Giuliani Time: The Revanchist 1990s

When he was reelected to his second mayoral term in November 1997, Neil Smith New York's Rudy Giuliani stood before the television cameras on election night and, Nixonesque, his arms making a V in the air, exalted, I am the king of the world! By the following spring, however, it was not royalty but a fascist dictator to which Giuliani was being openly compared. Jokes about Benito Giuliani swept through city streets and tabloid newsprint faster than fires through Florida. The governor's office joined in. Even the congenitally sober New York Times asked on the front page of its Metro section whether Giuliani was the Mussolini of Manhattan.' Little Hitler