Giuliani apostate

New York Times has a pretty damning on-record account of Giuliani's leadership from a former friend and aide of the New York mayer that calls in to question both hiss honesty and his reputation as a competent leader:

In recent days, [Jerome] Hauer has challenged Mr. Giuliani’s recollection that he had little role as mayor in placing the city’s emergency command center at the ill-fated World Trade Center.

Mr. Hauer has also disputed the claim by the Giuliani campaign that the mayor’s wife, Judith Giuliani, had coordinated a help center for families after the attack.

And he has contradicted Mr. Giuliani’s assertions that the city’s emergency response was well coordinated that day, a point he made most notably to the authors of “Grand Illusion,” a book that depicts Mr. Giuliani’s antiterrorism efforts as deeply flawed....

Mr. Hauer was once part of the coterie of high school chums, fellow former prosecutors and City Hall aides who remain the nucleus of Mr. Giuliani’s tight-knit set of advisers. From that perch, he helped Mr. Giuliani confront some of New York City’s most disquieting predicaments, like the West Nile virus and a potential millennium meltdown.

At some point the two men had a falling out. Fallings out are rare in Giuliani's inner circle, comprised of men who could be called "Friends of Rudy"--like "Friends of Bill", but writ large. Hauer is just about the only person from that group willing to say anything remotely negative about the man. Here's why:

Fred Siegel, the author of “The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York and the Genius of American Life” (Encounter Books, 2005), said the trust that members of Mr. Giuliani’s inner circle invested in each other was the reason no one apart from Mr. Hauer had ever emerged as even an occasional critic.

“The core of the administration was that these guys would always pull together,” said Mr. Siegel, who once served as speechwriter for Mr. Giuliani. “Once a decision was made, that was it. There wouldn’t be any second-guessing.”

This is actually more disturbing than the charges that Hauer has levied. Hauer's critique, after all, is that Giuliani lied, and Giuliani wasn't as good of a manager as he'd have everybody believe. That puts him in league with just about every politician in the world. What distinguishes him is the degree to which his powerbrokers are expected to stick with the groupthink. That puts him in league with...George W. Bush. And we could use fewer presidents who resemble that man.