Rudy And The Ragheads

Rudy Roughs Up Arabs
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: October 17, 2007

Rough Rudy doesn’t quite have the same edge as Ringtone Rudy, but the alliteration will do in a pinch.

As the phlegmatic Fred Thompson plummeted in the polls and made a lackluster appearance at the forum, a juiced Mr. Giuliani preened in front of an audience that loved him.

As a epithet, “phlegmatic” will never be as good as “laconic” in describing Thompson, but it does let Dowd make an alliteration triple play going for juiced Giuliani as well as poll plummeting.

He went through his greatest hits: The time he yanked Yasir Arafat out of Lincoln Center during a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth. “The thing that really bothered me was, he didn’t have a ticket,” Rudy recalled. “He was a freeloader!”

The incident in question happened in 1995 during the Clinton Administration. According to the New York Times report, Arafat did have a ticket, but nobody owns up to giving him one. Not sure what makes Rudy the usher at the Lincoln Center. Maybe he likes dressing up in the uniform.

But Rudy seems out of the Republican mainstream on even giving lip-service to Palestinian aspirations. He has no patience for buttering up the Arabs, or the Republican men’s club attitude represented by Saudi-loving Bush senior and James Baker that has always favored a more “even-handed” policy in the Middle East.

The connections of Bush I, Baker and Bandar are legendary in conspiracy theory circles. Michael Moore is one of the more reliable sources that has reported on the close relationship between the Saudi royal family and The Carlyle Group among others.

Rudy would probably only take the hand of an Arab leader to throw him down a ravine, or a wadi.

A wadi is a dry river bed prone to flash flooding. One of Borat's bits is getting unsuspecting rednecks to sing "Throw The Jew Down The Well". Ravine Rudy would rather be throwing the wogs in the wadi.

(Bush senior and Dick Cheney were very tight with Saudi Prince Bandar. At a party at the vice president’s mansion once, I watched Bandar greet waiters like old friends.)

Nice name-drop, Mo. Were you a member of the Energy Policy Council? Something tells me Dowd isn't getting invited to too many Red Room Receptions during the Giuliani Administration.