What a difference a day makes.

Over the past months, every popularity poll on nationally known politicians and potential 2008 presidential candidates has placed Rudy Giuliani at or close to the top. And he owes this to nothing more than a few photo ops and a great big hole in the ground.

On September 10, 2001, Rudy Giuliani was an extremely unpopular mayor and considered to be one of the most polarizing politicians in the history of New York City. Many New Yorkers saw him as a racist and borderline fascist. In fact, some newspapers, columnists and community groups had nicknamed him the Mussolini of Midtown and Hitler on the Hudson. But a few hours and two crumbling towers later he was Crusader Rabbit. Today, the nation perceives him to be America's most beloved and treasured mayor and a viable Republican candidate for the White House, made national hero by a baptism of sacred white ash.

The mayoralty of Rudolph William Louis Giuliani III was based on one of the narrowest electoral margins in city history, barely 53,000 votes. In fact, he lost the popular vote in Manhattan, The Bronx and Brooklyn. His victory was based on wide margins in conservative Staten Island and conservative white sections of Queens. His other ace in the hole was the inability of the Democratic party to come up with a competent and less than painfully dull candidate coupled with that party's relentless and very public infighting. (Where have we heard that before?)

So on the morning after election day 1993, a majority of New Yorkers were dismayed to learn that they had a very right wing cop at the helm. Well, at least he would cut taxes and beef up the police force and in theory that sounded pretty good.

Life soured quickly.

Giuliani's view of New York was that of a corporate-friendly mall that needed to be kept clean and well-organized. The fact that real people lived, worked and played in our streets was clearly alien to this uber-lawyer's life view. Wall Street and Park Avenue loved this mayor, but for the majority unable to afford limousines and doormen it was a very different story.

Two groups of New Yorkers--the creative community and people of color--suffered most visibly from Giuliani's iron rule and one need look only to them to understand the man's heart and soul.

Certainly, his most famous attack on the creative soul of New York was converting Times Square and the Theater District into a spanking clean, sterilized corporate amusement park and shopping mall for tourists. He waged "genocide" on small family and entrepreneurial businesses leaving us with an ocean of mega-sized chain stores and chain restaurants worthy of the Mall of America. And with wide open pockets he embraced a corporate invasion of the theater district that ripped out the creative heart of the American theater world. By the end of his administration, corporate branded theaters had replaced innovation and creativity. Faced with the soaring rents of gentrification, Broadway turned to brandable products, Vegas-worthy spectaculars, bankable revivals and sure bets. And as rents soared, artists fled but tourists and corporations were very happy. Yesterday's Broadway was Bernstein, Sondheim and Fosse. Today's Broadway is American Airlines, Disney, Hilton and Nokia.

Another example of his love of the arts was his attack on the Brooklyn Museum when it mounted an exhibit of which he disapproved and considered to be offensive to Christians. He ordered the museum to shut it down or forfeit city funding. Most New Yorkers were aghast. This sort of thing happens in Indianapolis, not in New York. The museum took him to court and he lost--some little technicality called the First Amendment. He was little trusted after that particular fiasco.

The law and order candidate, Giuliani loves to pat himself on the back for cleaning up crime in New York City. In fact, he assumed office at a time when crime was already on the decline nationally and in New York in particular--but that didn't stop him from taking credit for a "safer city." Of course, he didn't rely solely on crime statistics to strut his stuff, he waged war on our criminal element: African-Americans.

In fact, in some ways Giuliani is the George Washington of 21st Century Racial Profiling. If your skin was some shade of black or brown the police department was instructed to shoot first and ask questions later.

He is likely most "famous" for his "stop and frisk" order. New York Police were instructed to conduct random searches of black teens. According to one survey, as many as 80 percent of New York City's Black and Hispanic teenage males reported having been subjected to this practice at least once. Cops would descend on groups of kids hanging out on the streets of Black and Hispanic neighborhoods, cuff them, line them up against the wall, frisk them, check ID and then Giuliani would declare residents of Park Avenue safer.

Some cases achieved national prominence: Abner Louima, Amadou Diallo and Patrick Dorismond among them. Even Giuliani's deputy mayor Rudy Washington alleged that he was routinely harassed by police because he was black and oftentimes, during the course of doing his job, in the wrong place at the wrong time--for an African-American, that is.

Giuliani was also successful in reducing city costs. For example, he reduced services for the poor. During the winters while the rest of us lived with a 65 degree minimum law, Giuliani ordered the heat turned off for 600,000 housing project residents--mostly single mothers and the elderly--unless the temperature dropped below 45 degrees. During the summer, hot water was limited to certain hours during the morning and evening hours.

Giuliani's arrogance and disregard for constitutional law reached a symbolic peak just days after 9/11.

Although few Americans noticed, New Yorkers briefly put aside their grief and pain for a few scandalous days following 9/11 in order to stop our "beloved" mayor from suspending law and allowing himself to run for an illegal third term "in the best interests of the city." Despite Giuliani's concern that we would not be able to function as free-thinking citizens of a democracy, the election actually proceeded in an orderly and successful fashion.

The image of Rudy plodding up Broadway covered in the white ashes of the incinerated Twin Towers and their occupants magically transformed him into a national hero and icon of leadership, in the very same way that Bush morphed from mediocre idiot who stole an election to Great Christian Crusader. And think of how that turned out.

America has since learned the trick of the 9/11 factor as we stand in the rubble of the Bush administration's disastrous policies on so many fronts. And yet Giuliani is being considered as a front runner for the 2008 presidential campaign. It's simply appalling.

The truth of Bush was the goat story. The truth of Giuliani was the confused march up Broadway. While a dazed mayor fled the scene incapable for many hours of providing leadership and direction for lack of any plan, the real heroes of 9/11 were already on the job, risking their lives to save their fellow New Yorkers. No fool, within days, Giuliani jumped on every possible photo op, police hat on head or firefighter jacket on his back.

And then, with city services crippled and residents mostly fending for themselves, the harsh truth is that Giuliani focused on protecting the financial interests of major corporations and real estate moguls, not human life. Yes, he brought the business of the city back to life quickly, even though it was at the possible cost of thousands of lives. And some of you may approve of that--putting the economy and stature of Manhattan before the lives of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. But I feel differently.

In fact, according to an astounding and little known Mount Sinai Medical Center report at least 40,000 New Yorkers and as many as 400,000 may suffer or will suffer serious health problems because the combined Republican federal, state and city governments virtually ignored and actually covered up the widespread effects of the largest toxic waste dump in human history. In order to protect the financial interests of major corporations and landlords, residents and workers were told to return to their homes and offices within weeks of the attack, the air and land declared safe when it fact it was and still is one of the most toxic problems in world history. Experts continue to produce frightening test results for a wide range of toxins that are well above safe limits in downtown Manhattan and across the river in Brooklyn. And despite the well-documented toxicity of this residue, human remains were found as recently as last month on the rooftops and in the shuttered buildings that were still not cleaned these so many years after the attack--buildings still covered in toxic ash mixing with the air breathed by local workers and tourists.

Of course, in a Republican America with a corporate-controlled media, this has received scant attention.

If America wants to further the Bush tradition and further damage what's left of our already imperiled democracy, Giuliani is the man. The fact that the media, leading politicians, the Republican Party and major corporations look upon Giuliani as a viable candidate for the White House tells us that the recent Democratic victory may be nothing but a brief intermission after the second act of a very tragic opera.

Giuliani's transfiguration from racist autocrat to American Saint thanks to a baptism of white ash is surely one of the most bizarre and perverse incidents in the history of American politics. And his own apparent belief in this transfiguration is truly the most disturbing thing of all.

America and the legacy of 1776 will not be safe until the thugs of 9/11 are completely swept out of Washington. Congress was merely a first step.

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