Not too long ago, I wrote a short post about Rudy Giuliani, making the case that his toughguy machisimo act was really a rather transparent cover for the truth about him, which is that he’s a big honking nerd. I wrote:
This fact about him—that he’s a nerd—isn’t as obvious as it should be because most Americans … see a guy like Giuliani acting like he thinks he’s a badass and they think, oh, well, he must be a badass, rather than actually looking at him – the chipmunk smile, the combover, the bad taste in clothes – and recognizing that his vindictiveness, his toughguy talk, his weird explosions of immaturity and exhibitionism, and his womanizing are really just what you get when the bitter, resentful, insecure nerd from junior high actually becomes the person he swore to himself that someday he was going to become — the guy who’s able to exert power over everyone else, the guy who’s going to make his enemies pay, the guy who’s going to sleep with the hot women, etc.
Anyway, I’m still convinced that Rudy’s a nerd, and I’m still terribly frightened by his poll numbers, which seem to suggest that he has a decent chance of being elected our next president. So please take a look at the first few minutes of this video, which casts serious doubt not only on his judgement (locating NYC’s emergency response center in WTC 7 instead of somewhere less likely to be bombed because it was close by and therefore more convenient for photo ops) but on his basic ability to tell the truth when confronted with the consequences of his poor judgement.
