Roger Ailes and Fox News Notwithstanding, Giuliani Was Running On Ego and Fumes; Sunday’s MTP Performance Finished Him Off
“‘Sometimes you look back on some of these choices and you made the wrong one,’ he [Giuliani] said [of Kerik in 2004]. ‘In this case, he turned out to be the right one.’”
– Michael Powell, “Giuliani missed Kerik warning signs,” The New York Times, Nov. 3, 2007.
“So Mr. Giuliani … once again said that he had made ‘a mistake in not checking him [Kerik] out more carefully.’”
– Michael Cooper and William K. Rashbaum, “Kerik’s Case Dogs Giuliani,” The New York Times, Nov. 9, 2007.
There was Rudy, fencing with Big Russ’ Boy Timmy on Meet the Press Dec. 9th, exuding all the desperation of the accused killer pleading to the judge that, although he’s ‘made a few mistakes’ in his life, he’s not guilty of that double murder, even if his bloody prints are on the weapon and the prosecution has video tape proof.
First, Giuliani laughably tried to hype his quitting the Iraq Study Group as the noble act of a man who was considering running for president and didn’t want the final ISG report to be tainted by his ‘conflict of interest’ presence on the panel. (Since when is a Republican troubled by a conflict of interest?) Of course it had almost nothing to do with the $11.4 million in speaking fees he would have sacrificed by serving on the ISG.
But the hilarity continued, as Rudy admitted that hiring corrupt lunkhead Bernie Kerik was just one of his little mistakes, a mere bureaucratic slip out of the thousands of appointments he made as mayor. His later recommendation to the Bush Administration that Kerik head up Homeland Security was yet another fudge; yes, he should have more thoroughly vetted Bernie before going off half-cocked. Whoops! And his memory went conveniently dim when he tried to recall any meetings where he was told by his underlings Bernie wasn’t kosher, even after Russert recited from a record of such a meeting, initialed by Giuliani and others present. Rudy then parsed the meaning of the language of the damning document with his best trial-lawyer persiflage: just because there’s a record of a meeting doesn’t mean the meeting actually took place! Not covered was that Giuliani’s ‘little mistake’ with Bernie was one of the most important appointments a big city mayor makes: Police Commissioner. Also fluffed over was Rudy’s entering into a lucrative business partnership with Kerik, wherein we are supposed to believe the poor naive former federal prosecutor, who takes credit for jailing Mob bosses and understanding the true threat of Al-Qaeda prior to 9/11, signed the incorporation papers without checking his partner’s past first.
Another chuckle-inducer was his dismissal of his role in business dealings with the emirate of Qatar; even the usually sludgy Russert brought up the fact that Qatar has aided terrorist groups, to which the facile Rudy toothily replied — a bright student scoring a law class debating point — that they were also allies of the US, as if that jangling paradox didn’t undercut all of his incendiary post-9/11 anti-terrorist posturing. A President Rudy, we can logically assume, wouldn’t go after terrorists as long as the country sheltering them claimed to be allies of the United States. Coupled with his naiveté regarding Kerik, we have a picture of a man so enormously bubble-headed he can easily be duped by sleazy grifters at home and crafty sheiks abroad. Just what the American people are salivating for in 2008!
New York’s ex-mayor topped off his comedy-of-the-absurd act with a bizarre defense of his administration misusing taxpayer funds to protect his mistress Judi Nathan as well as his then-wife Donna: He claimed that she was being guarded by the New York Police Department because she had received ‘threats’ to her person by her public identification as the mayor’s girlfriend, and it was the police, not Rudy, who insisted she receive that expensive protection. Let’s think back — what low creature leaked to the media the identity of the mayor’s adulterous concubine? Why, that would be Rudy himself, openly parading arm-in-arm down city sidewalks for the media cameras, not that he nor Russert found that fillip worth talking about.
There’s no point in waiting for Giuliani to release the records of the alleged ‘threats’ to Judi, or the NYPD documents imploring him to let them protect her safety at the taxpayers’ expense — by the time they are made public, his campaign, already fading into single digits in some state polls, will be over anyway; his embarrassing excuse-riddled turn as The Double-Talk Kid on MTP has assured that.
“[Rudy Giuliani]… lies with staggering impunity. But here’s the thing: he does it with such conviction and such seeming authority that people who are not inclined to study the matter will believe him — will in fact be utterly convinced that Giuliani is speaking the gospel truth, and they will prove almost impossible to shake from this conviction.” [...]
“… He will say and do anything he feels he needs to say and do to get power.”
– Michael Tomasky, “This Is One Dangerous Man: It’s George Bush with Brains,” The Guardian (UK), Nov. 5, 2007.
The Tattlesnake — The Man Who Would Be King Won’t Edition
Roger Ailes and Fox News Notwithstanding, Giuliani Was Running On Ego and Fumes; Sunday’s MTP Performance Finished Him Off
“‘Sometimes you look back on some of these choices and you made the wrong one,’ he [Giuliani] said [of Kerik in 2004]. ‘In this case, he turned out to be the right one.’”
– Michael Powell, “Giuliani missed Kerik warning signs,” The New York Times, Nov. 3, 2007.
“So Mr. Giuliani … once again said that he had made ‘a mistake in not checking him [Kerik] out more carefully.’”
– Michael Cooper and William K. Rashbaum, “Kerik’s Case Dogs Giuliani,” The New York Times, Nov. 9, 2007.
There was Rudy, fencing with Big Russ’ Boy Timmy on Meet the Press Dec. 9th, exuding all the desperation of the accused killer pleading to the judge that, although he’s ‘made a few mistakes’ in his life, he’s not guilty of that double murder, even if his bloody prints are on the weapon and the prosecution has video tape proof.
First, Giuliani laughably tried to hype his quitting the Iraq Study Group as the noble act of a man who was considering running for president and didn’t want the final ISG report to be tainted by his ‘conflict of interest’ presence on the panel. (Since when is a Republican troubled by a conflict of interest?) Of course it had almost nothing to do with the $11.4 million in speaking fees he would have sacrificed by serving on the ISG.
But the hilarity continued, as Rudy admitted that hiring corrupt lunkhead Bernie Kerik was just one of his little mistakes, a mere bureaucratic slip out of the thousands of appointments he made as mayor. His later recommendation to the Bush Administration that Kerik head up Homeland Security was yet another fudge; yes, he should have more thoroughly vetted Bernie before going off half-cocked. Whoops! And his memory went conveniently dim when he tried to recall any meetings where he was told by his underlings Bernie wasn’t kosher, even after Russert recited from a record of such a meeting, initialed by Giuliani and others present. Rudy then parsed the meaning of the language of the damning document with his best trial-lawyer persiflage: just because there’s a record of a meeting doesn’t mean the meeting actually took place! Not covered was that Giuliani’s ‘little mistake’ with Bernie was one of the most important appointments a big city mayor makes: Police Commissioner. Also fluffed over was Rudy’s entering into a lucrative business partnership with Kerik, wherein we are supposed to believe the poor naive former federal prosecutor, who takes credit for jailing Mob bosses and understanding the true threat of Al-Qaeda prior to 9/11, signed the incorporation papers without checking his partner’s past first.
Another chuckle-inducer was his dismissal of his role in business dealings with the emirate of Qatar; even the usually sludgy Russert brought up the fact that Qatar has aided terrorist groups, to which the facile Rudy toothily replied — a bright student scoring a law class debating point — that they were also allies of the US, as if that jangling paradox didn’t undercut all of his incendiary post-9/11 anti-terrorist posturing. A President Rudy, we can logically assume, wouldn’t go after terrorists as long as the country sheltering them claimed to be allies of the United States. Coupled with his naiveté regarding Kerik, we have a picture of a man so enormously bubble-headed he can easily be duped by sleazy grifters at home and crafty sheiks abroad. Just what the American people are salivating for in 2008!
New York’s ex-mayor topped off his comedy-of-the-absurd act with a bizarre defense of his administration misusing taxpayer funds to protect his mistress Judi Nathan as well as his then-wife Donna: He claimed that she was being guarded by the New York Police Department because she had received ‘threats’ to her person by her public identification as the mayor’s girlfriend, and it was the police, not Rudy, who insisted she receive that expensive protection. Let’s think back — what low creature leaked to the media the identity of the mayor’s adulterous concubine? Why, that would be Rudy himself, openly parading arm-in-arm down city sidewalks for the media cameras, not that he nor Russert found that fillip worth talking about.
There’s no point in waiting for Giuliani to release the records of the alleged ‘threats’ to Judi, or the NYPD documents imploring him to let them protect her safety at the taxpayers’ expense — by the time they are made public, his campaign, already fading into single digits in some state polls, will be over anyway; his embarrassing excuse-riddled turn as The Double-Talk Kid on MTP has assured that.
“[Rudy Giuliani]… lies with staggering impunity. But here’s the thing: he does it with such conviction and such seeming authority that people who are not inclined to study the matter will believe him — will in fact be utterly convinced that Giuliani is speaking the gospel truth, and they will prove almost impossible to shake from this conviction.” [...]
“… He will say and do anything he feels he needs to say and do to get power.”
– Michael Tomasky, “This Is One Dangerous Man: It’s George Bush with Brains,” The Guardian (UK), Nov. 5, 2007.