Rudy Giuliani’s stage fall

We give credit to Rudy Giuliani for the way he made public spaces safer from actual violence as mayor of this fine city. Now Giuliani has morphed into a man who conflates a simple back-slap followed by nasty words with a brutal physical attack. Before we go any further, it’s important to say that Giuliani’s claim to have been badly assaulted by a subsequently arrested employee at a Staten Island ShopRite (who later, and correctly, saw the felony assault charges against him downgraded) is likely a stunt intended to boost the candidacy of his son Andrew, who’s running as the most pure-to-Trump candidate in today’s Republican gubernatorial primary. As such, it is a shame to give it more ink than it deserves.

But even a cynical, calculated criminal complaint demands a rebuttal.

Surveillance video makes clear that an angry man patted 78-year-old Giuliani not so gently in the center of the back. Then this man, standing a few feet from Giuliani, unleashed an expletive-filled tirade.

The back-slap was wrong. We’ve decried those who stir up or engage in any type of violence against public officials and their families, whether it’s activists riling up the public to harm Supreme Court justices, a former president trying to intimidate members of Congress or poll workers, or a Republican candidate for Senate in Missouri aiming at supposed Republicans In Name Only.

But the footage makes a mockery of Giuliani’s subsequent story that it felt “like somebody shot me,” and that had he been weaker, he might have “cracked my skull, and died.” Indeed, such words are surprisingly tone-deaf coming from a man who in his day counseled countless shooting victims. Had the back-slap been followed by words of praise rather than vicious insults, Giuliani would never have involved the police.

The first rule of public discourse: Don’t put your hands on anyone. The second rule: Don’t turn a molehill into a mountain, especially if you built your public persona on being a tough guy who could give as good as he got.