Edwards Won The Debate But Are We Doomed to Repeating History Again with Giuiliani?

Ezra Klein asks the question I have been asking myself for months now. Why isn’t the press treating Giulani like the crazed, power-obsessed, and corrupt man he clearly is?

You know, a few years ago, Sally Quinn wrote an article explaining why elite Washington had united against Bill Clinton. In it, David Broder famously said that, “He came in here and he trashed the place, and it’s not his place.” He got a lot of flack for that comment. But it gets at an important truth: That the media does, indeed, come together to repel perceived threats. In Clinton’s case, it was a gauche striver. He was a threat to DC’s prestige, or vision of itself. Not the greatest danger in the world, but the media was quite effective in kneecapping him.

So what of Rudy? Rudy, after all, is a danger to the world. Every reporter in this town knows that he’s become a pandering lunatic. Why doesn’t Time have cover stories asking “Is Giulianie out of his #($*^ mind!?” Why aren’t the Sunday shows filled with horrified reporters agreeing to disagree about much of the race, but uniting against the apocalyptic stupidity on evidence in the Giuliani campaign? Why aren’t the various horserace reporters fitting every successive foreign policy pronouncement into an overarching narrative of Giuliani’s crazed belligerence, “which is causing serious doubts about his campaign among some in the GOP?”

There is precedent for all this. And in Giuliani’s case, the threat has the added benefit of being true. You don’t need to make anything up, invent any scandals, concoct any problems. You just have to honestly evaluate the words coming out of Giuliani’s mouth, the rhetoric coming out of his campaign, and the advisers circling the candidate. It’s all there. There’s no blowjob, I know, but there’s a real threat, and the media should, in its role as guardian of some minimal level of competency within the political process, be pointing out that this man is dangerous, his statements scary, his campaign unsettling, and his advisers insane. His is not a normal candidacy, and so long as the reporters continue treating it as the equivalent of Hillary Clinton’s campaign rather than Pat Buchanan’s, we’re in trouble.

Norman Podhoretz is his foreign policy adviser for heaven’s sake! Giuliani continues to lead all other Republican candidates in the polls that is shored up with the kind of lovable tough guy press reminiscent of George W. Bush during the 2000 campaign. In the pre-debate coverage on MSNBC yesterday, I heard a Philadelphia talk show host tell Chris Matthews that Giuliani was a Philadelphia kind of candidate–what–crazy? Meanwhile, Edwards is not a Philadelphia candidate because he got an expensive haircut. Although this is almost completely out of the context of this post, I find it schizophrenic when people criticize Edwards for being wealthy and speaking up for the common man as if that makes him a hypocrite and insincere. First of all, how many poor men have won the presidency since Ulysses S. Grant? Second of all, since when can’t wealthy people want things to be better for people who aren’t wealthy? The media and voters have put Edwards in a box that makes it impossible for him to be both wealthy and sincere. Has our democracy become so polluted by our obtuse notion of capitalism that no one can express concern for the poor except the poor? Edwards clearly won the debate last night but because he’s too successful and too good looking, he can’t possibly be president. Didn’t Romney spend $300 on makeup? Don’t they all spend thousands of dollars on image consultants (basically their own Henry Higgins)? Fred Thompson should spend $300 more than he already is on makeup so that he can at least look alive during the debates. Like I said–schizophrenic.

Anyway, I used to be fairly confident that if Giuliani were to win the Republican nomination, the press would come to its senses and start covering Giuliani’s checkered past and nutty advisors in earnest. However, if Clinton ends up being the Democratic nominee, I’m afraid that she would receive more negative press coverage, however unbelievable that might be.

Similar Posts:

• Edwards Dropping Out of Presidential Race
• How about A Little Campaigning with That Warmongering, Rudy Giuliani?
• Giuliani Continues To Delude Self, Will Endorse McCain at Reagan Library

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