© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, July 12, 2007

This is the third in a series of reviews on books written by the 2008 presidential contenders. See the archives for more reviews. By Rudy Giuliani with Ken Kurson ISBN 1-4013-5187-5 Miramax Books 407 pp. Purchase This Book

A meshugge thing happened on the way to the 2008 presidential campaigns.

Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, is topping the likes of John McCain in the contest for the Republican nomination.

How did we get here?

No one's sure exactly when Giuliani decided that a guy who sort of sounds like Tony Soprano could actually become president, but he probably had some inkling when he sat down with a ghostwriter to pen his autobiography, "Leadership." The book largely eschews his abundant baggage -- two failed marriages, adultery, questionable business deals, hostile race relations -- in favor of all his many professional accomplishments, dating back to his days as an assistant U.S. prosecutor and culminating as mayor of the nation's largest metropolis.

Were his candidacy based on resume alone, Giuliani might be fighting for airtime with long shots like Texas Rep. Ron Paul. It took the most devastating terrorist attacks ever on U.S. soil to propel Giuliani's name up through the ether of American politics and onto the world stage. But a more telling episode that occurred much earlier in the 63-year-old Brooklyn native's life may better explain the kind of politician and leader Giuliani would become.

"I hesitate to tell this story because people think I dreamed the whole thing, but it is literally true that I was nearly lynched," Giuliani writes, in a chapter entitled "Be Your Own Man." At the age of five, he says, young Rudy was nearly hanged from a tree by a group of kids who didn't appreciate his wearing a Yankees uniform in Dodgers territory. The could-be future president was saved by his grandmother, who chased the kids away.

Several dozen pages later, Giuliani declares, "I have a visceral reaction to bullies."

In case any of the numerous Republicans who doubt Giuliani's conservative credentials fear a People vs. The Powerful rant coming on, the bullies in question are labor unions. (A Democrat he could never be.) As New Yorkers well know, Giuliani's approach to governing can best be described as pugilistic. That's not necessarily a bad trait when facing off against terrorist threats -- Giuliani's main claim to fame. But teachers unions? Crime victims? A cuckolded wife? Those are another matter.

It's hard to blame Giuliani for skipping over the shadier moments of his career, though personal nakedness seems to have been a boon to a potential rival, Barack Obama. In his preface, Giuliani justifies the numerous omissions by stating: "It may be a counsel of perfection, but if we as a nation expect to attract real people to public life, we have to do what we can not to intrude on matters that don't affect a public figure's duties and performance."

Arguably, assigning his mistress (who is now his wife) semi-official duties during the recovery effort after 9/11 falls under the category of matters that do affect duties and performance. Mentioning that Judith Giuliani, with whom he had an open affair while in office, was a pharmaceutical sales executive is the most he offers as to her credentials. Prurient, yes. But relevant? Also, yes.

To give Giuliani his due, he has declined to engage in attacks, personal or political, against any of his GOP opponents. The same can't be said for all of his competitors.

Most Americans are aware of Giuliani's confident and assuring presence the day of the attacks, and that he lifted a crime-addled, deficit-burdened, poverty-stricken city out of the depths. More useful in "Leadership" are the lively passages in which Giuliani talks about the Yankees, golf, cigars and food. Here's a man who seems to embrace life in a quintessentially New York fashion. Giuliani could be the first president who correctly pronounces capicola.

--Jane Roh, NationalJournal.com