik's imminent indictment on multiple charges of bribery and tax evation -- complete with accusations of Mob connections? (If the Dems have any political sense (always an open question, of course), they'll beat that drum for all it's worth -- especially if Giuliani gets called as a witness, which he may.

Posted by Bruce Moomaw | October 18, 2007 1:07 AM

(And I thought I was the only one to suspect, from that photo, that his central military strategy may involve threatening to personally bite the Islamofascists.)

Posted by Bruce Moomaw | October 18, 2007 1:10 AM