Tom's column this week

Good impressions of Rudolph Giuliani

With former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani consistently leading early polls for the Republican presidential nomination, pundits have spilled an ocean of ink concerning his electability. Having recently sat down with the man, let me tell you why I consider Giuliani a candidate wholly appropriate for our times.

As someone who spends a lot of time thinking and writing about globalization and security, I was brought in recently by the Giuliani campaign to discuss these topics with the mayor. This is standard practice as presidential candidates gear up, and Giuliani's camp is the fourth I've visited in the last year.

Read on at KnoxNews.
Read on at Scripps Howard.

Scripps Howard edited off the end of Tom's column, so here it is:

Major coastal cities are the dominant nodes of our global economy. Not only do they attract roughly half the world’s population, such megalopolises serve as primary flow points for commerce and immigration through their financial markets, seaports and air hubs. So whether you’re talking about culture clashes, border security, legal compliance, systems integration or economic competitiveness, nowhere do globalization’s major challenges concentrate themselves more than in coastal mega-cities.

In this long war against radical extremism, we can focus on killing bad guys or making our nation more resilient. The former task takes us to the world’s most off-grid locations, while the latter forces us to strengthen our biggest connections to the world’s networks.

Ask yourself what’s more important: fewer criminals or less crime?

As the mayor who resurrected New York City across the 1990s, only to guide it masterfully through the system perturbation that was 9/11, Rudy Giuliani is uniquely qualified for what comes next: the recasting of America as globalization’s most resilient pillar.

Tom says:

I have to say, when Scripps just cuts chunks out of piece, it pisses me off supremely. I submit every column at 720 words and then somebody at Scripps will--on occasion--simply cut for length because they like smaller ones (more like 500-600). Knoxville News, thankfully, doesn't do that.

The cut on the Giuliani one is big and very important, explaining my argument of his credibility as a candidate based on experience. Cut that and the thrust of the article's main claim is left void and null. To me, that sort of editing is just careless.

The usual Scripps trick is to cut all parentheticals. So I stopped using them. Now they just lop off endings when they can't figure out anything else to do.

Impressive.

Betcha Tom Friedman doesn't have to put up with this crap.

Note to self: on next book try to sell 2.5 million copies.

Then they'll rue the day!

Early column sightings:
+ Press of Atlantic City
+ Giuliani 2008

Comments

[Peter Kay]

Great column. So far looks like I called it right on your previous post:

http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/2007/04/yes_i_was_impressed.html

I'm going to go even further on a limb here and bet that RG will win the national election.

When you realize that Hillary is on her way down (people just don't like her). And Obama, while popular, just doesn't have the depth (and he's a Senator and he lacks experience) to take on Rudy.

And what about the RNC? McCain is an awesome American but puts me to sleep when he talks. I can't even recall the names of the other candidates. Fred Thompson would have been a good candidate to run in the Clinton era but hardly has the brand to make the big decisions that will shrink the gap.

And then we have Rudy. The Warrior that cleaned up NYC, and despite his unpopularity before 9/11 took the reins and lead his city through hell.

Now we find out he's into connectivity and essentially "gets it" that it's really about business.

Place your bets L&Gs. My marker is on Rudy.