Mail Call: Shaping Giuliani.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)

Readers of our Dec. 3 profile of Rudy Giuliani questioned his electability. One said, "Haven't we had enough of the politics of fear and divisiveness?" But another observed, "Giuliani's intense mix of moral certitude and ethical relativism seems oddly evocative of the collective American psyche."

Giuliani's Complicated Moral Code

I graduated from Bishop Loughlin Memorial two years after Rudy Giuliani, and your cover story correctly notes that he has been smart and ambitious ever since high school ("Growing Up Giuliani," Dec. 3, 2007). But since when is brainpower the sole ingredient of leadership? Let's not forget the art of diplomacy, the skill of interpersonal relations and the power of good judgment. Giuliani has made a career of trampling on anyone who gets in his way to achieve power. Furthermore, his children and one of his former wives are alienated from him. Like the citizens of New York City, American voters will soon tire of his brash, abrasive and angry temperament. In the past seven years, haven't we had enough of the politics of fear and divisiveness?

Terrence Quinn

Bayside, New York

Rudy Giuliani's intense mix of moral certitude and ethical relativism seems strange at times, but is also oddly evocative of the collective American psyche. In your article "Growing Up Giuliani," though, the way the former New York City mayor appears to calibrate his moves as he goes along, gravitating toward the conservative one minute and the liberal the next, he looks suspiciously like an opportunist. Then again, given the increasingly complex political realities facing us today, the words "liberal" and "conservative" are losing some of their meaning. Thus, Giuliani as president might turn out not to be so different from Hillary Clinton after all.

Werner Radtke