A veto that will haunt Rudy

Today, Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani accused Democrats of favoring a paternalistic “nanny government.”

Giuliani, on a two-day campaign swing, is telling voters he favors less government and lower taxes - and Democrats want the opposite. 
 
“That’s what makes America great, not this nanny government that Democrats want to give us, where government controls your entire life,” he said.

While it’s nice to hear Rudy speak out against the Nanny State, there are a few issues in his past that are, for me, troubling.

1. Oct. 2001: Rudy endorses the imperious Michael Bloomberg. 

2. July 2007: Giuliani tells a crowd at a town-hall style meeting in New Hampshire that he iss opposed to legalizing marijuana for medical purposes because advocates really just want to make the drug available to everyone. “I believe the effort to try and make marijuana available for medical uses is really a way to legalize it. There’s no reason for it,” he said.

3. 1995: Rudy signs a bill to ban cigarettes in all New York restaurants with more than 35 seats  — long before the national smoking ban craze begins.

4. May 2001: The unconscionable veto of NYC’s Ferret Legalization Bill. Here are the specifics from Modern Ferret Magazine. (Notice the caption under former NYC Commissioner of Health, Dr. Neal Cohen, who is ”decidedly anti-ferret”).