Rudy Giuliani, Asshole of the Day for December 22, 2014
As Dick Cheney is to torture, Rudy Giuliani is to police brutality. No one has done more to create the problem. And no one is as determined to deny it exists at any cost. No one has done more to create the culture in which the cops New Yorkers hire to protect and serve them are somehow seen as "above the law" than Rudy Giuliani.
Of course, Giuliani's ghoulish, knee-jerk reaction to the execution of two NYPD officers by a deranged gunman in which he blamed everyone from President Obama to Eric Holder to Al Sharpton was, at this point, as predictable as it was disgusting. As anger has risen at the grand jury verdicts in the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases, President Obama has consistently denounced violence as unacceptable (as have other officials, including Mayor de Blasio).
But it's worth reiterating the extent to which Giuliani's playing the "blame game" in a hypocritical, racially biased, politically motivated way. As Kevin Drum pointed out in Mother Jones yesterday, Giuliani's logic would make Sean Hannity responsible for the execution of two cops earlier this year by racist supporter of Cliven Bundy.... Bill O'Reilly responsible for the murder of abortion provider George Tiller... conservative talk radio for inspiring Timothy McVeigh to bomb a federal building in Oklahoma City... and the list goes on.
Rudy Giuliani likes to think he's "America's Mayor." But based on the divisive racial nonsense he keeps spewing, that's about as true as saying Cliven Bundy is "America's Rancher."
Today the AP announced that news editors had voted the police killings of unarmed blacks as the top news story of the year. It's a problem that must be acknowledged, talked about and addressed as Obama, Holder, and Sharpton have been willing to do. It's a problem that people have a right to protest for as long as it takes for change to happen and for justice to be served.
Three weeks ago, Rudy Giuliani was our Asshole of the Day for saying the black community is responsible for the crimes committed by blacks (something he has never suggested the white community is responsible for).
Now, for stepping into a tense situation in such a reckless and inflammatory way, he's once again Asshole of the Day.