THE GIULIANIFICATION OF BUSH. I see by the Chicago Tribune (via Alterman) that Bush's Pentagon wants to cut the pay of American soldiers in Iraq. This put me in mind of our late, accursed mayor Giuliani, who rode to glory on the backs of City cops and then fucked them over on pay raises.

Of course, Giuliani used the NYPD ill in many ways. Here's an interesting case revealed in New York Newsday last month:

Last week, City Comptroller William Thompson Jr. released his "Claims Report 2001-2002." Buried in parentheses amid the pie charts and bar graphs, was a line that said the city paid out $141.7 million in claims against the Police Department in fiscal 2001 - $63 million more than before or since.

The reason was a class action suit involving 7,000 citizens. Cost to the city: $50 million.

The case involved the strip-searching of 65,000 people for such minor first offenses as littering under former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's "quality of life" crime crackdown.

This massive payout is one major reason for the massive deficits that plague us still. (The others, including Hizzoner's largesse to large local businesses, would fill several columns.)

Yet the country worships "Rudy" as a savior, and doubtless Bush expects similar on-the-cheap veneration. To a large extent, it's a cultural thing. Cops and soliders identify with the Republican crackdown vision, and are, it seems, more easily flim-flammed than, say, hospital workers when it is quietly announced that they will not be compensated for their part in the new order. And the public is easily brought on board with the NYPD Blue, Third Watch, Law & Order narrative of tough leaders guiding tough civil servants through a world of skels.

These bastards have it worked good and proper. Come the Republican Convention in New York next year, the cops will, no doubt, efficiently pen protestors far from the media eye. They will be paid far less than they deserve or even require for doing so, but they will do it, and be part of the whole, carefully managed spectacle of muscular righteousness the Republicans have planned.

And some people call us useful idiots!