In an editorial endorsing John McCain's candidacy for the Republican nomination for president, the New York Times justified passing on former Mayor Rudy Giuliani thusly: "The real Mr. Giuliani, whom many New Yorkers came to know and mistrust, is a narrow, obsessively secretive, vindictive man who saw no need to limit police power. ... [His] arrogance and bad judgment are breathtaking." That's downright cheery compared to some of the other things that have been said about "America's Mayor" in the past year or so. A look back at our favorite quotes:

"He has this streak, Rudy, where he looks for unnecessary confrontations. Is he overcompensating? I sure as hell don't know. But I worked with men, I worked with real men, and they didn't have to do that. They knew where and when someone had to get knocked on their ass." —Louis Anemone, retired chief, NYPD, to GQ

"It took an event the size of 9/11 for this son of a gun to show the slightest bit of human compassion." —Anemone

"He couldn't have been elected dogcatcher on 9/10" —Former mayor Ed Koch, to GQ

"(Reporter) Jimmy Breslin calls him a small man in search of a balcony" —Former Newsday reporter Robert Polner, to GQ

"It's tragic how wounded this man really is. And wounded people inevitably wound other people." —Rudy Crew, New York's schools chancellor, to the New Yorker

"(He's got) a very, very powerful pathology." —Crew, quoted in Vanity Fair

"If Rudy would say, 'Let's kill 12-year-olds,' there would be a deep silence in the room and then somebody would say, 'That's brilliant!' And then somebody else would say, 'Have you thought of 13-year-olds, too?'" —Lilliam Barrios-Paoli, Giuliani's commissioner of the city's Human Resources Administration, describing the dynamic among the mayor's top aides in the New Yorker

"Rudy Giuliani is not the individual he portrays himself to be." —John McDonnell, head of the city's fire officers' union, to the New Yorker

"From my perspective, Rudy would be a very dangerous president. And I think people need to be very frightened of him. When you look at the way he picked battles unnecessarily as mayor, imagine if he's got nuclear weapons at his disposal." —Jerome Hauer, who set up the city's Office of Emergency Management for Giuliani, to the New Yorker

"There were constant loyalty tests: 'Will you shoot your brother?' People were marked for destruction for disloyal jokes." —Marilyn Gelber, Giuliani's environmental commissioner, to the New York Times

"Are you crazy? He's just insane." —Reporter Jack Newfield, to Vanity Fair

"(He's got) a devil in him." —New York politician Basil Paterson, quoted in Vanity Fair

"(He's got) a mean streak." —Former New York congressman Rev. Floyd Flake, quoted in Vanity Fair