[Newspoetry] SAINT RUDY AND THE DRAGON

[DL Emerick]

SAINT RUDY AND THE DRAGON

Semantics of the present Giuliani campaign.

Yesterday, NYT reported on how Saint Rudy is honing his image.

The personality phase of RG's campaign is designed to show two SYMBOLIC
"facts".

First, the obvious: on 911, RG was there and met the needs of the hour --
for someone to sound authoritative.  This is merely a classic truth -- every
politician knows that any sign of panic, or distress, can be interpreted as
weakness -- and the people never choose anyone so honest and sensitive,
because such people are always depictable as "wimps".  (It is any wonder, as
a consequence of this "informal" political rule, that almost all high
ranking officials are both insensitive and dishonest?)

Second, behind, before the facts of 911, RG wants to claim "As America's
mayor in a tough place, I slew the dread DRAGON of Liberal Democrats."  The
actual facts are evident in the discrepancy broadcast frequencies: eg,
consider RG's spate of "issue position reversals" or his constant barrage of
sundry "historical revisions" (aka lying, or, as we Americans
euphemistically call it, "campaigning").

RUDY WANTS TO INVOKE THE IMAGE OF SAINT GEORGE (aka the bumbling Bush).
Latently, subliminally, he wishes to claim the mantle of Republican and,
thus (per his wish), American leadership.

Slaying the Dragon, in the case being the Mayor of New York is an easy claim
to make.  All you do is parade all the fears of the alleged evils that big
cities evoke, in rural bumpkins and other rustic types, that constant the
GOP base.  You magnify your own city, New York, into the very epitome of an
evil place, before you came to rule there.  Then, finally, you claim to have
successfully confronted this sinful city of Babylonian proportions and yet
that you tamed and governed it, overcoming its evil with the force of your
good leadership.

In short, RG says, symbolically, "I SLEW THE DRAGON".

Diagnostically, one could look deeper into the Apocalyptic tones, where the
sign of the Dragon rules the horror that inspires the faithful in the roots
of their faith -- that the dragon will fall, the followers of the dragon all
slain, and the faithful richly rewarded.

(Overpaid is what I would say, but the faithful are like CEOs, thinking no
amount of money is enough, as adequate compensation, for their services to
the company (or) God.  This is the moral blindness and insensitivity that
lust for anything, including "eternal life", ever fosters -- for the
greatest weakness in man always is the extremism of some immoderation.)

So, my fellow newspoets, there's your 2008 mission target: strip lies of
this liar's lies.  My sense of the best RHETORICAL counters?  Show that RG
"FED THE BEAST;" he didn't slay it.