Previewing a Giuliani Presidency

I rarely praise anything that appears in the Weekly Standard, but Matthew Continetti's profile of Rudy Giuliani is actually pretty good. Though I think Continetti gives Giuliani far too much credit in some areas, he does a pretty good job of identifying the defining aspects of Giuliani's character and worldview:

[I]t would be a stretch to say that Giuliani is an adherent to the set of political ideas known as Reaganism. Giuliani adheres to Giuliani-ism. Where Reagan emphasized the enduring possibilities of freedom, Giuliani emphasizes the duties freedom imposes on citizens--the most important of which, in his opinion, is the duty of citizens to respect the law. Where Reagan set strategic goals, delegated authority (sometimes too broadly), and allowed room for his agency heads to innovate, Giuliani is a top-down executive known for micromanagement and for employing every possible legal authority to achieve his ends.

He also happens to have been one of the most effective chief executives in modern American history. Some view his doggedness, his maximalist position on every issue and the tactics he adopts, as a form of "authoritarianism," but that term is intended to insult rather than describe. It would be more accurate to call him a legalistic disciplinarian. And, indeed, one of the striking aspects of Giuliani's career is that, while he has tacked right in his quest for the 2008 nomination, his worldview seems to have remained consistent at least since his prosecutorial days. And one word best describes it: grim.

Whether you call him an authoritarian or a "legalistic disciplinarian," the key point here is that Giuliani is the kind of guy who will constantly push the envelope in order to achieve his goals. He's Cheney on a bad day, the kind of guy who would hire a thousand David Addingtons and place them in every corner of his administration.

Toward the end of the piece, Continetti discusses Giuliani's formative years as a prosecutor, and quotes Giuliani at length as he rails against the exclusionary rule and other "rights of accused criminals." When asked how his experience fighting crime is relevant to fighting terrorism, Giuliani responds:

"Someone once said to me that what they don't get about the Democrats, and even some Republicans that do this, is they're more concerned about rights for terrorists than the terrorists' wrongs," Giuliani went on. "I mean, this granting of rights to criminals and terrorists, even when they're necessary, come with a price, a price at the other end of it. Even for the ones that are necessary, like, let's say, the Miranda ruling, it's one you agree with--there's a price for that. Maybe it's one worth paying. The exclusionary rule, there's a big price for that: Criminals go free. They walk out of court. If you say, you know, no aggressive questioning, then we're not going to find out about situations. If you say no wiretapping, well, there'll be conversations going on, planning to bomb New York, or Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and you're not going to find out. And, when we draw these lines, at least let's be honest with people about the consequences of them. Let's not fool them into thinking that there are no consequences to this. People will say that aggressive questioning doesn't work. I, you know, I . . . Honest answer to that is, it doesn't work all the time. Sometimes it does."

This is what we have to look forward to if Giuliani becomes president. For him, it's a debate between people who want to bestow rights on "criminals and terrorists" and those who want to prevent bombs from blowing up our cities. And the scary thing is, I can't tell whether Giuliani is engaged in shameless straw man politics here or whether he actually believes this (and I'm not sure which is worse).

Needless to say, no one is suggesting that there should be no wiretapping or no aggressive questioning of suspected terrorists. We are suggesting that wiretapping be done with warrants(as required by law) and that aggressive questioning not cross the line into torture (which is illegal and morally reprehensible).

What's also telling is that Giuliani sees only the consequences of not pushing the moral and legal envelope. He grimly warns us that we need to consider the consequences of not illegally torturing and wiretapping people. But engaging in these practices has its own set of consequences, a fact to which Giuliani seems completely oblivious. The Bush administration's ill-advised foray into the realm of torture has deeply tarnished America's image abroad. It has, among other things, drastically reduced our soft power and influence, put U.S. soldiers and personnel at greater risk, and significantly fanned the flames of Islamic extremism. And the Bush administration's blatant violation of U.S. law (both in the areas of surveillance and torture) has done lasting damage to the separation of powers and our constitutional framework generally.

It is important that people understand that Giuliani is not some sort of throwback moderate Republican. The closest analogue to Giuliani in the Republican party is Dick Cheney, and I suspect that a Giuliani presidency would not be much different than a Cheney presidency (in other words, it would be much like the Bush presidency, but withhold anyone playing the angel to Cheney's devil). If that's what people want, then so be it. We live in a democracy. But I hope that people come to understand over the next year (or sooner) that there is very little about Giuliani's beliefs and general worldview that can be accurately labeled "moderate."