Rudy Giuliani: The Teflon Don?
Has there been a presidential candidate in recent memory as ruthlessly corrupt as Rudy Giuliani? Not that I know of, which makes the fact that Republicans seem to be treating the dirty past of one of the party’s front runners as a non issue an issue in and of itself.
Unless you spent the last few days in a cave, you know by now that in addition to all of Giuliani’s other previously disclosed transgressions and indiscretions:
America’s Mayor detailed several $100,000 a year New York City police officers to provide security to mistress Judi Nathan and her pooch while he still was married to Donna Hanover, whom he later announced that he was divorcing at a press conference without having first informed his ex-to-be.
Wait! It gets better. Giuliani billed obscure city agencies, including one that regulates loft apartments, for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses, as well as made trips on the taxpayer’s dime to the Hamptons to shack up with Sweet Judy Blue Eyes.
Giuliani’s response has not been so much to deny the allegations, which are laid out in detail in a paper trail that includes city records, credit card bills and other documents, as to say that they’re not his problem.
Adultery? Check. Misuse of city police officers? Check. Misuse of city funds? Check. Are many members of the Family Values Party ready to nominate this weasel? Check.
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15 Responses to “Rudy Giuliani: The Teflon Don?”
Great minds Shaun… I made the same teflon connection myself at Newshoggers. On that score, one might say Rudy has the best claim to Reagan’s legacy.
If the GOP wants to stop Hillary, they have to overlook Rudy’s little “discretions”. He’s already admitted he’s far from perfect, so I guess that he doesn’t feel further explanations are necessary. Rudy isn’t going to score well with the evangelical community any way, he’s going for the moderate voters, war hawks and the anti-Hillary vote.
My only question- is how can misuse of taxpayer funds for personal business be considered legal?
BTW- Rudy has nothing to fear from Fox, or the NY Post, regarding this scandal- he’s got a 20-year friendship with Roger Ailes and is close to Rupert Murdoch. He’s also a great friend of AG Mukasey.
Bill Clinton doesn’t count, ’cause he’s a beloved Dem.
I must say I don’t understand the GOP.
The same people who faint at the idea of Clinton’s sexual escapades, which were tax-money free, are perfectly willing to overlook Giuliani’s transgressions just to win?
Where are the principled conservatives? Even his claims about the shape in which he left NYC’s budget aren’t true. His fiscal conservatism, like the rest of the persona he has created, is based strictly on his say-so and is totally divorced from his past record.
Yet, he is the top candidate. I don’t get it.
Do they want to bomb some countey or other that badly? Is a war machine really their idea of the ultimate in civilization?
Where’s Henry Hyde when you need him?
I’m certainly not — I brought Giuliani’s travel assistance plan to light here before this thread began, in case you didn’t notice.
As to others — that shows you how repellent Hillary Clinton is to so many Americans. (I don’t find her to be alarming; we have to wait to see how far left she moves after the election and the discarding of her fake “centrist-moderate” vote-sparing act — unless her media machine will try to perpetuate it.)
I don’t believe Giuliani is the “savior” alarmed non-lberals are going to be betting on.
I forget which TMV commenters was writing “THE LETTER” embracing moderate views with a full embracing of nearly every plank in the democratic platform but Rudi is their man.
I think they are overlooking just about anything and everything to break the hold on the party that the traditional conservatives have.
Its this perpetual overlooking of values that is giving Rudi a fighting chance. How could anyone vote for the man? The answer is simple. He is not GWB and he is NOT Hillary
Everything else is moot at this point.
To all Wingnuts, remember how you soiled your diapers when Arkansas State troopers came out and said they also helped with security while Bill was dropping his pants. Why does Rudy’s behavior not bother the Party of Family Values.
All during the Clinton years they were chanting en masse about the rule of law–now they see no evil hear no evil with one of their own. What Republican principles haven’t they violated? Whatta buncha phoneys!
Well it does Rudi. I am totally opposed to the man. I have said from the beginning that Rudi and his beliefs are much more aligned with the Democratic platform then they are with the Republican platform.
Rudi is a neocon and yet he is much too socially liberal for me. He personifies the “Animal House” society that the left pines for day in and day out.
In the end if he wins the nomination he is setting the Republicans up for another Goldwater trouncing because the Republican party is in disarray, confused and suffering a huge identity crisis.
You people cannot possibly imagine how confusing it is to be a conservative right now. Everything we say is met with a shower of tomatoes and eggs. Everything we believe in is being laughed at and mocked.
When Kennedy and LBJ got us into Vietnam it was never about liberalism vs conservatism. It was about right or wrong. Moral or Immoral choices by a government.
Somehow this war has become personal for everyone and as such the Democrats/antiwar have dragged this country into the mud for the simple purpose of remaining in power. OH the Republicans have helped, urged it, encouraged the polarization and actually started the verbal war with the patriotism thing.
So in the end this will be perhaps the greatest defeat in political history. I can think of no better man to take that whooping then Rudi Guillani.
Rudi going down in a blaze of glory will most likely right the Republican ship and put them back on course for being the party of Family values, personal freedoms, Fiscal responsibility and the party that urges strong national unity instead of strong national divisiveness.
Somebody, when you say this:
“Everything we believe in is being laughed at and mocked.”……
followd by this:
“war has become personal for everyone and as such the Democrats/antiwar have dragged this country into the mud for the simple purpose of remaining in power”…………………..
……….you make me laugh. You just want to throw the eggs and tomatoes, and don’t like it when they’re thrown at you.
That’s an understandable human natture kind of thing, bur hardly the basis for agonizing political analyses.
Somebody- The Democrats/antiwar have opposed the war because it was managed terribly, has resulted in almost 4,000 US deaths, and is going to cost trillions in supplemental spending that our children will have to pay the Chinese for. We destroyed a country and the war we started has resulted in millions of Iraqi refugees and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths-many innocent civilians.
We now realize that it was oil we sought, not the elusive WMD’s. That is why the Democrats are opposed to the war. And please admit that 70% of the country opposes it and Bush’s handling of it. That would be a dream percentage for the Democrats- they would win every election hands down- if all of those people were registered with the party. You know very well that that figure includes many Republicans and Independents.
And I notice you object to the invectives being hurled at conservatives, but don’t seem to mind hurling different ones at liberals, lol.
It’s now a new thread. Who knows, maybe your comment led the commenter to start the new thread.
“Moderate” on this site is the Urban Institute or the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the AFL-CIO, the “non-partisan” political-position platforms of the teachers’ and other unions, etc.
Brookings is too “conservative” [sic], as is Hillary Clinton, whom some would delusionally place on the right (and anyone right of Brookings on the “far right” [sic]).
“Moderate” is never disputing any gospel of an ever-larger, ever-more-interventionist-and-intrusive federal government, with benefits for everybody, and the only exception being never interfering in any with even the most degenerate and destructive, as well as defective and improper, personal behavior.
Never mind that we who are actually moderate by normal American standards (to which elites and others out of touch with Americans, and their play-pen fans and followers elsewhere, are well to to the left) are the true moderates, even if we aren’t mushy about expressing and defending our moderate positions, particularly against bogus and disgusting “arguments.” (Slap-in-the-face is not only dealt to conservatives, but to others, most of the rest of us, by those on the Left who are reactionary about New Deal-onward growth of Washington and resentment against even the mere questioning of this, which has happened in earnest since 1980. Once Bush is gone they’ll be more revanchist than ever, I suspect.)
Too true, too often. Standards, decency are seen as bad, wrong, evil — by a nihilist element within the post-1960s Left (not only extremely childish, but willfully destructive) and a few ignorant so-called libertarians (extremely childish). It’s enough to make decent, intelligent people actually consider harsh measures in response and outright authoritarianism, if things ever got truly bad.