A Mighty Tree Down, Another Still Growing

February 4, 2008

A mighty tree has toppled. Rudy Giuliani — the NYPD’s de facto commissioner from 1994-2001 — has fallen in his bid for the presidency.

The reasons are many, from his faulty political strategy to the lack of resonance in his anti-terrorism message as “America’s Mayor” following his leadership after 9/11.

Don’t forget his personal baggage — his two divorces, his children who don’t speak to him, and his laughable claim that, as he wrote in his best-selling book “Leadership,” he appointed leaders.

Oh, who would that be? Bernie Kerik, on trial for income tax evasion? Kerik’s predecessor and former fire commissioner Howard Safir who, so far as this reporter can remember, did not attend one funeral of a police officer or fire fighter who died in 9/11.

The true leader he did select, he fired; then with Safir, spent the next six years bad-mouthing. Remember Safir’s calling him “some airport cop from Boston?” That, of course, was Bill Bratton, who reformed the police department’s reactive culture and won the fight against crime. Rudy and Safir tried to say that the genius who deserved the credit was not Bratton but his top aide, Jack Maple. They deliberately ignored the fact that, without Bratton, there would have been no Maple.

The Times beat Rudy up pretty good during the campaign, in the last days, citing his spite and meanness in releasing the criminal records of whistle-blower James Schillaci and shooting victim Patrick Dorismond.

But they failed to cite his successes, which every New Yorker must respect and remember. Bratton may have changed the NYPD, but Giuliani changed New York City. We all take it for granted now, forgetting what the city was like before Rudy arrived, with 2,000 murders a year and people afraid to go out at night. Rudy stopped that.

Let’s not write him off just yet. Should John McCain win the Republican nomination, there’s a chance — admittedly slight — that Rudy may resurface as his running mate. There’s also the future governorship and even, coming up in 2009, a vacancy at his old job.

Now let’s turn to the city’s current version of Giuliani — police commissioner Ray Kelly, who harbors his own mayoral ambitions. He, too, has his problems.

There’s a growing steroid scandal in Brooklyn. Last week, the pharmacist who supplied the drugs to cops and others committed suicide.

The crime lab is in turmoil. [Typical Kelly solution: bring in an outside consultant.]