Wonder why Giuliani still leads the Republican Pack? Because of journalists like Jill Lawrence of USA Today. Memeorandum led me to her article on Rudi, and it is a god awful piece of work.
She quotes the two term mayor as saying "Nobody held office as long as I did..." without comment. In fact, Rudi served from 1994 -2002. Eight Years. Ed Koch served from 1978 to 1990. Twelve Years. Robert Wagner:Twelve Years. Rudi's favorite mayor, his personal "hero"; Fiorello LaGuardia: Twelve Years. The guy talks crap and the "journalist" takes notes. She fails to question many false assertions of Rudi's in the article - this is merely the most glaring.
To be fair to Rudi, when he was Mayor there was a term limit law in New York, which prevented him from running for a third term. But when he says "Nobody held office as long as I did" he's far from the truth. (Unless of course he meant to imply that he served too long, cause then he's completely correct.)
To be fair to Jill Lawrence, she does throw a couple of subtle zingers. She mentions that he posed for a photo with a questioner's daughter just after he refused to answer the parent's query about his own family. Lawrence writes that he was "a combative mayor who...forced out the police commissioner who held clash the city's crime rate", but fails to mention that he eventually replaced the commissioner with his former driver, a mobbed up guy named Bernard Kerik.
As I strive for fairness, I have to say that Ms. Lawrence is not the only writer who seems intimidated by Rudi. He is an expert at punishing reporters who write less than favorable reviews of his performances. He prefers to appear on FOX, where he generally received only softballs. But at some point the press has got to stop playing by Rovian rules, where they lose access if they criticize. It is now, in the early primary season, that the media has a modicum of power. Let Rudi refuse to talk to reporters from what passes for our mainstream media, and see if it helps him get elected. After the election, the press needs the candidate as much as he needs them, but at this point, they can afford to do a decent job.
P.S. A contributing factor to the problem might be what seems to be the media's tendency to virtually "embed" a particular reporter in a particular campaign. Whether or not that reporter has good access is a determinative factor in his or her career trajectory. Possibly, rotating assignments more often would help. But with today's shrinking pools of reporters, maybe this just isn't possible.
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