The serial exaggerator just can’t help himself

November 6, 2007

One should generally be cautious about throwing around words such as “pathological,” but Rudy Giuliani’s inability to describe his record without ridiculous exaggerations is becoming increasingly problematic. The poor guy is apparently convinced that his record is too weak to stand on its own, so constant (and comical) embellishments become necessary.

The latest is Giuliani’s attempt to characterize himself as an expert on “intensive” interrogation techniques, which makes the former mayor qualified to comment on torture policy. As Giuliani told Bloomberg’s Al Hunt, “[I]ntensive questioning works. If I didn’t use intensive questioning, there would be a lot of mafia guys running around New York right now and crime would be a lot higher in New York than it is. Intensive question has to be used. Torture should not be used. The line between the two is a difficult one.”

Giuliani’s former director of emergency management thinks the former mayor doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

A one-time member of Rudy Giuliani’s inner circle said on Tuesday that the former New York City mayor is greatly exaggerating his understanding of torture and his experience with advanced interrogation.

Jerry Hauer, who served as New York’s first director of emergency management, said the idea that Giuliani learned first-hand about aggressive interrogation techniques during his service as mayor is not only untrue but legally questionable…. Hauer dismissed the notion that aggressive interrogation was ever condoned or conducted by the Giuliani administration.

“That would have been absolutely disgraceful and a downright violation of everybody’s constitutional liberties,” Hauer said. “We were not at war in New York City. Being a suspected criminal is not the same as being a suspected terrorist. And even when they caught the terrorists that were going to blow up the subways [in August 1997], obviously there was interrogation but I never heard of anything involving aggressive techniques.”

As for the notion that Giuliani, as a U.S. Attorney, had direct involvement in aggressive interrogation, that too is a wild exaggeration. As Wayne Barrett told the Huffington Post, FBI officials question suspects, not prosecutors. “[T]he notion that he personally questioned any of the key individuals is baffling,” Barrett said.

As are most of Giuliani’s recent claims.

I’ve been trying to keep up a list of some of Giuliani’s most shameless, ridiculous exaggerations, and I have to admit, it’s a challenge to keep up with the guy. We’re talking about a candidate who can barely go a day without repeating some whopper that’s obviously untrue.

Let’s take a look at the big board:

* Giuliani exaggerated prostate cancer survival-rates in order to make a dishonest ad about healthcare.

* He exaggerated how much time he spent at Ground Zero in the aftermath of 9/11, claiming to be an actual recovery worker.

* He exaggerated the responsibilities of the mayor of NYC, claiming to have the security of 8 million people “on his shoulders,” basically characterizing himself as the commander-in-chief of some kind of city-state.

* He exaggerated his 9/11 record in a variety of breathtaking ways.

* He exaggerated his background in counter-terrorism, claiming to have been “studying Islamic terrorism for 30 years,” a claim which quickly fell apart.

* He exaggerated his record of reducing abortions and increasing adoptions in New York City during his tenure.

* He exaggerated his record of tax cuts as mayor, including tax cuts that passed over his opposition (and counting one cut twice).

* He exaggerated his budget accomplishments, claiming to have created huge surpluses, when in fact he left Bloomberg with massive deficits.

* He exaggerated how many cops he added to the NYPD.

* He exaggerated Hillary Clinton’s comments about economics.

* He even exaggerated his list of congressional endorsements he’s received for his presidential campaign.

And now he’s an expert on torture, because, well, he says so.

The guy has some kind of deep-rooted problem. Let’s hope he gets some help before it gets worse.

Rudy probably realized that telling the truth doesn’t really get you much when the media doesn’t bother to actually help the public figure out who’s lying. He knows that his “confidence” is what a lot of people yearn for, and since the “truth” is always “relative”, a lot of idiots (and I do mean a LOT of them) simply think that if what they were saying was actually false, that surely someone would point that out.

IOW, Rudy knows the media is killing us, and he’s going to bring the shovel.

  • Roodee The Great Pretender:

    Oh yes, I’m the great pretender
    Pretending that I’m leading well
    My ambition is such; I pretend too much
    I’m lame but no reporter can tell.

    Oh yes, I’m the great pretender
    A king in a world of my own
    Torture’s the game; but to no real shame
    You’ve let me on top all alone.

    Too real is this feeling of make believe
    Too real when I feel what my lies can’t conceal.

    Oh yes I’m the great pretender
    Just torturing and “gay” in a gown
    I want to be what I’m not; you see
    I’m exaggerating my skills like a clown
    Pretending that 9/11’s still inbound

    Too real is this feeling of make believe
    Too real when I feel what my heart can’t conceal

    Yes I’m the great pretender
    Just shooting and abusing anyone brown
    I aim to be what I’m not you see
    I’m dreaming that I’ll win the crown
    Pretending that 9/11’s still inbound

  • It has a name…megalomania:

    Megalomania is an unrealistic belief in one’s superiority, grandiose abilities, and even omnipotence. It is characterized by a need for total power and control over others, and is marked by a lack of empathy for anything that is perceived as not feeding the self.

    Although megalomania is a term often ascribed to anyone who is power-hungry, the clinical definition is that of a mental illness associated with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD).

    Narcissism is most simply defined as self-love. Though it is considered healthy to care about your own well-being and have a healthy self-esteem, when someone loves himself to the exclusion of all else and others become objectified to be used only to serve the self, this is no longer considered healthy or normal.

    There are different psychological theories about how and why NPD develops, most of which relate to the integration of different aspects of ego and self as a child, and the nature of the parental roles in that process. Regardless of theory, NPD is characterized by extremely low self-esteem, which is compensated for by delusions of grandeur and megalomania, a narcissistic neuroses. With the propensity to act only on behalf of one’s self, the unbridled need to feed one’s ego, and the objectification of others to serve the power-hungry needs of megalomania, it is easy to see how this can be a recipe for disaster, especially when wrapped in a charismatic personality.

    http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-megalomania.htm

    And then there’s narcissistic personality disorder:

    …a persistent inability to establish a realistic, stable self-image, therefore creating an overdependence on others to regulate their self-esteem. This unrealistic self-image affects how people with this disorder behave and interact with others.

    Signs and symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder may include:

    Grandiose sense of one’s own abilities or achievements

    Fantasies about having exceptional power, attractiveness or success

    Sense of belonging to an exclusive group of people who truly understand each other

    Need for constant praise

    Expectations of special treatment

    Exploitation of other people

    Lack of empathy for other people

    Envy of other people or a belief that you are the subject of other people’s envy

    Haughty or arrogant behaviors

    Individuals with narcissistic personality disorder may come across as conceited or snobbish. They often monopolize conversation. They may belittle or look down on people they perceive as inferior. When they don’t receive the special treatment to which they feel entitled, they may become very impatient or angry.

    People with narcissistic personality disorder tend to seek out individuals whom they perceive as equal to their own self-image or to whom they attribute the same special talents and qualities they see in themselves. They may insist on having “the best” of everything — car, athletic club or social circles.

    Their personal relationships and interactions are driven by the need for admiration and praise. Consequently, people with narcissistic personality disorder value others primarily according to how well those individuals affirm their unrealistic self-image. This limited value of others usually means that people with the disorder aren’t interested in or aren’t capable of perceiving the feelings or needs of others. They may take advantage of other people to make themselves look as good as they imagine.

    http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/narcissistic-personality-disorder/DS00652/DSECTION=2

    Makes one wonder…

  • I’m not sure what expertise “Giuliani biographer Wayne Barrett” can claim on this point, but Assistant U.S. Attorney’s absolutely do participate in interviews with criminal defendants. I’ve sat in on some of those interviews myself. The FBI (or some other investigative agency) may do more of the grunt work in the early stages of a criminal proceeding (though probably not in the later stages, and certainly not if the individual is a cooperating witness), but prosecutors assuredly do participate, quite often. Obviously that has little to do with the veracity of Giuliani’s claims, and one would hope that the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York did not condone or participate in “intensive” questioning that crossed the “difficult” line into abuse, but I just wanted to clear that point up.

  • I’m not sure what expertise “Giuliani biographer Wayne Barrett” can claim on this point, but Assistant U.S. Attorneys absolutely do participate in interviews with criminal defendants. I’ve sat in on some of those interviews myself. The FBI (or some other investigative agency) may do more of the grunt work in the early stages of a criminal proceeding (though probably not in the later stages, and certainly not if the individual is a cooperating witness), but prosecutors assuredly do participate, quite often. Obviously that has little to do with the veracity of Giuliani’s claims, and one would hope that the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York did not condone or participate in “intensive” questioning that crossed the “difficult” line into abuse, but I just wanted to clear that point up.

    P.S. I thought I stopped the above post before it slipped through, as I noticed the very embarrassing apostrophe error at the last second. Apologies.

  • The man has replaced McCaniac on my list of Batshit Insane ReThuglican Candidates.

    “[I]ntensive questioning works. If I didn’t use intensive questioning, there would be a lot of mafia guys running around New York right now and crime would be a lot higher in New York than it is.

    So, we’re supposed to believe that he took time from his mayoring duties to roll up his sleeves and question a few goodfellas. Very well, I would love to see a reporter ask Rud!E about the “intensive interogation techniques” used on Abner Louima.

    “Mr. Guliiani, while you were mayor, how many suspected members of mafia gangs did you sodomize with the handle of a plunger?”

    “Mr. Guliani, do you think your use of intensive questioning while you were mayor influenced the police officers who sodomized Mr. Louima with a toilet plunger?”

    “Mr. Guliani, in your opinion, does the notion that a person is innocent until proven guilty contradict the use of plungers during questioning?”

  • ” If I didn’t use intensive questioning, there would be a lot of mafia guys running around New York right now”

    What — Rudy wouldn’t buy Bernie Kerik a hot dog at a Yankees game if he didn’t spill he beans on his mafia buddies?

    As with everything we’ve been through the last seven years, we’ve run out descriptors to match the mendacity, awefulness and criminality of Republicans. Anne has some good ones, but I’ll add that Rudy has a morbid fascination with lying to the list of of how bad he is.

  • I think Rudy is trying to impress the producers of the Law & Order series. If he doesn’t win the presidency, he’s hoping at least to get a tv show out of all this. Lord knows he’s come up with enough wacky plots to run a full season.

  • Yeah, but Rudy didn’t claim to have helped create the Internet, have a character in Love Story based on him, or sigh a lot. So the media will go easy on him.

  • Giuliani’s boast that he conducted “intensive questioning” and suggestion that the “line between [that and torture] is a difficult one” are silly lies.

    First, in the context of law enforcement, use of any interrogation technique resulting in coercion of an involuntary confession would violate the 5th Amendment’s guarantee that “no person shall be compelled to be a witness against himself in any criminal case.” Any statement resulting from such a technique would be thrown out of court. Any U.S. Attorney using such a technique would deserve to get fired for botching his job.

    Second, a wide gulf, not a difficult line, separates even intensive law enforcement questioning from torture. Any manner of techniques may be coercive and thus unsuitable for law enforcement, yet not amount to torture and thus may be suitable for military interrogation.

    Giuliani’s plainly false suggestion that he has engaged in intensive questioning just this side of torture reveals how desperately he wants to play the tough guy.

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