Let me start by picking a friendly fight with Jacob. Without question, Giuliani had a bravura two weeks–he even won over Hillary Clinton! I myself was directly inspired by him. His decision to participate in a wedding just after the attacks helped convince me to fly to California for a wedding of two dear friends (Mazel tov, Si and Kenji!), a choice I’m very glad I made. Once there, I effused about Rudy on the wedding video.
But by now exploring how to hold onto power, Giuliani has reminded me of everything I dislike about him: his association of his own preferences with the common good; his obvious delight in exercising authority; his arrogance. He’s always struck me as contemptuous of democracy–a trait that this potential power-grab underscores. To be sure, his take-charge zeal has boosted New York City immeasurably in the last two weeks. But it won’t be so nifty once things return to normal, as they soon will. Josh: I guess by now you can see I didn’t vote for him.
Jacob, like you, I oppose term limits. But unlike you, I think it would be a mistake to repeal them effective immediately. For one thing, everyone in New York remains in a state of heightened anxiety, a few steps shy of war hysteria. That seems to me the least advisable time to rewrite the election laws. We need continuity, yes, but continuity of the democratic rules we established during calmer times, continuity of the system, not of an individual. That’s a cult of personality.
Second, there’s a principle in law under which changes to the system must only kick in for future, not current, beneficiaries. When Bill Clinton enacted a presidential salary hike, from $200,000 to $400,000, the law prevented him from profiting from it. The principle behind that law should apply here too. We should be as cautious in doling out power as we are in doling out money.
Let’s wait a year. If New Yorkers miss Giuliani so much that they realize the folly of having swallowed Ron Lauder’s term-limits nonsense in 1993, we’ll repeal the limits in ‘02 and let Rudy run in ‘05. Meanwhile, let’s watch Mark Green and Freddy Ferrer compete for the Rudy bloc by telling voters how they’ll deploy his obvious talents. Maybe put him in charge of the commission to reconstruct Lower Manhattan?
A word on Geraldine’s Saudi Arabia posting. I trust your knowledge, Geraldine, and I believe you’re right in pointing to Saudi Arabia as a key source of this new terrorism–both a source of money, and (paradoxically?) a source of grievances. But I ask the group: Are we better of with the Saudis as fair-weather friends or as sworn enemies? I choose the former. For now, bombing Riyadh (a facetious suggestion, I know) is out of bounds. I do think, however, that we should make the Saudis give us use of their military bases. As a friend of mine notes, without our help they’d be speaking Arabic with an Iraqi accent.
Which brings us back to Israel. Mickey, forgive me: I’m going to pig-pile on here. I just don’t see how an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty could conceivably decrease the threat of the sort of terrorism we’ve just witnessed. Among the Palestinians, the suicide terrorists (Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc.) are the ones who reject Arafat’s conciliatory path. It won’t be enough to create a Palestinian state; they’ll insist on eliminating Israel entirely. Bin Laden and company also want to see Israel annihilated, I suspect.
The hatred that fuels this new terrorism is so deep that a Palestinian state can’t possibly appease it. Israel would have to be eliminated. “Moderate” regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and elsewhere would have to be toppled too. Compared to that, an invasion of Afghanistan looks downright modest.
Mickey Kaus responds to this post here.
