This New York Times piece by Michael Powell on Mayor Giuliani's radio show is worth your time. It's a study in contrast between Giuliani's mayoral personality and the more laid-back presidential candidate. And yet, reading the piece, and listening to the audio links, one cannot help feeling wistful for the old Giuliani. He was pretty entertaining. For example, here he is on Hillary Rodham Clinton running for a U.S. Senate seat in New York:
I would represent Arkansas even though I've never been there, don't know anything about it, have no connection with it. But, you know, maybe it would be kind of cool."
On people annoyed with his support for the Yankees:
Marvin, where'd you go? You go back into your hole, Marvin? Listen, I enjoy sports, Marvin - you think that makes me a bad person? Marvin, get a life."
And of course, ferrets:
David, your compulsion, your excessive concern for weasels is a sign of something wrong in your personality,' the mayor said. 'I am giving you the benefit of 55 years of experience - having handled insanity defenses, you need help.'"
What a lot of people - they tend to be liberals - have never understood is that there's a large number of people who actually like Giuliani's combativeness, sarcasm, and rejection of pretty much every politically correct attitude in the book. Now, there's also a large number of people who can't stand those aspects of hizzoner's personality. As Andrew Ferguson wrote earlier this year, we're about to find out how many people there are in each camp.