A Giuliani fundraiser in Brentwood –plus Rudy as a war winner
Austin Bay blog
A friend of mine got me an invite and Pajamas had me write a report.
Key graf:
Problems are challenges to Giuliani and he offered some insight into how he analyzes those challenges today.
"You must govern in America now from a sense of perspective," Giuliani said. "The president of the United States needs a sense of perspective. The perspective you need is that this is a very very strong country. We're not in terrible, terrible trouble. Gosh, if we're in terrible trouble the world is gone.
"But we are not a country moving in the wrong direction or sliding down hill. The truth is we are the strongest country on earth, the strongest military power without a rival, the strongest economy on earth. The strongest democracy on earth. You have more freedom than anyone has ever had. No one has ever had more freedom than Americans. This is the greatest country in the world and the greatest country the world has ever known. We must be proud of that. We must solve our problems based on our understanding strengths, not our weaknesses."
Rudy discussed the War on Terror (which he calls The Terrorists War Against Us) and health care. He also took a jab at Hillary — a funny jab. Read the article. pajamasmedia.com
Why is "the Mayor" a war winner? I think Rudy Giuliani is the American political leader who can bring the missing media to the great world war for hearts and minds – and in the War on Terror the economic and political dimensions are the determinative dimensions. The Brentwood fundraiser I attended wasn't Hollywood (a local described it as "west LA business with some media and entertainment industry types), but Giuliani is positioned to attract (nudge?) America's Information Age media talent.
Face it– Hollywood has failed to show up for the War on Terror. By "Hollywood" I mean America's information and media industry, the various Disney, Dreamworks and Madison Avenue image makers and story tellers that thrive on America's creative liberty and creative energy. The Bedouin misogynists of Al Qaeda and the motley tinpot tyrants that terrorize Earth's saddest corners have an information warfare edge. By in large global media give the terrorists and tyrants a pass. It's bitterly ironic. Media elites whose careers and lives depend on the defense and expansion of individual liberty hammer America with the harshest criticism, strangely equating American inadequacies with the terrorists' and tyrants' depravities. In a hundred years –as they survey The War on Terror– historians will ask why America's most creative and able communicators at best reluctantly engaged in the global battle against the tribal and oligarchic killers who threatened the great political experiment which gave them the chance to create without fear.
I did meet Dyan Cannon. I played the rube and told Ms. Cannon she was the first Hollywood star I'd ever met—which is reasonably true. I once ran into Jill Clayburgh while jogging in Riverside Park but that's another story. In New York Mick Jagger lived down the street from me but Mick's beyond the mere movie world. So, after my verbal golly-gee, I asked Ms.Cannon and her friend if they supported Rudy for president. Two yeses. Okay, why? The no nonsense answer: Because he's a demonstrated leader and he can handle a crisis.
Rudy led on 9/11. He wasn't cool – who was cool? – but he was collected. He was also connected –connected with the New York cops and firemen on the ground (his direct command) and emotionally connected with the people of New York (the people he served). Americans in Brooklyn saw that, saw that in Boston, saw that in Birmingham, and they saw it in Brentwood as well.
Rudy, unlike George W., can also communicate what that crisis means and why it takes blood, sweat, toil, and tears to meet it and defeat it. Giuliani's brief speech made it clear he intends to fight and win the War on Terror –or to use his nom de guerre, The Terrorists War on US. I like that name. I prefer the Great War for Modernity, for that is what this war is, on a global scale, but the Terrorists War on Us makes it clear that "cut and run" only whets the enemy's murderous appetites.
austinbay.net |
