> 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.
This is Vidal's classic take on Nixon: that he so effectively red-baited his opponents that his subsequent detente vists to the SU and China were free of the kind of mainstream sniping that a "Nixon" would have engaged in. In short, he was able to break bread with the Reds because there was no one of consequence to stop him. He cleared his own path.
> 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.
Yes, but this didn't arrive in a vacuum. A lot of anti-racist organizing helped, and this goes back to the '91 war. Did W's dad have a similar press conference on the eve of the US assault? Not to my memory.
DP