http://www.nysun.com/article/31581

Prince of the City

New York Sun Editorial
April 25, 2006

Mayor Giuliani will be honored tonight by the Manhattan Institute at
its annual Alexander Hamilton dinner, and it is hard to think of a
more fitting evening. It was the Manhattan Institute that nursed in
this town the ideas that triumphed in the 1990s - and are still
ascendant - and it was Mayor Giuliani who had the wisdom, the
foresight to go to the Manhattan Institute in search of ideas on which
to build a mayoralty that changed this city, that proved it could be
governable, and that laid the basis for the gains that have been made
by, in Mayor Bloomberg, another wonderful leader.

It has been more than four years since Mr. Giuliani left office, and
it is no small thing that there are still millions of New Yorkers, and
many millions of Americans, who are eager for more of his leadership.
The first time your editors sat down with him for an extended
conversation about political principles was in the early 1990s, when
he was running in the campaign that would, four years after a bitter
defeat, finally elevate him to the mayoralty. To this day we rank the
interview as one of the clearest, most coherent explications of a
political philosophy that we've ever heard.

This was when we first began to hear his talk of "one standard" and to
gain the sense that, behind all the tough-guy image and political
aggressiveness, was a serious intellectual in his own right, a person
who read and thought about issues. Certainly he could be
confrontational, toward, say, the professional poverty advocates and
race hustlers. But he could also be warm, toward the immigrants and
homeowners and small entrepreneurs that make this city great. And we
began to gain the sense then of one of his greatest traits, his
capacity for political incorrectness.

By this we mean the streak of his personality that could, say, send
police officers to escort Yasser Arafat out of a concert in the city
because he just understood that it was a mockery. This is the same
streak that permitted him to just tear up a $10 million check from a
Saudi billionaire when it came with language that was offensive to a
city in which 3,000 of its citizens had just been slaughtered in the
name of the same hatred the donor was preaching. This is a streak that
Mr. Giuliani shares with President Bush.

For the Manhattan Institute to honor Mr. Giuliani tonight makes a
statement about conservative ideals at a moment when the conservative
movement is at a crossroads. Some conservatives want to stop
supporting freedom abroad and attack immigration here at home. Mr.
Giuliani stands for an optimistic brand of conservatism that does not
tolerate terrorists or negotiate with them and that understands that
immigration strengthens America's culture and economy rather than
weakens it. In a conservative movement often hostile to government,
Mr. Giuliani understood the role of honest government and capitalism
in supporting freedom.

There's been a lot of talk about whether Mr. Giuliani will run for
president. There are plenty of good candidates, and this isn't the
moment for an endorsement. But count this newspaper as in the camp
that hopes Mr. Giuliani will run, not only because we think he'd do a
fine job of running the country were he to win but because his ideas -
on tax cuts, on fighting terrorism, on immigration, on vouchers for
private and parochial school students - would be healthy for the
national debate. We have not the slightest doubt that the audience
receptive to these kinds of ideas extends far beyond the crowd that
will gather tonight to see the prince of the city honored in the name
of Hamilton.