Government
There is a new blog post entitled, “Encouraging the good.”
George Monbiot, “Rewilding Politics,” Guardian, December 23, 2019, https://www.monbiot.com/2019/12/23/rewilding-politics/
Donald Trump
Ain’t Rudy Giuliani a piece of work? It gets even richer if you read the New York story by Olivia Nuzzi, “A Conversation With Rudy Giuliani Over Bloody Marys at the Mark Hotel,”[1] that the Washington Post story is largely based on.[2]
I suppose that Amerikkkans deserve to know who is representing them and in what capacity, but it seems to me Nuzzi’s reporting approaches an ethical boundary. Details such as the saliva dripping from the corner of Rudy Giuliani’s mouth onto his sweater, the unzipped fly, the stumble against the wall,[3] and his claim to be “more of a Jew than [George] Soros [a Holocaust survivor] is”[4] combine to paint an unflattering portrait of a man not in command of his faculties. As I see more in life, I begin to associate paranoid rambling, as with Giuliani’s ranting about George Soros (a favorite authoritarian populist bogeyman),[5] in older people with dementia.
My mother would undoubtedly remind me that it’s an old tradition among reporters, of whom a very old archetype is scarcely better, to let their subjects get drunk and spill their beans. But is an obviously drunk and possibly demented Giuliani really competent to consent to such an interview on the record?
Olivia Nuzzi, “A Conversation With Rudy Giuliani Over Bloody Marys at the Mark Hotel,” New York, December 23, 2019, http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/12/a-conversation-with-rudy-giuliani-over-bloody-marys.html
Michael Brice-Saddler, “Rudy Giuliani, a Catholic, says he is ‘more of a Jew’ than George Soros, who survived the Holocaust,” Washington Post, December 24, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/12/23/rudy-giuliani-says-he-is-more-jew-than-george-soros-who-survived-holocaust/
Jerusalem Online, “Rudy Giuliani: I’m More of A Jew than Holocaust Survivor,” December 24, 2019, https://www.jerusalemonline.com/rudy-giuliani-im-more-of-a-jew-than-holocaust-survivor/
- [1]Olivia Nuzzi, “A Conversation With Rudy Giuliani Over Bloody Marys at the Mark Hotel,” New York, December 23, 2019, http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/12/a-conversation-with-rudy-giuliani-over-bloody-marys.html↩
- [2]Michael Brice-Saddler, “Rudy Giuliani, a Catholic, says he is ‘more of a Jew’ than George Soros, who survived the Holocaust,” Washington Post, December 24, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/12/23/rudy-giuliani-says-he-is-more-jew-than-george-soros-who-survived-holocaust/↩
- [3]Olivia Nuzzi, “A Conversation With Rudy Giuliani Over Bloody Marys at the Mark Hotel,” New York, December 23, 2019, http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/12/a-conversation-with-rudy-giuliani-over-bloody-marys.html↩
- [4]Rudy Giuliani, quoted in Olivia Nuzzi, “A Conversation With Rudy Giuliani Over Bloody Marys at the Mark Hotel,” New York, December 23, 2019, http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/12/a-conversation-with-rudy-giuliani-over-bloody-marys.html↩
- [5]Olivia Nuzzi, “A Conversation With Rudy Giuliani Over Bloody Marys at the Mark Hotel,” New York, December 23, 2019, http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/12/a-conversation-with-rudy-giuliani-over-bloody-marys.html↩