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Many who have studied Giuliani say he is authoritarian, nepotistic and capable of questionable decisions. His past mistakes could loom over him just as much as past heroics. Certainly he has not always been an inclusive figure. As mayor, Giuliani paid little attention to New York's minority groups. In two notorious cases where cops shot unarmed black men, Giuliani came out blazing in favour of the men in uniform. He was especially criticised in the case of Patrick Dorismond. The father-of-two, who worked as a security guard, had been enjoying a drink at a Manhattan bar. As he left, undercover police officers approached him and asked him where they could buy marijuana. Dorismond, not realising they were police, took offence. A scuffle broke out. One of the officers drew a gun, Dorismond grabbed it and was shot in the chest. His death scandalised the city but Giuliani went to extraordinary lengths to defend the police. He even broke state law by publishing the victim's youthful arrest record. In a typical Giuliani moment, he remarked that Dorismond was no 'altar boy', as if that somehow justified shooting an innocent man.
Giuliani has also been controversial for his habit of promoting his friends. Being given a job by Giuliani has been likened to becoming a 'made man' in the Mob. 'With Giuliani the personal is the political and vice versa,' says Robert Polner. 'He took patronage to whole new levels.' Bernie Kerik was a classic Giuliani appointment. He had served as Giuliani's bodyguard and driver, but his lack of a college degree should have prevented him rising to high office in the police department. But Giuliani bypassed the rules and appointed him police commissioner. Later, he advised George Bush that Kerik would make a good head of the Department of Homeland Security. Bush took the advice and then watched Kerik's appointment process collapse in a spectacular mess of scandals ranging from immigration problems to financial irregularities to ties to organised crime.
The fear is that such mistakes will crop up again in the course of a presidential campaign. Or, worse yet, happen in the Oval Office. The New York Observer once commissioned a psychological report on Giuliani. The resultant article was headlined: 'Can Giuliani tame the beast within?' It seems a fair enough question. 'I knew a lot of people who worked with him who were afraid of him,' says Polner. 'He is volatile. He lashes out.'
His record on 9/11 has even been criticised by some victims' relatives, who say he was complacent towards terrorism before the attacks. They blame him for substandard police and firefighters' communication equipment which, they claim, could have contributed to the loss of many lives. One campaigner, Sally Regenhard of the Skyscraper Safety Campaign, has threatened to do to his 9/11 reputation what Republicans did to John Kerry's Vietnam record in 2004. She has said she will 'Swift Boat' Giuliani if he runs.
But perhaps the biggest doubts over Giuliani loom over his personal life. It has been a high- profile roller coaster. He is now married to his third wife, Judith Nathan. His first marriage, to Regina Peruggi, was annulled after 14 years when the pair found out that they were second cousins. His second, to television personality Donna Hanover, ended in a bitter divorce fought out in the glare of New York's tabloids. As his relationship with Nathan became increasingly public, Hanover went to the courts and barred her love rival from formal events at the Governor's Mansion. Intimate details of their marriage - including Giuliani's temporary impotence as he went through cancer therapy - became highly public knowledge.
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