So tonight is the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, one of those anodyne quasi-political events which become news only in years when the politics are particularly inflamed. Since His Eminence Cardinal Timothy Dolan is a notorious trimmer who, some people say, was rewarded by Pope Benedict with the plum NYC residency for hiding …
From the History Archives: When Rudy Met HillaryPost + Comments (73)
Enter the First Lady, looking like Cleopatra in full regalia, gowned to the floor in a pyramidal coatdress of black satin. Her neck is girdled in a collar of jewels. Her golden hair, swept high, shimmers. Most often, the whispers in her wake these days are beautiful. This is a woman who for many of her 52 years never cared a fig about her appearance, but in the chrysalis of transformation from political wife to independent woman, the jawline has been chiseled, the dominatrix eyebrows weeded, the weight dropped, and the result is a woman who obviously enjoys for the first time being called beautiful. Three old birds, Democratic regulars who refer to themselves as jaded, admitted after seeing Hillary speak in a suburb of New York, as one of them put it, “We weren’t prepared to be impressed, and we are impressed. First, the physical package. The polish. I would kill to get ahold of her hairdresser and makeup person. Kill.”…
Tonight is yet another rite of passage for Mrs. Clinton. A woman of grand ambition whose original choice was to channel her political aspirations through her naturally gifted husband, she is stumbling through the learning stage of candidacy for elective office. No out-of-town tryouts. She’s opening in New York.
For the first half of the interminable evening she watches the press show, Livin’ la Rudy Loca, where the mayor is called Mr. Mean, but the gags about her are meaner. The Hillary character jumps on a subway to Shea Stadium, “where I can watch my favorite team, the New York Yankees!” When an annoyed straphanger educates her that the Yankees play in Yankee Stadium, the Hillary character trills, “We live in Chappaqua now, you know. That’s Indian for ‘The Land of Separate Bedrooms.’ ” Necks swivel in unison toward Table 28. She’s laughing! Then she’s hit with the lyrics “If she could handle Monica, would Rudy cause her pain?” Heads whirl toward Table 28. “How does she look?” “Wan.” In a skit where the Hillary character is jailed by the Mayor Giuliani character, she finds herself sharing a cell with Sean “Puffy” Combs and his girlfriend, Jennifer Lopez. Bill Clinton shows up with “soft bail money,” but instead of springing his wife, he feels Jennifer’s pain and strolls off arm in arm with the halfnaked songstress.
Intermission. Hillary gets up, laughing ostentatiously, and announces, “I’m still standing.”
Before Round Three begins, one of the mayor’s men approaches Hillary’s press secretary, Wolfson, and asks to take the First Lady backstage. “Why should she go backstage?” snarls the handler, a stain of fear spreading across his formal shirt.
“Tra-dish-shun!” sings the mayor’s man.
Backstage, Hillary again approaches the unsuspecting mayor from behind and delicately lays a hand on his shoulder. He turns around. She faces him down with flattery. “Well, I hear you’re the real star.”
Giuliani stutters a reply: “We’re gonna see, we’re gonna see. I like doing it.”
“I can’t wait to see it.”
Her charm offensive seems to rattle him. When Rudy’s smile is forced, the lips turn down, and his deathly white face resembles that of the Phantom of the Opera. Regaining his edge after she leaves, he gets off a few sarcastic remarks to reporters: “I’m very, very encouraged at the fact we’re drawing lots of out-of-towners to this performance of mine.”
Of mine.
But it is Hillary’s star power that radiates to every corner of the ballroom. New York bigwigs, such as financial-media impresario Michael Bloomberg, attorney and labor mediator Theodore Kheel, and District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, crane to see her. An informal receiving line forms three-deep around her table. Powerful men who might be expected to support the mayor but who cannot get a phone call returned from him are drawn to meet Hillary. One is Harold Levy, the interim New York City schools chancellor, who is about to be slapped down by the mayor for daring to work out incentives with the teachers’ union to avert a crisis in the city’s summer-school program; his crime, failing to recognize the real schools chancellor—Rudolph Giuliani. Another enemy the mayor can’t afford, Michael Long, chairman of the Conservative Party of New York State, waits his turn. The tall, hefty man with a kindly Saint Bernard face holds a minimum of 350,000 votes in his pocket, but Giuliani won’t talk to him. They sat down nearly a year before, and Long told the mayor his party was open to considering an endorsement. By summer, when Long hadn’t heard back, he joined with New York governor George Pataki, who at the time was said to be unofficially promoting the candidacy of Rick Lazio, a young and likable Long Island congressman. “I told the mayor, ‘Don’t take it personal,’ ” Long recalls…
Just in case you might be wondering why Giuliani seems to be taking his attack-dog role as Trump surrogate… so personal.