Giuliani's Hairsplitting

HH: Second topic from the debate, Scooter Libby. I believe you said he should be pardoned, and then you got cut off again. And I…you’re a prosecutor…

RG: No, I didn’t say that.

Rudy Giuliani is correct. He did not say, "Scooter Libby should be pardoned."

He said that "the sentence was way out of line," "the sentence was grossly excessive," "what the judge did today argues more in favor of a pardon," "this is excessive punishment," and -- drumroll, please -- "ultimately, there was no underlying crime involved."

Let's recap: Rudy Giuliani wouldn't pardon a man who he acknowledges got a disproportionate sentence for something which isn't even a crime.

For most New Yorkers, this attitude will be familiar. Most of us of voting age remember Rudy's brand of law 'n' order. Patrick Dorismond, among many others, received "excessive punishment" for the crime of, well, crossing paths with Giuliani's corrupt, racist NYPD:

Giuliani's lowest moment as Mayor came in March 2000, when the unarmed Patrick Dorismond was shot and killed by undercover narcotics police in midtown Manhattan. Dorismond, 26 and black, an off-duty security guard, was standing outside a bar when a plainclothes cop, part of a narcotics detail patrolling the area, tried to buy crack from him. "What are you doing asking me for that shit?" Dorismond asked.

A fight developed, and one of the cops killed him. The shooting came just three weeks after a jury had acquitted four white police officers in the death of another unarmed black man--Amadou Diallo--who was shot forty-one times on his Bronx doorstep. The cops claimed they had mistaken his wallet for a gun. So Dorismond's shooting occurred in an atmosphere of tinderbox racial tension.

At first Giuliani called for calm, asking the city to withhold judgment until all the facts were established. But the next morning he ignored his own counsel and started demonizing the dead man. Instead of trying to be fair-minded and reassuring, Giuliani made a series of prejudicial and venomous remarks about Dorismond--even before his funeral. The Mayor seemed unable to express any human sympathy for the dead man's mother, or to grasp the fact that this was a citizen of his city who was killed--by police--for saying no to drugs.

It's worth remembering what a vile piece of shit Giuliani -- the GOP front runner -- really is. America's heartland may not believe this, but Rudy was categorically subhuman well before he publicly exploited the deaths of untold numbers of Americans for exorbitant speaking fees and a fat book advance.