How Growing Up in a Family of Cops and Hoods Shaped Rudy Giuliani's Moral Universe

25 Nov 2007 18:17 Africa/Lagos


NEWSWEEK: Cover: Rudy's Roots

How Growing Up in a Family of Cops and Hoods Shaped Giuliani's Moral Universe

NEW YORK, Nov. 25 /PRNewswire/ --

In the December 3 Newsweek cover "Rudy's Roots" (on newsstands Monday, November 26), a team of correspondents look at presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani's background and influences that explain his moral code, which is at once rigid (in public) and flexible (in private life).


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As Editor-at-Large Evan Thomas and Senior Writer Suzanne Smalley write, on the one hand, Giuliani has been a crusader against outlaw policemen, as well as mobsters, pornographers, drug dealers, crooked businessmen and politicians and death-dealing jihadists. He now offers himself as the presidential candidate who would deliver us from evil, from terrorism abroad and corruption at home. On the other hand, he was the man who appointed Bernard Kerik, now under indictment for various federal crimes, including tax evasion, to be his police commissioner and later pushed him to become the nation's secretary of homeland security. (Persistently accused of ties to mobbed-up businessmen, Kerik has always protested his innocence of any criminal wrongdoing.)


Giuliani is a dramatic-and self-dramatizing-moralist. But as an intelligent, sensitive man with a solid Catholic education, he knows there is sometimes a fine or blurry line between saint and sinner. He was able to reconcile the rigidities of doctrine with the vagaries of human nature. He has long believed in the power of redemption, and he puts great faith in the virtue of loyalty. He does not shy from confrontation, but seems to welcome and even create conflict, especially if there are cameras nearby. His theatricality can be excessive, and not just because he has been known to dress up in drag as a spoof.


(Read cover story at www.Newsweek.com)


http://www.newsweek.com/id/72121


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Source: Newsweek

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http://www.newsweek.com/id/72121




HILIGHTS:
In the December 3 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, November 26): "Rudy's Roots. How Growing Up in a Family of Cops and Hoods Shaped Giuliani's Moral Universe." Newsweek looks at Rudy Giuliani's background and his influences that explain his moral code. Also: Obama hits back; refugees start to return to Iraq; a billionaire roils Palestinian politics; the latest in the Stem Cell debate; "The Golden Compass" and its religious issues and shopping for safe toys this holiday season.