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Has Anyone Seen Ghouliani Sober?


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2019’s version of A Few Good Men, featuring Chris Cuomo and Rudy Giuliani.

 

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Seth Abramson explains Giuliani's (and Trump's) connections to Ukraine in this short thread, and makes an argument for a new Special Counsel investigation:

I'm putting the rest under a spoiler:

Spoiler

 

 

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Not only is he another one who has sold his soul, but - he is also another one whose family should take away his keys, get him some help, and ensure he is kept out of the public eye.

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Rick Wilson of ETTD fame, current Never Trumper and prior Republican strategist, worked on Rudy's mayoral campaign back in the day when Rudy could deliver an effective hour-long speech with no notes.  When asked what in the hell happened to his old boss, Rick has no answer to how someone that he once respected could fall so incredibly far, unravel so completely and totally abase himself in public. 

Edited by Howl
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Sweet Rufus! The State Department asking a private citizen to take a call from a foreign official? :pb_eek:

 

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Rudy, Rudy, Rudy... "‘Shut up, moron’: Rudy Giuliani lashes out at critics, defends his Ukraine involvement"

Spoiler

Rudolph W. Giuliani’s fellow Fox News panelist was talking over him again on Tuesday night, ignoring host Laura Ingraham’s attempts to intervene. Giuliani wasn’t having it anymore.

“Shut up, moron,” Giuliani shouted on “The Ingraham Angle,” directing the command at liberal radio host Christopher Hahn. “Shut up, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Giuliani’s outburst and the ensuing battle of words between the two men capped the end of a contentious day for President Trump’s personal attorney. Hours before coming on Fox News, The Washington Post reported that Giuliani was a key player in the escalating political conflict over Trump’s dealings with Ukraine — a scandal that has rocked the White House and prompted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to initiate impeachment proceedings against the president.

On Fox News, Giuliani vigorously defended himself and Trump. He argued that he only contacted Ukrainian officials at the request of the State Department, called for investigations of “corrupt” Democrats, and repeatedly alleged that former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter had done wrong in Ukraine. The allegation about the Bidens, which Trump has also voiced, has not been backed up by any official evidence thus far, The Post’s Fact Checker reported.

Afterward, Giuliani took to Twitter into early Wednesday morning to double down on his earlier claims.

“Democrat party is covering up a pattern of corruption involving high level members of the Obama cabinet,” Giuliani tweeted around 1 a.m. “The multi-million and billion dollar pay-for-play is mind boggling.”

The former New York mayor first appeared on Fox News Tuesday for a one-on-one interview with Ingraham to address The Post’s report about his involvement in Ukraine and the impeachment inquiry. The saga began unfolding last week when The Post reported that a whistleblower complaint alleged that Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to look into Biden. Tuesday’s report revealed that Giuliani was heavily entangled in Trump’s Ukraine dealings, which also involved the president reportedly withholding almost $400 million in military aid for the country, while national security officials were sidelined.

When Ingraham asked whether he inserted himself into Ukrainian discussions, Giuliani confirmed that he did. Then, he repeated a past assertion that the State Department had enlisted his help.

“I never talked to a Ukrainian official until the State Department called me and asked me to do it and then I reported every conversation back to them. I’m a pretty good lawyer, just a country lawyer, but it’s all here, right here,” he said, holding up his cellphone to suggest that call records would provide confirmation.

For most of the roughly 13-minute interview, Giuliani sought to shift the focus from himself back to Democrats and Biden. At one point, he even suggested that Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who went to Ukraine this month, should be impeached instead of Trump.

Giuliani argued that Democrats have been “covering up for what will turn out to be massive corruption in the Obama administration,” highlighting allegations that then-Vice President Biden had pressed the Ukrainian government to fire a prosecutor who had been investigating a natural gas firm that employed Hunter Biden. According to The Post’s Fact Checker, that investigation was shelved before Biden’s attempts to oust the prosecutor. Additionally, Hunter Biden, who sat on the company’s board for five years, was never accused of wrongdoing during the investigation.

Giuliani later added that he had gotten involved rather than leaving the investigation to officials with the Justice Department or the FBI because of his role as Trump’s lawyer.

“I’m defending him,” Giuliani said. “He’s my client. I don’t know, only Donald Trump is not entitled to a defense in America.”

As he pointed fingers at Democrats and a “crooked press corps,” Giuliani also spouted claims, without evidence, that the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and an FBI agent assigned to investigate the Hunter Biden corruption allegations were both part of a conspiracy organized by liberal billionaire George Soros — talking so much that his voice became hoarse.

“Sorry to cut you off,” Ingraham said following several attempts to let Giuliani know that he was out of time. “You gotta get your voice back.”

After a few minutes of rest, Ingraham brought Giuliani back on the show to join a panel made up of Hahn, the liberal radio host, and former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy. Hahn had just accused Giuliani of “making things up” about the Bidens, and the lawyer was raring to go.

“I should sue you for libel,” Giuliani told Hahn. “You actually usually say incredibly stupid things.”

From there, the segment turned into a screaming match. Giuliani called Hahn an “idiot,” demanding that Ingraham tell the radio host “to keep his mouth shut.”

It’s unclear whether Trump watched Giuliani’s interview or the heated exchange, but it appeared he was glued to Fox News on Tuesday night. The president tweeted six videos of Fox segments, thanking hosts and guests who suggested he was free of wrongdoing in the Ukraine affair.

 

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Rudy's caretaker must have mixed up his meds again:

image.png.59320955d62115f5d2043b5a51a8b0e9.png

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Hmmmm "Giuliani cancels paid appearance next week at Kremlin-backed conference"

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Rudolph W. Giuliani, whose actions as President Trump’s personal lawyer have helped set in motion an impeachment inquiry, abruptly canceled his scheduled paid appearance at a Kremlin-backed conference in Armenia next week.

Giuliani, who confirmed to The Washington Post on Friday morning that he would attend the event, reversed himself that evening after The Post reported on his participation in the meeting, which Russian President Vladi­mir Putin and other top Russian officials are expected to attend.

The two-day conference is sponsored by Russia and the Moscow-based Eurasian Economic Union, a trade alliance launched by Putin in 2014 as a counterweight to the European Union.

According to an agenda for the event posted online, Giuliani was set to participate in a panel led by Sergey Glazyev, a longtime Putin adviser who has been under U.S. sanctions since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine five years ago.

Giuliani said Friday evening that he was no longer planning to attend the meeting. “I didn’t know Putin was going,” he said in a brief interview, adding in a text: “Discretion is the better part of valor.”

Giuliani’s decision to take part in the conference astounded national security experts. His appearance would have come days after the release of a whistleblower complaint accusing Trump and Giuliani of pressuring Ukrainian officials for damaging information about Democrats.

Trump this summer withheld military aid from Ukraine, which counts on U.S. support to help fend off pro-Moscow separatists in the country’s eastern provinces. As part of his efforts in Ukraine, Giuliani has said the focus on Russia’s interference in the 2016 election has overlooked what he claims was meddling by Kiev.

The agenda for the Eurasian conference showed Giuliani was the only American scheduled to speak at the gathering.

In an interview Friday before canceling his plans, Giuliani angrily rejected questions about whether it would be appropriate for him to attend the event at which he also appeared last year.

“I will try to not knowingly talk to a Russian until this is all over,” he retorted.

The former New York mayor confirmed in the interview that he intended to accept payment for his appearance but declined to say how much he would receive or which group or person was going to pay him.

“It goes to my company,” Giuliani said.

The White House and State Department declined to comment.

Current and former White House aides said there is internal exasperation with Giuliani’s behavior and the fact that he does not clear his media appearances or paid speeches with the administration. Giuliani has said he works for the president in a personal capacity and does not take a salary from the government or the president.

A spokesman for the Eurasian conference declined to comment on Giuliani but said Putin, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong are set to attend the conference in the Armenian capital of Yerevan on Tuesday.

The conference is a regular summit of the Eurasian Economic Union, an economic trading union whose members are Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia.

It is the brainchild of Putin and was created in response to democratic upheavals taking place at the time in former Soviet countries. Putin has aimed to use the group to establish Russia as a bulwark against Europe and a center of gravity in the former Soviet region, describing the EEU as “a new supranational union that could become one of the poles of the modern world.”

In 2012, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the group part of an effort to “re-Sovietize the region.”

National security experts said Giuliani’s presence at the event could have bolstered the E.U. rival.

David Kramer, a former State Department official responsible for Russia and Ukraine during the George W. Bush administration, called it “terrible judgment” for Giuliani to have agreed to attend, saying his participation would have lent “credibility to an organization Putin set up as an alternative to the European Union.”

Michael McFaul, who served as U.S. ambassador to Russia in the Obama administration, said he was surprised Giuliani would agree to attend the Eurasian conference, particularly since the organization was a flash point in Russian-Ukrainian tensions. He noted it was created by Putin at a time when Ukraine was considering joining the European Union.

“I can’t remember anything like this,” McFaul said. He said Giuliani, as a private citizen, has a right to speak to any organization but called the conference an “odd” choice.

An agenda of the two-day summit says it is focused on transit in the region. On Tuesday evening, Putin is set to take part in the official closing ceremony with Rouhani and leaders of the EEU’s other member countries.

Giuliani had been scheduled to appear on a panel titled “Digital financial technologies — new opportunities for integrating payment systems of the Eurasian continent in transport logistics.”

The moderator listed on the agenda is Glazyev, an economist who served as one of Putin’s top advisers until this August and who is viewed in Moscow’s diplomatic circles as a possible successor to him. Next week, he is expected to be appointed to a top post at the commission that oversees the EEU.

Glazyev was one of a number of senior Russian government officials sanctioned by the Obama administration in 2014 as punishment for Russia’s incursion into Crimea.

Last year, Giuliani was also listed as a participant in a panel moderated by Glazyev. In a photo posted online by the group, Giuliani can be seen standing at a lectern to the left of a group of seated men that include Glazyev.

Giuliani told The Post on Thursday that he did not realize Glazyev would be present at last year’s meeting before attending.

“When we found out he was on the panel, the head of my security detail said [to the organizers], ‘The mayor is just going to be giving a speech and leaving, and if you don’t like that, screw you,’ ” Giuliani said.

Giuliani said he could not remember whether he and Glazyev spoke at the event.

“I was discussing Russian collusion,” he said, sarcastically. “He helped me tank the case. Do you know what an idiot you sound like right now?”

“What does it matter what I did at the conference?” Giuliani added.

Before backing out of the event, Giuliani said that he was unaware his panel at next week’s conference was again scheduled to feature Glazyev.

In interviews this week, Giuliani has rejected any scrutiny of his conduct, saying attention instead should be put on his claims about former vice president Joe Biden and the Democrats.

“I’m not an idiot. I know you all are going after me. I know what you guys are doing with this,” he said.

 

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20 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Rudy's caretaker must have mixed up his meds again:

image.png.59320955d62115f5d2043b5a51a8b0e9.png

Is he trying to imply that he's the whistleblower? Or is he signalling that he is willing to be a whistleblower?

If all he wants to be is a hero, well, you can bet he will spill all the beans. Which would be something, especially if he does it during his public testimony.

That said, I'm not placing any bets on that scenario...

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14 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

 

Kind of like Chris Christie

 

 

 

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It seems that Rudy needs to see a new doctor and get new meds:

 

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1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

It seems that Rudy needs to see a new doctor and get new meds:

Nah. It might not seem that way, but I think he's being perfectly sane here. By stating publicly to Trump that he has evidence against him and he isn't afraid to use it, Rudy is covering his ass (don't flip on me, Donnie, or else) and simultaneously signalling to the inquiry that he might be willing to talk, and spill all the beans if conditions are right (i.e. a get out of jail free card or some such).

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  • 2 weeks later...

"‘Stop talking’: Trump advisers want Giuliani dumped"

Spoiler

For weeks, prominent Republican advisers have been privately imploring President Donald Trump to sideline Rudy Giuliani after a barrage of inconsistent, combative and occasionally cringe-inducing media interviews, according to three people familiar with the conversations.

And that was before the arrest of two foreign-born businessmen who reportedly helped Giuliani try to discredit former Vice President Joe Biden, the leading Democrat to take on Trump in next year’s election. Several reports have indicated Giuliani himself may be caught up in the probe.

Yet Trump remains linked to Giuliani, who was initially hired to help fend of Robert Mueller’s Russia investigators, but who now may have pulled the president into another investigation — one that might lead to impeachment. While the president has long appreciated Giuliani’s pugnacious and never-back-down attitude, Trump allies fear Giuliani will damage Trump with his long-winded monologues and free-wheeling accusations.

The constant sniping from staff could ultimately force Trump to dump his long-valued fixer, as he has done with former personal lawyer Michael Cohen and countless other ousted officials, like ex-Attorney General Jeff Sessions and former chief strategist Steve Bannon.

“Rudy Giuliani needs to stop talking,” said a former campaign official who remains close to Trump’s team.

Giuliani has been Trump’s attack dog since he was hired as an unpaid personal attorney April 2018. But the president’s personal lawyer has now found himself at the center of an unfolding controversy over the president’s attempts to get the Ukrainian president to open an investigation into Biden and his son, Hunter.

To numerous Trump advisers, though, the appearances have hurt more than they’ve helped the president.

“Rudy right now needs to focus on himself and not Ukraine,” said an outside Trump adviser.

For now, Trump is sticking with Giuliani, or “My Rudy,” as Giuliani said the president sometimes calls him. “Nothing has changed on that,” said Giuliani’s own attorney, Jon Sale. Trump plans to keep using Giuliani on everything but Ukraine matters because they know he’s a witness if this goes to impeachment, according to a source familiar with the legal team’s strategy.

Trump said late Friday he didn't know if Giuliani was still his attorney. “I haven't spoken to Rudy,” he said. “I spoke to him yesterday, briefly. He's a very good attorney and he has been my attorney.”

That’s good for Trump, Giuliani argued.

“I’m not a puppy — I know what I’m doing,” he said. If he didn’t represent Trump, Giuliani added, “they would let him be a punching bag.”

In a text on Saturday morning, Giuliani replied to the two most pressing questions he’s facing. “No knowledge of any probe. Still President’s counsel in same way as before…no change,” he wrote.

In a Saturday morning tweet, Trump wrote: "So now they are after the legendary “crime buster” and greatest Mayor in the history of NYC, Rudy Giuliani. He may seem a little rough around the edges sometimes, but he is also a great guy and wonderful lawyer."

At least one Republican suggested Giuliani would not leave even if Trump wanted him to. Either way, Giuliani is not going away, given his central role in the budding Ukraine controversy.

Giuliani fed Trump the information that largely led the president in a phone call to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The former New York mayor had spent months trying to make contact with Ukrainian officials to collect evidence and convince them that they should be looking at Hunter Biden’s work for a Ukrainian gas company and Joe Biden’s Obama-era efforts to have a Ukrainian prosecutor removed over corruption concerns. There is no public evidence that either Joe or Hunter Biden broke any laws.

House Democrats launched their impeachment inquiry after Trump’s request was revealed, spurring Giuliani to blanket the airwaves with his bulldog defenses of the president. Democrats have also subpoenaed Giuliani for documents and testimony related to his Ukraine activities, setting off a battle that’s likely to drag on for weeks.

Don Goldberg, who helped respond to congressional investigations in the Clinton White House, said Giuliani shouldn’t be helping Trump when he’s facing his own problems.

“It’s so messed up,” he said. “You’d think a president would want to have competent counsel if you’re talking about fighting for your political life. We’re so far not seeing that with the caliber he’s been using.”

Giuliani suggested in an interview this week that his television appearances could be reduced now that Trump’s legal team is expanding.

Some also speculated that the recent addition of former Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) to the Trump impeachment legal team was an attempt to reduce Giuliani’s appearances on the airwaves.

Although Gowdy — who led the congressional investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s response to in the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attacks — won’t start as a Trump attorney until January, he could appear as a surrogate on television in the meantime.

Democrats initially launched an investigation into Trump on Sept. 24 after learning about his call with Zelensky.

And Giuliani has been talking — a lot.

On Sept. 19, he denied he asked Ukraine to investigate the Bidens, only to admit it 30 seconds later.

On Sept. 24, he blew up at radio host Christopher Hahn during a joint television appearance, calling him a “moron” and an “idiot.”

On Oct. 6, he yelled at TV host Howard Kurtz, putting his fingers to his lips to shush him in the middle of the interview.

And in a series of phone interviews, Giuliani described himself both as a “hero” and the real “whistleblower” in the Ukraine saga, questioning why anyone would praise the person who initially raised concerns about Trump’s call.

“If I get killed now, you won’t get the rest of the story,” he warned POLITICO last month.

Michael Gerhardt, a University of North Carolina law professor who has written books on impeachment, said Giuliani’s primary legal role is to appear on television.

“That’s helping facilitate the political arguments the president is making,” he said. “But at some point, if impeachment gets any traction, you’re going to need somebody that can speak more clearly and more powerfully with respect to the different points of the impeachment articles that may be drafted and ratified.”

Giuliani said he and Jay Sekulow, another Trump attorney, are still working for Trump because they successfully represented Trump during Mueller’s investigation into whether the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to interfere in the 2016 election.

“Jay and I got us through the last one, not the peanut gallery,” Giuliani said. “The president has made his views quite well known.”

It’s not the first time prominent Republicans have complained to Trump about Giuliani. But those same allies say the situation has grown dire since the House opened its impeachment inquiry.

“I think he’s massively hurting,” said a person close to the Trump campaign. “His TV appearances are so confused and contradictory, he’s creating an impression of internal chaos.”

“He’s inarticulate,” said a Republican who speaks to the president. “Rudy hurts the president with inconsistent, confusing messages.”

One former senior administration official described it this way when asked what Trump’s strategy against impeachment should be: “Hopefully Rudy will be on the space shuttle.”

So far, Trump has not heeded the advice.

“As long as Giuliani is doing battle with the president’s perceived critics and opponents, that’s what matters to the president,” said Republican strategist Kevin Madden, who worked for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. “The efficiency of the performance isn't as important as the willingness to do battle.”

Trump admires Giuliani’s brand, his loyalty and his Trump-like style, according to people familiar with their relationship. He has both political and legal experience at the national level, and has known the president for decades.

“They have a brotherly relationship,” said a second Republican who speaks to the president. “He likes his combative style.”

Giuliani’s reputation soared after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when he was dubbed “America’s Mayor.” These days, he’s regularly mocked on late-night shows and “Saturday Night Live.” His favorable ratings dipped to their lowest point in 2018 since Gallup began their polling on him in 2004.

Still, Trump supporters credit him with helping the president survive the Mueller investigation — and now exposing the Biden allegations.

At the White House Friday, senior aide Stephen Miller forcefully defended Giuliani. “You should all be grateful Rudy Giuliani is helping to shine a light on the endemic corruption that occurred while Joe Biden was vice president,” he told reporters, alluding to unsubstantiated claims that Biden got a Ukrainian prosecutor fired to protect his son.

Republican strategist John Feehery said Trump loves what he is doing. “If this were any other president, Rudy would be a disaster,” he said. “There is a method to the madness. The goal is to always stay on offense and not be defensive.”

But there was at least one sign that Trump might be tiring of Giuliani.

On Thursday, the president told reporters he didn’t know the two Giuliani associates — Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman — charged with sending foreign money to U.S. political campaigns. Then, he turned the attention squarely back to Giuliani.

“You'd have to ask Rudy,” he said.

 

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19 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

“He’s inarticulate,” said a Republican who speaks to the president. “Rudy hurts the president with inconsistent, confusing messages.”

Has he ever heard Trump speaking? 

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On 10/4/2019 at 8:42 AM, fraurosena said:

By stating publicly to Trump that he has evidence against him and he isn't afraid to use it, Rudy is covering his ass (don't flip on me, Donnie, or else) and simultaneously signalling to the inquiry that he might be willing to talk, and spill all the beans if conditions are right (i.e. a get out of jail free card or some such).

Remember that both Trump and Rudy have some mobstering background.  Rudy whooped up on the mob in his heyday, but now it seems he's gone astray.  Whichever, Trump and Rudy telegraph the potential for backstabbing each other in the same language. 

Also, remember that attorney-client privilege goes out the window when criminal activities are involved.  

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1 hour ago, Howl said:

Remember that both Trump and Rudy have some mobstering background. 

Rudy has indeed got a mob background. His daddy, Harold Angel Giuliani, despite his name, was no angel. And his uncle was known to be a mobster. I dug up this old WaPo article from 2000 discussing Rudy's father.

What a different era that was, when Rudy was thinking of running for Senate against First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton!

'Rudy!' Shakes the Giuliani Family Tree

Quote

It seems Hizzoner Rudolph Giuliani, bane of the mob and scourge of street hoods, is himself the son of a stickup man and the nephew of a mobster.

The revelations, contained in "Rudy!," a new "investigative biography" of New York's once-fearsome mayor, are another curious turn in a curious year for him. He has prostate cancer and a girlfriend and a wife who is just a little bit bitter. And, no, on second thought, he's not going to run for the Senate against first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

So a public man's life becomes Shakespeare meets Freud as rendered by Mario Puzo.

Giuliani always has woven a moral hair shirt out of his life's work. As U.S. attorney and mayor, he took on the mobsters and beat back the predators. And always, he mocked anyone who gainsayed him. He was Sin City's Mr. Clean, out to restore New York to its technicolor 1950s heyday. It was a vision that he credited to his old man, the janitor and Brooklyn barkeep who instilled in him a reverence for working hard and keeping his nose clean.

Now, according to author Wayne Barrett, a longtime investigative reporter for the Village Voice, a rather different father emerges. It seems that the mayor's dad, Harold Giuliani, was a 5-foot-11, big-knuckled man who wore Coke-bottle glasses and made a living as "muscle." Which, in Brooklyn at that time, meant working as a debt collector for a loan-sharking operation. He swung a mean baseball bat and was a most skilled craftsman.

According to the book, Harold Giuliani "shoved people against walls, broke legs, smashed kneecaps, crunched noses. He gave nearby Kings County Hospital a lot of business. 'People in the neighborhood were terrified of him,' said a frequent customer at Vincents," the Giuliani bar.

Giuliani's father enjoyed signing his love letters to his future wife "Your Savage."

Giuliani has refused to comment on the book, although there's no indication that he contests the findings. It's not known if he was aware of his father's criminal past. He did say Tuesday that his father, who died in 1981, "was the finest man I ever knew . . . the most generous and kindest and most charitable man I ever knew."

In 1934, his father took a step farther over the line, according to the book. With an accomplice, he grabbed a milkman in the stairwell of an apartment building on East 96th Street in Manhattan (seven blocks from Gracie Mansion, where the mayor now lives) and stuck a gun to his stomach. The two men forced the milkman to drop his pants and began to bind his feet when a police officer came running in.

Giuliani was sentenced to two to five years at Sing Sing prison in New York.

Harold Giuliani lied about his name, age, address and occupation when he was arrested, which perhaps explains why his arrest and conviction went unnoticed by reporters and political opponents during the past two decades of Mayor Giuliani's very public life.

"Twenty-five years in public life with everyone out to get him, and they didn't know his father was a stickup man?" says Mitchell Moss of New York University's Taub Urban Research Center. "Who says you can't keep a secret?"

When Harold Giuliani arrived at Sing Sing, he received a psychiatric examination. Reading it today--the document is posted on the Web site TheSmokingGun.com--is like reading a cross-generational X-ray. Giuliani the father bears more than a passing temperamental similarity to Giuliani the son.

"He is a personality deviate of the aggressive egocentric type," the 1934 report reads. "This aggressivity is pathological in nature and has shown itself from time to time even as far back as his childhood. He is egocentric to an extent where he has failed to consider the feelings and rights of others."

As late as 1962, when Rudolph Giuliani was in college, his father engaged in a shootout with a Mafia thug, Barrett's book claims.

About all of this, the mayor will say but one thing: His father's past died with him.

Which, as far as it goes, seems to strike a lot of New Yorkers as reasonable. The revelations have played as front-page news in the tabloids, and are prominent on television. But the reports, after all, are about his father (and the mayor's mother, who is revealed to have harbored an affection for Benito Mussolini). If it turns out that an uncle and a cousin or two were mobsters or associates or goombah hangers-on, and if a few of said mooks caught a bullet or two, well . . . there's absolutely no evidence that Rudy Giuliani had anything to do with them.

Maybe it even makes a larger-than-life mayor a bit larger.

"He marries his cousin, then he has another wife and a girlfriend, and now this--" Moss of NYU is just a bit impressed. "He's not even running for the Senate, and he's still dominating the news cycle."

Even the mayor's political adversaries--a rather large and vociferous fraternity--are keeping what passes in New York for a tender silence. (The sins of the father, they'll tell you privately, must not be visited on the head of this "bleeping hypocrite.") Still, it's hard not to detect more than a hint of karmic payback.

Earlier this year, New York undercover police officers shot and killed Patrick Dorismond, an off-duty security guard who had refused their entreaties to find drugs for them. Giuliani quickly disclosed that the guard had been arrested as a teenager, thereby suggesting that Dorismond was no angel. When a public howl of outrage arose, Giuliani angrily shrugged it off.

You cannot, Giuliani said at the time, libel a dead man.

The article doesn't exactly paint a very nice picture of Rudy either, and he certainly wasn't as popular as he would become a year after this article was published. It seems the people who called him a "bleeping hypocrite" back then had the right of it.

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2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

 

I liked her as Jeff Sessions, but she’s absolutely masterful at impersonating Rudy!

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