9-12 For Rudy, At Last

Rudy Giuliani wasn’t supposed to release the sealed criminal record of a man who was shot by police in 2000, but he did it anyway because it served his political interests. No one held him accountable.
Rudy Giuliani wasn’t supposed to spend tens of thousands of tax dollars on frivolous legal battles, but he did so repeatedly. No one held him accountable.
Rudy Giuliani wasn’t supposed to appoint unqualified people with no relevant experience to be a commissioner of an important agency like the Housing Development Corporation. But he did, the commissioner went to jail for stealing from the city, and no one held Giuliani accountable.
Rudy Giuliani wasn’t supposed to take thousands of documents out of City Hall when he left office and catalog them privately before anyone could take stock of what might be missing when he finally returned them. You guessed it, he did anyway. No one held him accountable.
I could go on and on, into the more serious stuff about the WTC command center, the firefighters radio problem and the hands-off approach to the “battle of the badges” that may have cost lives on 9-11, but you get the picture. Rarely, if ever, has Rudy Giuliani been held accountable for his myriad, heavily documented trail of missteps and undisputedly wrong decisions.
Until Tuesday.
Voters in Florida scored the knockout punch when they repeated what those in New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina had already expressed. Enough of you, Rudy, and your shameless exploitation of 9-11 and the glossy, “America’s Mayor” mantle created by the media that camouflaged the real Rudy. Enough of the picture of your abuse of power and messy personal life emerging piecemeal in the tabloids. Enough of you trying to hammer the square peg of your domestic policy positions into the round hole of the Republican base with nobody noticing.
Giuliani was a competent mayor if you look only at results, but a failed leader because he can no longer inspire diverse constituencies, as he once did, and now commands only the narrowest following. Surely that has a lot to do with his penchant for self-absolution.
Giuliani wrote a book on leadership, which I’ll never read. But my limited grasp of the concept tells me that real leaders hold themselves as accountable as the people they serve hold them, and after showing lousy judgment have the sense to get out of the way, not try to take on more responsibility.
Fortunately, Republican primary voters felt the same way.