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Malone
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Malone Returns

In 2001 I took the summer off from writing for this space and then, as I was about to resume, September 11 happened. My final piece before that was a tribute to Giuliani, and I had let that column sit here all the time since, a reminder of what Rudy had accomplished for the largest and most important city in the United States well before he led it through its greatest ordeal.

Why haven't I written anything new here since September 11? I don't have a good answer for that. Maybe a change took place in me that I couldn't fit into this kind of writing. Maybe I thought that I should just keep my mouth shut and pay attention.

Giuliani is in the private sector now and his successor, Michael Bloomberg, has used up his "at least he's not Mark Green" margin. Should it not worry us that it took 50 years to find a man like Giuliani to lead the city, only to fail to find a worthy replacement?

But there was one guy standing after the terror attack who looked as though he had the right stuff. I still haven't heard his name mentioned as a future candidate for mayor. Bernard Kerik was Giuliani's last and arguably his best police commissioner. A man who performed as well as Kerik did in the September 11 aftermath - and who earlier on as corrections commissioner cleaned up the disgraceful conditions at the city's Riker's Island prison complex - has the fortitude to pick up where Giuliani left off. I don't believe that Bloomberg has shown that he does. Here's to Kerik in '05.

Bloomberg is reassuring in at least one way - he gives credence to the wonderful notion that just about anyone can become a billionaire in America. On the other hand, he doesn't seem to understand the beast he is riding now. Let us send him our prayers.

On the national scene, George W. Bush continues to provide moral clarity and steady leadership in the war on terror. He has proved adept at defining the field of action, calling evil by its name, and keeping the jackals in the other party spinning in circles. Also impressive was how he turned the tables on the United Nations, putting to it the question of whether it even desired real credibility on the question of Iraq, against which it has repeatedly passed stern and enforceable resolutions and from which it has repeatedly backed down.

Less encouraging is the continuing political viability of the Clintons, with Hillary Clinton now topping polls among Democrats as the favorite for their presidential nomination. She and her husband are America's never ending summer cold, the swollen sinuses of moral confusion and clouded judgment. They are the greatest sappers of vitality and the deadliest of liars afoot in an age of outstanding sappers and deadly liars. Let's not dwell on them right now.

Finally, as Yogi Berra would put it, last month it got late early for Trent Lott. He put his foot in his mouth. Had Lott been a Democrat this would have inspired yawns. As a Republican, however, he was swept away in a firestorm of indignation fueled by Republicans, who rushed in to do the job before the racial arsonists had even filled their gasoline cans. It was a hell of a way to get rid of a colleague they didn't really like all that much. For my part, I don't think that Lott, even in the deepest recesses of his mind, was giving a hooded wink to antique segregationist sentiments when he said that old Strom should have won the '48 presidential election. I think that he just truly loved the old man and wanted to say the kindest thing possible about him on his 100th birthday. That'll teach him.

© Union Square Journal 2003

Previously by Malone...

Back in the Shadows Again? (05/15/01)

All the Depth of a Roosevelt Dime (05/09/01)

Like Being Lakeside in the Adirondacks (05/08/01)

Get Off Him (04/04/01)

They Ran the White House Like a Chop Shop (02/28/01)

Hannibal: The Silence of the Critics (02/16/01)

Reagan's Two Terrible Mistakes (02/06/01)

The Return of the Hero (01/19/01)

The Hero of Chappaquiddick (01/11/01)

Real Millennium Strange (01/03/01)

Smoke 'em if you got 'em (12/21/00)

Union Square Station (12/11/00)

Union Square Station (12/3 back to 11/24/00)