Don't defame election workers
On punitive damages, taking down the mob, and what it takes to corrupt someone's character
If Rudy Giuliani had always been an obvious crook, a jury's decision to award $148 million in damages to two election workers as compensation for his defamatory words would still be a huge sum, but it wouldn't also be a tragedy. Giuliani, though, was a man who once obviously knew better.
â– For as clownish as the former New York mayor's behavior has become, it's easy to forget that he forged his place in the public eye as a crusading prosecutor who ruthlessly went after the mob and innovated the legal means of taking down organized crime. It was a record of which he could be proud, even before he took his place in the spotlight as a steady leader during the crisis of 9/11.
â– That he now behaves in such a way that his own defense attorneys plead that he "shouldn't be defined by what's happened in recent times" forces thoughtful people to reflect on a difficult question: Was he always the kind of person who would lie about decent ordinary people just to win a temporary political advantage? Or did something about him change?
â– If it was the former, why didn't the public see it before? If it was the latter, are the rest of us susceptible to the same kinds of changes? One calls into question the quality of long-standing public opinion. The other forces us to ask how much we control and determine the quality of our own character. Both are uncomfortable challenges.
â– The philosopher Maimonides counseled that "Man is created in such a way that his character traits and actions are influenced by his neighbors and friends, and he follows the custom of the people in his country. Therefore a man needs to associate with the just and be with the wise continually in order to learn [from] their actions, and to keep away from the wicked, who walk in darkness, so that he avoids learning from their actions."
â– While it's possible that the world could have been very wrong about Giuliani for a very long time, he certainly put himself at considerable personal risk in going after the mafia (and corrupt cops, upon whom he set his sights as well). It's hard to imagine that he could have accepted that kind of risk without being driven, at least in part, by some moral sensibility; thus, we ought to take seriously the problem of a change in character.
â– It's no mystery in whose orbit Giuliani has been traveling in recent years. Anyone who considers joining the same circles ought to beware that their character is unlikely to hold up any better than his.
