You Don't Own It

Your Ego Is Not Your Amigo

sign seen on 22nd Street between 3rd Avenue 

and Lexington Avenue in New York City

Photograph courtesy Pak So and Anna Tan

On February 23, 2015, Charles M. Blow writes in an op-ed titled Who Loves America for The New York Times:

Take for instance what Rudy Giuliani (“America’s mayor”) said about the president last week at a dinner for Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin (a contender for America’s president). At the dinner — attended, according to Politico, by “about 60 right-leaning business executives and conservative media types” — Giuliani said, “I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America.” He continued, “He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.”

Yes, Mr. Mayor, it was a horrible thing to say, which is why you backpedaled. On Fox, Giuliani gave a meandering, mealy-mouthed defense of the this vile statement, claiming, preposterously, that “I’m not questioning his patriotism,” explaining that he hears Obama “criticize America much more often than other American presidents” and questioning the president’s faith in American exceptionalism.

Ah, American exceptionalism again.

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In the reader's comments to the op-ed, HeyNorris writes:

Giuliani didn't backpedal. Speaking with Fox's blondest, most popular spokesmodel I mean newsreader Megyn Kelly, he doubled down. When invited by Kelly to apologize, America's mayor-turned-clown refused, saying "I’m right about this. I have no doubt about it. I do not withdraw my words".

He lurched on, ticking down the usual tropes of Reverend Wright, Frank Marshall Davis and Saul Alinsky, like a wind-up version of Donald Trump minus the combover, seeming to come within a, um, hair of demanding a birth certificate.


Kelly, to her credit, pushed back on several points and was visibly surprised at his intransigence. When statements are so absurd that Megyn Kelly raises a botoxed eyebrow, a sane person would know they're out on a limb. Kelly offered Giuliani several lifelines, all refused.


One can only conclude that Giuliani has gone gaga. There's no percentage for him in disrespecting the president. It's not like he can run for any office again, and none occupants of the 2016 GOP Clown Car seem to have any use for him outside of a sideshow attraction for fundraising.


Giuliani also told Sean Hannity that "President Obama didn't live through 9/11, I did". Well excuse me, Rude Rudy, we ALL lived through 9/11. You don't own it. We were proud of you then, but you've spent the intervening years boorishly profiting from your moment, reducing yourself to irrelevancy. That's not love of country either, it's egotism and tactlessness.