Last night, in a misc. election news post, I noted the story about it being discovered by Slate’s Lucy Morrow Caldwell that Rudy Giuliani’s daughter supports Senator Barack Obama, and I commented that I found the story yawn-worthy.
Upon revisiting the story today, I no longer find it “yawn-worthy” - I find it a despicable waste of online magazine webspace, to be frank. I didn’t realize when I linked up to the piece that Rudy’s daughter was only 17 (that’s what I get for speed reading through the first paragraph), had no idea that she had gone through the lengths of using slightly different last name on her Facebook page - presumably in order to protect herself from mediots searching for an angle to use against her father, and wasn’t aware that only ’select’ people (’users who have access to New York City’s Trinity School or Harvard University networks,’ as per the AP and CBS) had access to her Facebook profile. In other words, not just anyone had the access to finding out this information. Her Facebook entry has now been removed - I assume at her request - thanks to the story and the negative attention it’s brought towards her family, specifically her father. But not before Slate.com was able to grab a screencap of it.
Memo to Slate.com, and other MSM outlets who chose to run this story: Underage children of politicians have the right to support whomever they want to and in turn, the media ought to exercise common courtesy and a healthy dose of restraint in dealing with stories about them. Learning about who 17 y/o Caroline Giuliani supports for president didn’t get us any closer to finding out more about who her father is and what he stands for. But what it did give quite a few unscrupulous people was the opportunity to score a cheap political point against Rudy at the expense of his teenage daughter (which Scott Whitlock notes here).
This is little more than tabloid journalism, and the editors at Slate.com - a publication I respect - should have known better than to run this story in the first place.
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Here’s one on which we disagree. John François Kerry divorced and then annulled his first wife, yet his daughters, Alexandra and Vanessa, still supported their father’s campaign for president. Rudy Giuliani had a year long affair with the now current Mrs Giuliani, while still married to Donna Hanover, who was living with him in Gracie Mansion. Mr Giuliani had the tremendous class to announce to the world — and his wife — that he was divorcing Mrs Hanover in a news conference!
Mr Giuliani and Mrs Hanover have two children together, one not mentioned in the story above a 21-year-old son. Both of Mr Giuliani’s children have said that they have no intention of helping their father’s campaign.
What does it say about a man, that his own children won’t support him in the greatest challenge of his life? Is this really the kind of man we’d want to be president?
Those of us (and that certainly includes me) who excoriated President Clinton for his personal behavior cannot simply turn a blind eye to the personal life of Rudy Giuliani, simply because he’s a Republican; that’s nothing but hypocrisy.
Comment by Dana @ 8/7/2007 - 9:17 pm
Who said anything about “turning a blind eye to the private life of Rudy Giuliani”? Not me. I’ve mentioned before (I think it was on a podcast) that he had personal baggage (like the affair he was having and the divorce from his wife) that would affect people’s opinions of him (it’s affected my opinion of him). There is a lot more to a candidate’s personal life than just his children. I’m not even a Rudy supporter and in fact listed him in my top five candidates who I hoped would not get the nomination, so I’m not defending him out of any sense of loyalty, either.
I wouldn’t have (and didn’t) judged President Clinton based on Chelsea Clinton back in the 90s and I certainly will not base my opinion of Rudy Giuliani based on the fact that his 17 year old daughter supports another candidate. I simply don’t like the fact that someone had to go digging through Facebook to find out this information - and I say ‘digging’ because Caroline had altered her last name so people wouldn’t immediately know it was her. Obviously this was done as a “gotcha” - and a cheap one at that - to the Giuliani family, and his daughter didn’t deserve to be used as a pawn.
If Rudy’s children absolutely detested him, then their may be a point to paying attention to what they say. But the person they don’t like is his wife, the woman he divorced their mother for. Obviously there’s some bitterness there, and it’s not bitterness I would hold against Rudy Giuliani in terms of his presidential qualifications.
I am absolutely against using the children of a candidate as a pawn in order to score a cheap political point. I was against it when John Edwards and John Kerry used Mary Cheney’s being a lesbian to score political points against Cheney, and I’m against Slate (and the gleeful left) using a 17 year old’s Facebook declaration of support for another candidate to score cheap political points against her father. I was also against Saturday Night Live’s making fun of Chelsea Clinton back when Clinton was president (although that wasn’t really done to score a political point) That’s not hypocrisy: that’s consistency, Dana.
Comment by Sister Toldjah @ 8/7/2007 - 9:30 pm
ST
“media ought to exercise common courtesy”
Since when has media exercised common courtesy?
Comment by stackja @ 8/7/2007 - 11:25 pm
- Thats certainly true IF you equate a love affair that everyone in NY knew about with diddling White House interns, and molesting several woman, and then lying about it to the entire nation on network television. Somewhere in there I think theres a small imbalance.
- BBH -
Comment by Big Bang Hunter @ 8/7/2007 - 11:42 pm
BBH, that’s a distinction without a difference. President Clinton was lying about his affair, while Mayor Giuliani was parading his mistress around in public; both are unacceptable.
Sis, I’m sorry, but when your own children (one of whom is an adult, and the other of whom will achieve majority within a year) won’t support you on something like this, there’s really something wrong.
Comment by Dana @ 8/8/2007 - 8:48 am
Whether it’s Kennedy, Jefferson, Clinton, Guliani, etc I am one voter if it comes down to Guliani vs. Clinton will look squarely at where they stand on the issues and will most likely NOT be voting for Clinton but WILL be voting for Guliani.
Yes nobody is perfect. In Bill’s case he should’ve been held accountable under the civil case. That was the root of the issue. The case. He perjured himself so as not to be held accountable by the law. He has been disbarred. Should he have been removed from the presidency? That’s the big question. To me Democrats could’ve/should’ve had Clinton step aside for Gore to be president and a much different future would’ve taken place.
Oh well.. back to my point if nobody is held accountable for ANY wrong doing and the two candidates are Guliani and Hillary - as I said it’ll be Guliani. Lord knows Hillary should be held accountable for her role in about 10 things…. There is a case against her right now where Hugh Hewitt interviewed the plaintiff.
Comment by Baklava @ 8/8/2007 - 9:07 am
Maybe so, Dana, but on the charge of hypocrisy, you are wrong.
Comment by Sister Toldjah @ 8/8/2007 - 9:08 am
Actually since Clinton actually was the President while having an affair with an intern, and we were all complaining about it, is the point of distinction. Gulianni is, as far as we are aware, Not having an affair with anyone presently. That is a huge distinction. If Guilianni was in an affair presently, and was running for President, I firmly believe his chances at the Republican nomination would be zip, zero, nada. But his chances as the Dem nominee would raise by 25 percent.
J/K Dems.
As far as his children go. You have no idea what their Mother has done to bitter these children against Rudy. Actually her personality could be the reason that Rudy divorced her. I don’t know the woman, and I know that this is all speculation, but I consider any comments about how the children won’t support their Father is just as much speculation. It is a trap that we as outsiders should not fall into. - Lorica
Comment by Lorica @ 8/8/2007 - 1:27 pm
I dislike this story, because it is based purely on speculation.
Just because someone joins a facebook group doesn’t mean that they support that candidate for president, or reject another.
Comment by Lanie @ 8/8/2007 - 3:01 pm