The presidential campaign of Rudolph Giuliani epitomizes every misery of the Bush era Republican party that is now spontaneously combusting on the big stage for all to see. The intellectual bankruptcy and moral failures of modern ‘conservatism’ have reached the stage of terminal rot and the air is thick with desperation as the GOP tries to emerge intact from the now disastrous Karl Rove era. The symbiotic relationship with the most extreme elements of the Religious Right is coming unraveled, the libertarians are crying bloody murder and the looters are being exposed as the thieves that they always have been. The Republican debates have been an ugly carnival of perversion with a bunch of anal retentive, rich white guys trying to one up each other on how best to torture, shred the constitution and drag the country further down the dark rabbit hole of regression that increasingly resembles a bottomless pit.
The only two candidates with any sort of a legitimate chance at the nomination are Rudy and Fred Thompson aka ‘The New Reagan’, a mush mouthed oaf who specializes in the same sort of ‘Morning in America’ horseshit that was used to lead this country so badly astray in 1980 and whose mass appeal to the rubes can’t be easily dismissed. Thompson however is sleepwalking through it all and you get the impression that his candidacy is more the result of the war pigs at the fascist nest of snakes that is the American Enterprise Institute's desire to have another malleable tool in the White House than any sincere desire by the great white dope. The minute that his fuck bunny trophy wife stops haranguing him the big lug will likely mail it in and return to his comfortable life as a millionaire lobbyist and character actor so he is really just a bit player in all of this. Rudy is the one who is by far the most dangerous for he is a text book example of the sort of personality examined by Bob Altemeyer in his study The Authoritarians and more recently by John Dean in his book Conservatives Without Conscience.
According to a recent Newsweek piece by Michael Hirsh entitled Would You Buy A Used Hawk From This Man?, Giuliani has stacked his foreign policy team with several neocons of the most virulent type including the granddaddy of them all Norman Podhoretz. Along with the grand old man, also advising Rudy are the virulent racist Daniel Pipes, who once advocated collective punishment in the finest tradition of Lidice by suggesting the razing entire Palestinian villages, and his crony in the neo-McCarthyist Campus Watch goon patrol that targets free speech on America’s campuses, Martin Kramer. Make no mistake though, it’s Podhoretz who brings the real clout to ‘Mr. 9/11’s’ team.Revered by many as the driving force behind the neoconservative ideology, ‘Poddy’ has now found a new host after doing everything but actually blowing George W. Bush to get him to blow Iran to kingdom come. The launching of a ‘preemptive’ attack on Iran is a crusade to which he has on numerous occasions actually admitted praying for.
Here is a small sample from the Newsweek piece:
Podhoretz is in favor of bombing Iran because of the country's unwillingness to suspend its uranium-enrichment program. He also believes America is engaged in a "world war" with "Islamofascism" and that Giuliani is the only man who can win it. "I decided to join Giuliani's team because his view of the war—what I call World War IV—is very close to my own," Podhoretz tells NEWSWEEK. (World War III, in his view, was the cold war.) "And also because he has the qualities of a wartime leader, including a fighting spirit and a determination to win."
And another helping of some more vintage Podhoretz courtesy of Think Progress:
If we bomb the Iranians as I hope and pray that we will we’ll unleash a wave of anti-Americanism all over the world that will make the anti-Americanism we’ve experienced look like a lovefest.
By the way, there is no such fucking thing as “Islamofascism,” a think tank distilled bit of folderol that just sounds good for the haters and the rubes. In actuality the two main components are diametrically opposed, which anyone who can think critically recognizes right away. The “Islamo” referred to is based on a rejection of modern western civilization and all of it’s perceived evils and impurities, while fascism is very capitalistic in nature and the perfect exemplification of the corporate state to the extent that in 1934 Fortune Magazine featured a cover story and a fawning tribute to Benito Mussolini himself.
But I digress…
Much has been made over Rudy’s having been dissed by radical cleric James Dobson as well as movement guru Richard Viguerie for his failure to toe the theocratic line on suppressing women’s privacy rights, and this is being seen by many as a death blow to his presidential ambitions. Underestimating the American Il Duce is a very serious mistake now that he has apparently decided that his easiest path to the throne will come courtesy of the neocon lunatics along with his bread and butter exploitation of 9/11. Those who would prematurely write off ‘Mr. 9/11’ due to Dobson’s snit are making a tragic error – especially if they include Democratic strategists whose coddling of AIPAC is already responsible for a hell of a blind spot. Rudy’s throwing in with the likes of Podhoretz and the crazies only ensures that the most irrational of all will be jumping aboard the Giuliani campaign as though it were the Rapture Express itself.
The extremist ideology of Podhoretz appeals to a much more dangerous group than the so called ‘values voters’. His maniacal zeal for bombing Iran is a bridge to the Armageddonites who will goosestep to the polls in droves at the mere thought of the potential end of days on the ballot. With nutty Norm helping to dictate Rudy’s foreign policy that plays to the extremely militant death cult affiliated with Pastor John Hagee and his ass kicking Christian Zionist organization CUFI (Christians United for Israel) who have been fired up with lies that bombing Iran is a precursor for the return of Jesus Christ. The Giuliani campaign is already a formidable force, but with Podhoretz onboard Rudy will pull that portion of the vote no matter how he stands on the other divisive social issues and Dobson will have no choice but to swallow his pride and get with Rudy's program.
The combination of a lower than expected voter turnout due to widespread anger with Democrats over their failure to deliver on their November 2006 mandate to end the war and hold the Bush administration criminals accountable, along with a reenergized Republican base with a lynch mob mentality, could be a boon for Rudy and the neocons and the worst of all possible worlds for the rest of the planet.
