It’s not possible to be neutral about Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York and now a Republican presidential candidate. You either love him or hate him. The novelist Kevin Baker does not love him. In the August issue of Harper’s Baker gives Giuliani a pretty thorough hiding, in a cover piece (subscription required) headed A FATE WORSE THAN BUSH. The opening sentence sets the tone:
“Rudolph Giuliani has, by far, the most dubious known personal history of any major presidential candidate in US history, what with his three marriages, and his open affairs and his almost total estrangement from his grown children, not to mention the startling frequency with which he finds excuses to dress in women’s clothing.”
Rudy is not going to run for president in a frock, alas. He’s going to run as a crime buster and enemy of terror. In neither role is he especially convincing, however.
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