The story of Rudi Giuliani's evolution -- devolution is a better word -- reflects the madness of today's politics. Lawrence Martin writes:
Rudy Giuliani’s hero was once Bobby Kennedy. The Giuliani of back then, a young man who got three Vietnam War draft deferments, voted for lefty George McGovern in 1972.
As a lawyer, he became a big-time corruption fighter, taking on the likes of Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky. He moved cautiously to the right in the Ronald Reagan years, but still held moderate views. His home was New York, after all, one of the great liberal bastions in the country.
He worked for the Justice Department's Southern District of New York, which yesterday convicted Michael Cohen and implied that Donald Trump was an un-indicted co-conspirator. But now he's spinning for Trump and the law has gone out the window:
Say it ain’t so, Rudy. Say as you did in an interview with Chuck Todd that “the truth isn’t truth.” For many, that batty observation, an attempt to rescue himself from a flurry of contradictions in respect to Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, spectacularly encapsulated politics in the Trump era.
The debasement and descent of Captain America, Rudy Giuliani, can be seen as a mirror on the madness. With all he had going for him, how could he devolve into becoming Nero’s lackey? Even New Yorkers have turned on him. For his 74th birthday a few months ago, he went to a Yankees’ game. They booed him lustily.
After almost every TV appearance, it seems poor Rudy has to come out to try to correct himself. One fine example was when he blatantly contradicted his boss in saying that Mr. Trump had repaid lawyer Michael Cohen US$130,000 for Mr. Cohen’s hush-money payment to adult-film star Stormy Daniels.
What happened? The Greeks understood what it was all about:
The Greeks invented the word hubris for men like Rudy Giuliani. He’s a vivid example of the corrosive impact politics has on so many of its practitioners. It takes them, country in tow, to low places.
They knew that it was easy -- really easy -- to corrupt the incorruptible.
Image: Newsweek
