Kevin Baker on Rudolph Giuliani, in Harper's
Kevin Baker's warning, in the current Harper's, about the unsuitability of Rudy Giuliani for the White House, ends with a fairly gratuitous basing of the current administration. That is, it's unnecessary to Mr Baker's essay. At the same time, however, it constitutes a magnificent if brief catalogue raisonné of Bush's crimes against civilization, charged with a stark power that, unimaginably, surpasses everything that one has already read and thought.
The worst excesses of the bush regime have stemmed directly from its leader's character - that is, its rampant cronyism; its arrogance and egotism; its peremptory, bullying tone and methods; its refusal to brook criticism from within or without; its frighteningly authoritarian impulses; its need to create enemies as a means of governing; its impulsiveness and naïveté; its outright contempt for the law; and its truly staggering ability to substitute its own versions of what it wishes the world to be for any recognition of objective reality.
