Rudolph Giuliani: Public Enemy Number One

Five days before Christmas, a horrific crime occurs.  Two New York City police officers are murdered by a deranged madman with a gun.

Those who have protested excessive use of force by police, including media commentators, ask that the victims on both sides of the badge be remembered and honored.

But that's not what happens.

The advocates of excessive force see this as an opportunity to turn the tide of public opinion in their favor.  And show signs of succeeding.  They are aided and abetted by their allies in the media, who resort to manufacturing stories to advance their "cause."

The result?  Even though the mayor, Bill de Blasio, is invited to speak at one of the officer's funerals by the officer's family, the officer's colleagues turn their backs on their boss.  The boss who was elected by the people they are sworn to protect.

However much those officers may have intended their "gesture" as a sign of respect for their fallen comrade, I doubt that most of those watching saw it that way.  I did not.  I saw it as a sign of contempt for the process and the people they are meant to serve.  At the very least, it is a sign of contempt for the family of the deceased, if not for the Mayor and those of us who support him.  Especially on the issue of police tactics, and their potential for misuse.

At a time when sanity is needed more than ever in this country, and especially in its greatest city, we appear to have precious little of it.  I certainly don't expect any from PBA president Patrick Lynch, who has a well-documented history of self-serving insanity.  But every resident of New York City (and I speak as a former resident) has the right to expect the city's Mayor, the person elected by all of the city's citizens, to bring the city together at a time when some seek to divide it against itself.  That obligation applies no less to those who have formerly held the office.

But one of those former office-holders, Rudolph Giuliani, doesn't see it that way.  He has chosen this moment to attack his successor in the most vile, dishonest way possible.  The man whose law-enforcement policies included sodomy, the pillar of virtue who loves marriage so much that he's tried it three times, has joined Lynch in turning this tragedy into a blood-on-your-hands attack on his political enemies.

What about de Blasio offends Giuliani in particular?  The fact that, prior to the officers' death, the mayor had talked about instructing his biracial son to be careful in his dealings with the police.  As if de Blasio had no reason to do so.  As if tragedies such as Eric Garner's were not reason enough.  As if the reasons for such instructions do not pile up on almost a daily basis.

If Rudolph Giuliani truly loved New York as much as he says he does, he could and should have worked behind the scenes with de Blasio to defuse tensions between African-Americans and the police.  I suspect that de Blasio would have welcomed such help.  It's not as if he's insensitive to the divide that has grown deeper in the wake of the officers' deaths.  He requested the protesters of Garner's death to suspend their activities until after the officers' funerals, which could have been a first step toward a healing process.

But, if you're "America's Mayor," and a well-known publicity moth madly in love with the media flame, who go behind the scenes?  You've got a security business to run, and what better opportunity to burnish your tough-guy-for-profit credentials than the deaths of two police officers.  That matters more than the city you supposedly love so much, especially now that Republican primary voters have shown that they'll never elect you as president.

I don't want this crisis to reach the point at which de Blasio has to consider doing something like this.  So I've got a much better idea.  Let's make Giuliani our new Public Enemy Number One.  No, I'm not talking about giving him a martyr's death.  I'm not advocating more violence, or even more confrontation.  I'm advocating exactly the opposite.

Shun him.  Don't give him air time.  Don't give him a public forum of any sort.  Boycott the man in every conceivable way.  Don't do business with him.  Don't allow him to do business with you.  And, should you have the misfortune to encounter him personally, turn your back.  Remind him of what it truly feels like to be powerless.  And then maybe, just maybe, he'll begin to understand that the police are not the only victims here.

One more thing.  Let me go back to the beginning and remind you that these two officers were murdered by a deranged madman with a gun.

Why do deranged madmen in this country have such easy access to guns?  And which side of the political divide promotes that access?  I'll say this much for now:  it isn't the side that Lynch and Giuliani thinks has blood on its hands.