'Tipsy G': Once touted as 'America's Mayor' Rudy Giuliani's reputation is forever tainted

Of the many facts and inferences derived from the first hearings of the special committee examining the events surrounding the January 6th insurrection, the idea that then President Trump's decision not to concede and to proclaim election fraud was the product of urgings by his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who by multiple accounts was inebriated at the time. The image of 'Tipsy G' prodding an already unhinged commander-in-chief to declare victory with millions of votes to be counted is almost unimaginable.

But we shouldn't be surprised. In between the colossal failure of his 2008 Presidential Campaign and his latching on to Donald Trump's coattails in 2016, Giuliani occupied a political wilderness in which his achievements were few and his misadventures were frequent. He mostly ran around appearing on any talk show that would have him, railing against President Obama, and attempting to stay relevant by endorsing a bizarre range of candidates. He was no longer the adored figure who once held the Big Apple in the palm of his hands.

The Rudy Giuliani of today is a far cry from the legend that he created for himself as a federal prosecutor and chief executive of the nation's largest city. It's lost on many, that during the last months of Giuliani's second term that most New Yorkers were tired of his act. Yes, crime had decreased, but many of the deeds that he took credit for had occurred under his predecessor, David Dinkins. In addition, projects like the redevelopment of Times Square were initiated by Governor Mario Cuomo and Mayor Ed Koch and also completed by the Dinkins Administration.

In a 2005 article, Rudy Giuliani and the Myth of Modern New York, writer, and editor, Kevin Baker asserts that the city's greatest mayors were Fiorello LaGuardia and DeWitt Clinton. He cites his reasons as the transformational visions that they maintained and implemented and that both were "relentless and effective reformers." He goes on to say that the perception of Rudy as a notably accomplished mayor emanated from his efforts in the wake of 9/11 and his endeavors to address crime in New York City. While Rudy certainly calmed the city in the aftermath of a horrific event, it can be argued that many of his policies aimed at curbing crime led to questionable outcomes.

Baker further proclaims that "Rudy Giuliani's perceived success goes to the very heart of "political mythmaking" in America today. Many of his conclusions are drawn from a study by Andrew Karmen, New York Murder Mystery, The True Story of the Crime Crash of the 1990s. This compilation of research highlights the significant drop in big city crime nationally during this period regardless of the law enforcement strategy employed. In fact, a confluence of intervening factors transpired that benefited Rudy's agenda and led many to believe his genius was responsible for a more livable city.

Regardless, many New Yorkers and his media sycophants gave Giuliani the credit and the praise for what in reality was minimal effort and in many instances, ineffective practices. These same cheerleaders tend to forget the fact that Giuliani also oversaw a police department that trampled on the civil liberties of Gotham's poorest and most marginalized communities, and included the murder of Amadou Diallo by four plainclothes detectives. Remember "Giuliani Time?"

Now after over five years of shamelessly ingratiating himself to perhaps the most corrupt president in the history of our republic, Rudy Giuliani is a mere shell of the brash, no-nonsense, and intolerant civic kingpin who peacocked around the five Burroughs for decades. He's been relegated to a caricature of himself, a miniature vampire with a bad hair dye job. But maybe...just maybe, the Rudy Giuliani that we see today is the same person he's always been. It's just that now the flaws are more visible. One thing is for certain, we almost lost our democracy because of Giuliani's subservience to his unscrupulous master. What the Founding Fathers must be thinking?