Rudy, we hardly knew ye, or, maybe we know you too much

February, 1978. Massachusetts is buried under snow that was delivered during a Winter hurricane. All week on TV a man in a sweater is talking to cameras and updating the citizenry and saving them. Or so it was claimed by a supine media and the legions of hacks that served him. There has never been a storm like that and everyone who lived through it prays fervently that it never happens again and fear is so embedded still that if anyone sees a flake in February, the groceries are cleaned out so the populace can face life without despair.

The TV savior was Michael Stanley Dukakis, the only Hellene who could bring gloom to a big, fat Greek Wedding. The problem with his performance was the people didn't really buy it. He was ushered into the political wilderness for a term after he was defeated by another democrat at the next election.

So, come 2001 and another pol takes the helm at a disaster and gets the people through the emergency. The problem is there is no baseline to measure performance. People ramming planes into skyscrapers has happened only once and so we can't say Rudy did a good job compared to all the other mayors who have had to so cope. Anyway, has anyone ever analyzed all those decisions he made on 9-11. Maybe he is superior to sliced bread, but how do we know?

What we do know is not all that great. He was big into witch hunting Wall Street as that is always good copy. He made two innocents,Richard Wigton and Timothy Tabor, do the perp walk. After ruining them, he had to drop the charges two years later.

Give him credit, he hired Bill Bratton to put in place an intelligent policing strategy. Of course, too many people gave credit where credit was due and Bratton had to be fired.

It is not all horrible. There is at least one reason to vote for him. He probably looks better than Hillary in a dress.