Rudy Giuliani succeeded in cutting crime in New York because, among other reasons, he adopted the perspective of “broken-windows policing,” i.e., going after minor infractions as a way of restoring order and reducing crime across the board. But what his dust-up with Glenn Beck last week (see here from today’s WTimes and here from the Corner) shows us is that on illegal immigration, Giuliani rejects his own “zero-tolerance” approach and instead subscribes to the David Dinkins theory of law enforcement – an effective amnesty for minor offences, wait around for major crimes to happen, and then chase around fecklessly after the perpetrators, and shrug when you can’t find them and blame root causes. You can almost hear Giuliani mouthing Dinkins’ excuses, like “If we had a police officer on every other corner, we couldn’t stop some of the random violence that goes on” – just change “police officer” to “immigration agent” and “random violence” to “illegal immigration” and you’ve got Rudy’s approach to immigration. Heck, somebody should ask him whether he has Dinkins in mind to replace Julie Myers at ICE.