Giuliani's Critics Point to Cronyism
Appointments While Mayor Are Said to Tarnish His Leadership Credentials

By Alec MacGillis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 24, 2007; Page A03

"Surround Yourself With Great People" was the title of a chapter in
"Leadership," Rudolph W. Giuliani's best-selling celebration of his
management style, but to critics of his performance in two terms as mayor of
New York, it was an admonition he too often ignored.

While some of his original appointments to high-level city jobs were well
regarded, these critics describe a pattern in which capable appointees
either quit or were pushed out, leaving the top levels of the Giuliani
administration increasingly populated by friends and close associates. Some
of the later appointees became shrouded in scandal, including Bernard B.
Kerik, the former police commissioner indicted this month on 16 counts of
corruption, mail and tax fraud, obstruction of justice, and lying to the
government.

"As he became more confident in his ability, he didn't need anything from
others other than to be loyal to him," said Marilyn Gelber, who was ousted
as Giuliani's environment commissioner in 1996. "The management style grew
harder as time went on and as he grew more comfortable with the level of
control he wanted."

Giuliani's close association with Kerik, especially his lobbying of the Bush
administration three years ago to make his former associate the secretary of
homeland security, threatens to undermine one of the central arguments of
his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination: that he is a
superior leader who would bring to the White House high standards and a
level of managerial acumen that many, including Republicans, say is missing
under President Bush.

Giuliani's critics say that while he is justifiably praised for his
leadership in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, his advancement of
Kerik, his former chauffeur, was part of a pattern of rewarding loyalty over
competence in personnel decisions. "It's pretty clear that his judgment on
political appointments was weighted more heavily to cronies and friends than
to quality," said Harold Schaitberger, president of the International
Association of Fire Fighters, which has endorsed Sen. Christopher J. Dodd
(D-Conn.) for president and has turned sharply against Giuliani after
supporting him early in his mayoralty. "Are we going to have a chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff who's a private first class but who happens to be
a friend? Are we going to have a law clerk who becomes attorney general?"

The Giuliani campaign dismisses such criticisms, saying that Giuliani's
judgment as a manager was vindicated by his administration's overall success
in reducing crime and welfare and improving the city's quality of life and
economy.

"You've got to look at the results," said Joe Lhota, a deputy mayor under
Giuliani, speaking for his presidential campaign. "The results are
emblematic of his philosophy and the people he hired to implement that
philosophy."

Hiring political allies for top jobs has a long history in city government,
and Giuliani was hardly the first mayor of New York to bring along loyalists
to be his advisers inside City Hall. What set him apart, observers say, was
the extent to which he also emphasized loyalty in looking for people beyond
those City Hall aides to run city agencies. And, given that he was taking
over after years of Democratic rule, he was faced with a smaller pool of
candidates who were both experienced and politically sympathetic. This
became apparent as time wore on, said ***** Dadey, director of Citizens
Union, a city watchdog group.

"When you start a new administration, you generally draw from a pool of
extremely interested and well-qualified people who are eager to bring
change," Dadey said. "As the first wave starts to move on, those who have
been with you from the beginning and remain loyal to you start to move up,
but they do not necessarily move up because they're the most qualified."

The police department exemplifies the shift. Giuliani hired as his first
commissioner William J. Bratton, who made his reputation leading the Boston
police and New York transit police but was also known for his
self-promotion. After forcing Bratton out in 1996, when they clashed over
claiming credit for the drop in crime, Giuliani passed over several
department veterans and instead turned to his more strait-laced fire
commissioner, Howard Safir, whom he knew from their days pursuing drug
traffickers in the early 1980s. Safir was then with the U.S. Marshals
Service, and Giuliani was with the Justice Department. "Howard and I go back
20 years," Giuliani said in announcing the move.

Safir presided over a continuation of the drop in crime. But he came under
intense criticism after the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man,
for failing to provide adequate oversight of the police unit involved in the
shootings and for his detached response. He also came under scrutiny for,
among other things, taking a corporate jet to the Academy Awards shortly
after the shootings, for assigning eight detectives to his daughter's
wedding, and for sending officers to investigate a woman who rear-ended his
wife's car.

When Safir left four years later, Giuliani pronounced him the "city's
greatest police commissioner." Fred Siegel, the author of a flattering
biography of Giuliani, disagrees, calling the switch from Bratton to Safir
the "worst policy decision" Giuliani made. Safir, Siegel said, lacked the
instincts needed in the city and contributed to the worsening racial
tensions in Giuliani's second term. "This was [Giuliani's] biggest failure,"
said Siegel, "not being big enough to keep Bratton. . . . Many of the
failures [of his second term] flowed from that decision."