The SOB Factor (It helps Rudy)

National Review Online ^ | March 12, 2007 | John Derbyshire

[atomicpossum]

The question for discussion is: Will the SOB factor help Rudy, or hurt him?

Truthfully, I think it's his one beneficial trait.

[Steel Wolf]

Upon some reflection, I think this is why I like Rudy. He's a SOB, and I'm tired of President Bush's nice guy/pushover routine. I think most people are, too, which explains Rudy's appeal. Once you admit that he's an SOB, but that's what you want, then it's easier to overlook his negatives. It's because he's a negative force that I want unleashed on my enemies.

At any rate, I've said my piece. Cue the hand wringing and gnashing of teeth.

[stockpirate]

"I'm tired of President Bush's nice guy/pushover routine."

What makes you think it is a routine?

I think ihe is a pushover. Look at the drug bill.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

A quote I spotted in a GEORGE WILL piece: ***......Suppose someone seeking the presidential nomination had, as a governor, signed the largest tax increase in his state's history and the nation's most permissive abortion law. And by signing a law institutionalizing no-fault divorce, he had unwittingly but substantially advanced an idea central to the campaign for same-sex marriages -- the minimalist understanding of marriage as merely a contract between consenting adults to be entered into or dissolved as it suits their happiness.

Question: Is it not likely that such a presidential aspirant would be derided by some of today's fastidious conservatives? A sobering thought, that, because the attributes just described were those of Ronald Reagan....****

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/opinion/16881853.htm

[trisham]

Comparing Giuliani to Reagan is an insult to Reagan.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Reagan had three big thoughts (objectives):

Fight communism


Free market principles for the economy


Reduce the size of government


He accepted that he got two out of three because he felt they were the most important.


Guiliani wants free markets, school choice, smaller government, national security and questions the environmentalist movement.

I'd like to see him get 2/3rds of his agenda.

[trisham]

I'd like to see him reelected as mayor of NYC.

[Miss Didi]

My sentiments exactly, Wolf. Enough already with the Mr. Nice Guy, let's all get along, hands across the aisle kumbaya! The Dems want to get us killed. I want someone to stand up to them, as well as the terrorists.

[jwparkerjr]

Rudy IS like Reagan in that both stand up to their enemies rather than find nice things to say about them. I have said here before that the press was unfair to Reagan too, but rather than slink back into the Oval Office and think up nice things to do for the liberals to prove them wrong he simply ignored them and went on the next thing they didn't like. It was like he had a list of things he knew would yank their chains and when they messed with him he would take out his list and use the top two items to mess back.

We began to lose the battle when the Republican majority after the conservative revolution would not respond to the lies and spin being used against them. Their policy was that the truth would speak for itself and responding to the barbs only gave them a wider audience. That's not the case, and we know that now. There's about one third of the electorate anxious and willing to believe any lie or spin that supports their hate for the conservative cause. Not having a team to counter the lies and spins as quickly and vociferously as possible gives a aire of truth to the charges. The little things add up and before long you find yourself where we are now.

I agree that Rudy is no Reagan, but they are similar in some respects.

[Little Ray]

Ditto.

As I said before, I'll vote for him if runs as War Leader and a Government Reformer (but under NO other circumstancts). To do this he'll need to ooze and slosh "SOBness".
So far, he isn't doing it, though.

[ken5050]

I'm not sure if it will be a factor at all. There's another old adage which I think is more appropriate..

Yes, he's an S.O.B, but he's OUR S.O.B.!"

[dforest]

Nope. "Its like deja vu all over again"

We need to get over Rudy. This party is setting itself up all over again for a 2006 replay. Clever on the part of the Dems. If something works , why fix it?, strategy.

We lose in 2006, more about the Foley kerfuffal, than anything else. After the elections, the RATs get rolling quickly for 2008. Puts us in a hurry.

We are fed polls that Rudy is the guy. It is already causing a major division and argument in the party. Many people do not know the Rudy history, especially people who spend little time on politics, they only think of 9-11.

We put Rudy up, the MSMs and the Dems will make the most ugly facts about Rudy ever more ugly.

The MSMs are too quiet at this time on Rudy and his history, they are...waiting.

We will have a Foley scandal of POTUS size proportions. In sail the RATs with relative ease.

End of story.

[LS]

I agree, and I think when I talk to Ohio conservatives who are grudgingly backing Rudy, they are doing so because they want a FIGHTER, they want someone who will kick butt in the WoT and who will fight the Dems on at least SOME issues without the "new tone."

[longtermmemmory]

another National Review puff piece.

Guiliani is just having his buds write warm and fuzzy pieces.

Just because a MSM buddy writes him as an SOB does not make him less of an anti-second amendment, pro-homosexual marriage, typical lawyer politician.

[Beckwith]

Apprised of the fact that the potato famine of 1846-7 may have killed a million Irish people, Lord Cardigan sniffed: “Not enough to do any good.”

Cecil Woodham-Smith, considered the preeminent authority on the Irish Famine, wrote in The Great Hunger; Ireland 1845-1849 that, "...no issue has provoked so much anger or so embittered relations between the two countries (England and Ireland) as the indisputable fact that huge quantities of food were exported from Ireland to England throughout the period when the people of Ireland were dying of starvation."

According to John Mitchel, quoted by Woodham-Smith, "Ireland was actually producing sufficient food, wool and flax, to feed and clothe not nine but eighteen millions of people," yet a ship sailing into an Irish port during the famine years with a cargo of grain was "sure to meet six ships sailing out with a similar cargo."

In Ireland Before and After the Famine, author Cormac O’Grada documents that in 1845, a famine year in Ireland, 3,251,907 quarters (8 bushels = 1 quarter)) of corn were exported from Ireland to Britain. That same year, 257,257 sheep were exported to Britain. In 1846, another famine year, 480,827 swine, and 186,483 oxen were exported to Britain. The average monthly export of food from Ireland was worth 100,000 Pound Sterling — almost throughout the five-year famine, Ireland remained a net exporter of food.

While Irish peasants met severe misfortune, landowners — most of whom were Anglican — continued to prosper.

[freedomfiter2]

Almost anyone can act like an obnoxious jerk, the trick is in knowing when that's appropriate. Bush thinks it never is and Rudy thinks that's always the way to go.