>i dont get it - would dinkins or say vallone/green/whoever have not been
>capable of doing what guiliani did, or not done it? what would have been
>different without guiliani? riots on the streets? witchhunts for arabs?
>looting? lack of food? more attacks? lightning and thunder? please
>explain...
First, the point is Guiliani did it- who knows what anyone else could have done in the same crisis. As someone said, Guiliani has an amazing ability to be calm in a crisis and create crises during calm. A lot of the liberals were less eloquent on the hate crimes and tolerance issue than Guiliani, maybe fearing being seen as soft in the crisis. Since no one was going to accuse Guiliani of being a softie on crime, he could jag the opposite direction in preaching calm and lack of hate.
But there was also something to be said for having someone acknowledged to be a hardass on crime preaching againt hate crimes from second one. I think he had some influence on making public denunciations of arab-bashing and hate crimes a bipartisan mantra. Even Georgie and Ashcroft were singing the tune soon.
-- Nathan Newman