| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Freedom Fighter" |
| Date: |
11 Nov 2007 11:06:16 AM |
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GIULIANI'S PERVERSE LOYALTIES |
Rudy and Bernie: B.F.F.'s
NY Times November 10, 2007
By GAIL COLLINS Op-Ed Columnist
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/10/opinion/10collins.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin
The past seven years have given us some helpful hints on what we want
to avoid in the next president. I'm starting to make a list.
Quality to avoid No. 1: Loyalty.
Whenever you read that a candidate "values loyalty above all else" -
run for the hills. Loyalty is a terribly important consideration if
you're choosing a pet, but not a cabinet member.
How about if this time we try for a president who would recruit gifted
people who can accomplish great things, as opposed to a room full of
dopes who will never write tell-all memoirs?
Loyalty is on our mind today because of the indictment of Bernard
Kerik, the really, really loyal former New York City police
commissioner. Rudy Giuliani, who was entirely responsible for Kerik's
meteoric rise from mayoral chauffeur, has not seemed to draw any great
lessons from his protégé's spectacular fall. Giuliani did say that he
made a "mistake in not clearing him effectively enough," which sounds
as if he is kicking himself for not sending a second squad of
detectives out to interview Kerik's neighbors. In fact, the lapse in
the "clearing" procedure involved Giuliani ignoring the city
investigations commissioner when he arrived with the news that Kerik
was involved with a company suspected of having ties to organized
crime.
Giuliani claims not to remember this moment in the vetting process,
which seems sort of strange for a guy who made his career prosecuting
the mafia and those-who-had-ties. The former mayor does, however, have
a bad memory. We know this because he obtained an annulment of his
14-year-long first marriage on the grounds that he had forgotten that
his wife was his second cousin.
On the terrible day of Sept. 11, 2001, Kerik was with the mayor as
Giuliani left the disaster at ground zero, searching for a telephone
to contact the outside world. Also loyally at the mayor's side were
three deputy mayors, the fire commissioner and the head of the Office
of Emergency Management. They all walked north, in a little
command-clump, intent on the central mission of protecting their main
man. You would have thought, really, that the protecting job could
have been done by youthful aides while the alleged leaders tended to
the fire, emergency and police problems downtown.
But if anybody had stayed behind, focusing on the wider city rather
than the man who had plucked them all out of obscurity and given them
everything they had, how would he know they were loyal? The ties
forged in that clump of commanders catapulted them into extremely
well-paying jobs in the firm of Giuliani Partners and convinced the
mayor to propose Bernard Kerik as the next chief of the Department of
Homeland Security, a position for which he was approximately as well
qualified as I am to be quarterback for the New England Patriots.
Giuliani had a great police commissioner, Bill Bratton, during his
first term when all the critical crime-fighting apparatus for which
the administration became so famous was put into place. But Bratton
was not particularly loyal, in the sense that he did his job well,
then enjoyed taking credit for it himself. And so he was gone.
There is an entire chapter in Rudy Giuliani's famous book "Leadership"
that is titled "Loyalty, the Vital Virtue." In it, he pats himself on
the back for making a man named Robert Harding the city's budget
director even though he knew the ever-feckless news media would point
out that Harding's father, Ray, was the chairman of the city's Liberal
Party, whose endorsement had done a great deal to get Giuliani elected
mayor. "I wasn't going to choose a lesser candidate simply to quiet
the critics," he said.
For some mysterious reason, the book skips over a much better loyalty
lesson involving the very same family. Giuliani demonstrated his
loyalty to Ray Harding, giver of the Liberal Party endorsement, not
only by giving his qualified son a good job, but also by turning over
the New York City Housing Development Corporation to another son,
Russell, who wound up embezzling more than $400,000 for vacations,
gifts and parties. We will not even go into the pornography part,
except to point out in his defense that of the 15,000 sexually
explicit images found on his computer, only a few were of children.
The Giuliani version of loyalty, which bears a terrifying resemblance
to the George W. Bush brand of loyalty, is entirely about
self-protection. An administration safe beneath the loyalty cone does
not have to worry much about leaks to the press, or even
whistle-blowing.
People can screw up, or fail to achieve their missions, knowing the
guy at the top will protect them as long as they put his well-being
ahead of anything else. When disaster strikes, the whole world may be
falling apart, but they will all be clumped together, walking north.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's another example of Giuliani's irrational "loyalty," this one perverse
in the truest sense:
Rudy Giuliani and Alan Placa: "Mayor Morality" and the PEDOPHILE PRIESTS
References:
http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/03/rudy_giuliani_w.html
http://www.townhall.com/blog/g/432306c2-20b7-4fb5-bb5a-008d54eaf343
http://trustme.com/story.php?title=Rudy-Giuliani--pedo-priest
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/
http://littlemissattila.mu.nu/archives/giuliani_in_drag.jpg
http://bottleofblog.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/guilianidrag.jpg
With the above references you can read in depth about priestly pedophilia
and its ties to a rather hypocritical Presidential candidate. Giuliani's
close association with and promotion of criminal cop Kerik is a better known
issue, as are his adultery and family estrangements, but these are less
deeply indicative of Giuliani's moral bankruptcy than his relatively unknown
Placa connection.
Alan Placa and Rudy Giuliani were high school buddies, and they remained
close friends through College. Post-college, Placa went to the Seminary, and
Giuliani to law school. After he was ordained, Placa attended law school
too. Eventually he became a Monsignor in the Diocese of Rockville Center on
Long Island, and Giuliani went to Washington in Reagan's Department of
Justice. When Giuliani wanted an annulment of his first marriage - to a 2nd
cousin, a union normally frowned upon by the Catholic Church, Placa did the
job - after being best man at their wedding!
Monsignor Placa got into considerable trouble in the late 1990s when accused
of sexually abusing two minors that could not sue him or the Diocese because
the five-year statute of limitations was long past. When the story broke
Monsignor Placa came up in several parts of it. While serving on Long Island
he had developed a legal strategy for dealing with sex abuse complaints.
This involved having an "intervention team" meet with family members and the
abused, without revealing that Placa was indeed the Diocese lawyer on such
matters. Placa took great pride that in cases that if litigated might cost
the Diocese millions, he could frequently manipulate the situation and get
them off for a few thousand. Of course the Monsignor was flying a false
flag - he was not a spiritual counsel, he was the Bishop's lawyer. He
traveled the country teaching Bishops this evasion technique, with about 200
successful cases outside his own Diocese.
In the 1980s, the preferred method of dealing with Priestly Pedophilia was
to send the black-collared child molesters off for "therapy." There were
several institutions available, one being a huge fraud called the House of
Affirmation run by a Father Thomas A. Kane. Kane lied about his degrees in
psychology, but that was only found out later. In the meantime he acquired
lots of high-grade real estate, and when he was about to go under, he
transferred to Placa titles for property in Massachusetts and Florida, among
other assets. The transfers were not discovered for years.
When this story was all over the papers in 2002, Suffolk County Long Island
had a Grand Jury review the situation with the Rockville Center Diocese, and
while they could not charge Placa because of the statute of limitations,
they issued a report about his "intervention team" manipulating victims and
their families, and the allegations of his abuse of two teens. As a result
Monsignor Placa was suspended from the priesthood and essentially defrocked.
He was allowed to say one public Mass however - at Giuliani's Mother's
funeral, causing the event to be picketed by sex abuse victims! When the
Grand Jury was trying to serve Placa with a subpoena, Giuliani hid him until
the term was out - a probable obstruction of justice by former U.S. Attorney
Giuliani.
Placa is today an extremely close Giuliani friend and associate, despite
being credibly accused of sexual molestation and, perhaps worse, using the
system to cover up his and other abuse cases. The story goes back to a 2002
Newsday article about a January 1975 day when a teenager, Richard Tollner,
volunteered to help make banners for the annual Right to Life march in
Washington. According to the story, the student claims Monsignor Placa
pulled out some posters in the deserted administrative area as if to show
him something, and then began fondling him - all the while making
conversation about the posters.
Tollner said the incidents were repeated every month or so for the next year
and a half. "It was always groping," he said. "He'd draw his hand
deliberately to the inside of my thigh, and over my penis. It would go on
for four or five minutes, sometimes as long as ten."
Placa denies any wrongdoing and has never been formally charged with a
crime. But it is also true that the Diocese of Rockville Center has removed
him from wearing the collar and performing official duties.
"There's ample evidence showing that Placa consistently protected predators,
shrewdly deceived victims, and covered up horrific clergy sex crimes," said
a statement from David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network
of those Abused by Priests. SNAP also contends that Placa abused children.
It should also be noted that a Grand Jury report paints a devastating
picture of sexual deviancy and criminality in his Rockville Center Diocese.
According to the National Catholic Reporter:
"The report documents allegations of the rape of cheerleaders and altar
boys, of acts of molestation and seductions in churches, rectories, on
camping trips, and in the homes of the minors who were abused. It tells of
instances in which priests provided minors with pornography and alcohol, and
of cases in which the Diocese received allegations but didn't report them to
the police, but instead transferred the accused priests to other parishes."
In the Suffolk County Supreme Court Grand Jury report, Placa, by his own
admission, is referred to as "Priest F," a priest who engaged in pedophilia.
Even after the grand jury testimony, Giuliani stood by him. In another 2003
New York Times article, Placa described the zero-tolerance sex abuse policy
on priests as "immoral and unchristian." Apparently, in Placa's mind, Christ
condoned such perversions. Judging by his loyalty and support, Presidential
candidate Giuliani, proven transvestite and adulterer, does likewise.
Additionally, the 2002 Newsday story included a quote from Kevin Waldron, a
fellow high school friend who corroborates sex abuse victim Tollner's story,
saying Tollner told him of the events after they happened. The Newsday story
goes on to report:
"A second former student, who asked that his name be withheld, said he
described to Suffolk prosecutors what he called 'the newspaper drill.' 'He
(Placa) always had a New York Times in his office. And he'd sit down next to
you on the couch and open it wide and, inevitably, his hand would brush your
crotch.' 'He did it over and over again, I can't tell you how many times.'
That man said he felt so violated that he wrote Placa an unsigned letter 20
years later, blaming him for his loss of interest in pursuing the
priesthood."
Despite all these allegations, Giuliani hired Placa right after all this
went down, and based on news reports and a call to the Giuliani Partners
office, he remains with him today. And as the New York Times reported in
2002, even amid these strong allegations Giuliani jumped to Placa's defense
saying: "He's one of the people I admire most in the world, and if most
people did half the good that Alan's done, the world would be a wonderful
place." Yes, in Giuliani's world, and in America under his Presidency, child
molesters would run free to prey upon minors, they would protect each other
through religious organizations, and criminals would head police departments
and the Department of Homeland Security. And thus, under Giuliani's rule,
"the world would be a wonderful place."
Every bit of this has been reported over the years in Newsday, the NY Times,
and in books by Jason Berry. You can find the articles, as well as the Grand
Jury report, archived at www.bishop-accountability.org/. The Times
front-paged it when Giuliani hired Placa for his consulting firm.
So why did Giuliani defend and hire the unsavory Alan Placa? Is this his
version of Affirmative Action? We know he recommended his buddy, criminal
cop Kerik, to George W. Bush for heading up Homeland Security. And two-faced
Giuliani, the closet neo-con, is now flip-flopping on the abortion issue,
among others. He tries to curry favor with pro-choice advocates but as
President would probably sabotage women's rights through judicial appointees
that would overturn Roe vs. Wade. If Giuliani is elected we could well see
pedophile priest-lawyers that oppose abortion on "moral grounds" sitting on
the Supreme Court!
And why the lack of media attention to all this today? Suppose John Edwards,
Barack Obama, or Hillary Clinton had given a cozy sinecure to a defrocked
priest credibly accused of pedophilia. What would occur? I'll tell you
what - every newspaper reader, every radio listener, and every television
news watcher in America would be discussing the matter the very next day.
But I'll bet you're learning for the first time right here about Giuliani's
de facto defense of child abuse and staunch support of his probable
pedophile priestly pal.
Aside from his moral issues, do we want a President of the United States
whose definition of freedom is:
" - FREEDOM IS NOT A CONCEPT IN WHICH PEOPLE CAN DO ANYTHING
THEY WANT, BE ANYTHING THEY CAN BE. FREEDOM IS ABOUT AUTHORITY.
FREEDOM IS ABOUT THE WILLINGNESS OF EVERY SINGLE HUMAN BEING
TO CEDE TO LAWFUL AUTHORITY A GREAT DEAL OF DISCRETION ABOUT
WHAT YOU DO AND HOW YOU DO IT."
- Mayor Giuliani, quoted in the New York Times, March 17, 1994.
------------------------------
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/10/opinion/10sat1.html?ref=opinion
NY Times November 10, 2007
Editorial
Indicting Mr. Kerik
Bernard Kerik's indictment on fraud and corruption charges is
disturbing on its own, but it also raises broader issues. It is
sobering to think how close Mr. Kerik came to becoming secretary of
the Homeland Security Department, and it is also troubling that
Rudolph Giuliani, a leading candidate for president, has been so close
to him for so long, as a friend, boss and business partner.
Because of Mr. Giuliani's role in Mr. Kerik's life, the nation has a
compelling interest in learning more about the former police chief's
misdeeds.
Mr. Kerik has been accused of accepting renovations to his Bronx
apartment from a company that was suspected of having ties to
organized crime and was seeking a license from the city. He allegedly
used his office to help the company obtain the license. Mr. Kerik also
has been accused of hiding the renovation income on his tax returns,
along with more than $200,000 in rent payments on an Upper East Side
apartment that a developer allegedly paid on his behalf.
It is always a sad day, as United States Attorney Michael J. Garcia
noted, when a law enforcement official is accused of breaking the law.
That is especially true when the official was New York's top jailer,
the head of the nation's largest police department, and nearly became
the chief of a 180,000-member federal department charged with keeping
America safe.
Mr. Kerik must be presumed innocent. But he has already pleaded guilty
to state charges arising out of the home renovations. After he did,
Mayor Michael Bloomberg stripped his name from a Manhattan jail that
had been named for him. Even those charges were not Mr. Kerik's first
brush with the law. He was fined by the city for sending police
officers to do research on a book he was writing. His associates have
also had more than their share of troubles. When he was correction
commissioner, one of Mr. Kerik's top deputies was convicted of taking
$142,000 from a charity he managed and another was convicted of using
department staff to work on Republican political campaigns.
Yesterday's indictment and Mr. Kerik's whole troubled record raise
questions about Mr. Giuliani's judgment. The men have an
extraordinarily close bond. Mr. Giuliani plucked Mr. Kerik from
obscurity to make him correction commissioner. He made him police
commissioner even though he may have been briefed about Mr. Kerik's
ties to the company suspected of links to organized crime. Mr.
Giuliani also made him a partner in his security business and promoted
him for the Homeland Security Department post.
As recently as this week, Mr. Giuliani made the remarkable statement
that any mistakes Mr. Kerik made were outweighed by his success in
fighting crime - presumably not including the crimes Mr. Kerik himself
was committing. Mr. Giuliani has since spoken more critically of him,
but the public is entitled to know more.
Two important questions are precisely what are the mistakes the former
mayor thinks he made in trusting Mr. Kerik, and how can voters be sure
that he would not make them again as president, when the stakes for a
disastrous appointment would be so much higher.
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