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Looking Back to '9/10 Rudy,' and Ahead to 11/'08
Some of the media critics, like Weisberg, are liberal columnists. National Review Editor Rich Lowry, another New Yorker, says commentators on the right have more than offset the criticism. "Most of the conservatives who are enthusiastic about Giuliani live east of the Hudson River, and they love what he did in the city because they saw it up close," he says. "It's accounted for a lot of his conservative buzz."
The Big Apple critics generally credit Giuliani with cracking down on crime and rallying the city after 9/11. But they cite plenty of unflattering incidents, from Giuliani's public war against his second wife, Donna Hanover, during their divorce to his close relationship with his former top cop, Bernard Kerik, who was eventually convicted of taking $165,000 in gifts from a company seeking city business.
  Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani has fervent detractors in the city's press corps. (By Nikki Kahn -- The Washington Post) |
The journalistic detractors also say Giuliani drove out an earlier police commissioner, William Bratton, after he was hailed as a crimebuster on the cover of Time. Giuliani even went to court to stop New York Magazine from touting itself in bus ads as "possibly the only good thing in New York Rudy hasn't taken credit for."
There is a sense of disbelief among some writers and columnists that their Rudy -- a man of great strengths and equally great flaws -- could become president. The New York Magazine headline reads: "Him?"
Thanks to the all-important polls, the conventional wisdom -- that Giuliani's candidacy would fade once conservative voters realized that he supports abortion rights, gay rights and gun control -- seems less certain. And that means the country will be getting an earful from New York journalists who have plenty to say about America's Mayor.
Surprise Trip
After a secret trip that was weeks in the making, Brian Williams has become the first broadcast network anchor to visit Iraq since Bob Woodruff was wounded there 13 months ago.
"This is something he wanted to do," NBC News President Steve Capus said yesterday. "He felt very strongly that he wanted to go." While he is apprehensive about the trip, Capus said, he takes comfort from the fact that Williams is "not a cowboy."
"We absolutely thought about it and didn't make a flip, snap decision," Capus said, adding: "You don't make a decision like this based on ratings."
In a posting on his blog from Baghdad, where he will be anchoring this week, Williams wrote: "It is the story of our time, it dominates our news coverage night after night, and as a journalist I believe it's important to see and touch this story first-hand . . . I'd be lying to say that the wounds suffered by my friends Bob Woodruff and Kimberly Dozier didn't weigh heavily on my mind."
Apple of Their Eye
A new video on Apple's Web site features interviews with top executives of washingtonpost.com, who talk about their work -- and their fondness for Macs.
"We've been able to do laptop editing in the field with Apple products," says Tom Kennedy. "Our team has been using Apple for a long time. . . . It's just second nature," says Rob Curley.
