Rudy Giuliani Says Daughter's Arrest a "Private Matter," Patrick Dorismond Turns Over in Grave

Rudy Giuliani (L) and Patrick Dorismond

On Wednesday August 4, Caroline Giuliani was arrested for shoplifting at an Upper East Side Sephora. I saw the story, noted that Sephora did not want to press charges because of who she was, and just chalked it up to the privilege (or curse, depending on who you ask) of having a powerful father like Rudy. To be honest, I just put a snarky little thing on my Facebook page and moved on, seeing myself as above writing about such gossipy things. Then Caroline's estranged father had to open his hypocritical mouth.

Giuliani's Got a New Friend

Almost immediately following the news of Bernard Kerik's numerous misdeeds (and Giuliani's indifference to them), Pat Robertson swoops in to save the day for everyone's favorite 9/11 piggy-backer. Robertson backed Giuliani, saying "To me, the overriding issue before the American people is the defense of our population from the bloodlust of Islamic terrorists. We need a leader with a bold vision who is not afraid to tackle the challenges ahead." If it may seem completely hypocritical of Pat Robertson - a staunch Christian conservative - to be backing Giuliani - a pro-abortion, pro-gay rights candidate who has proven himself to be an adulterer with multiple divorces - that's because it is. In fact, according to Pat Robertson's own logic from his own show, it is people like Giuliani who caused 9/11 (thanks to the commenter Elderta over at Gothamist for pointing this out). Two days after 9/11, Robertson had Jerry Falwell (you know, the man who exposed that purple teletubby for what it is - a gay teletubby who is pushing the gay agenda on our innocent little children! Now that's what I call tackling the real issues Mr. Falwell!) on his show "The 700 Club." Falwell had some more insightful discourse with Robertson on the show when he had this to say about 9/11 and the precursors to it: "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen'." To this, Pat Robertson replied, "Well, I totally concur, and the problem is we have adopted that agenda at the highest levels of our government." So, it seems that Robertson thinks that it is the abortionists and the gays and lesbians who helped cause 9/11 to happen, yet he is now supporting a candidate who is pro-abortion and pro-gay rights. That makes Robertson's endorsement of Rudy hold little to no weight with me and hopefully anyone else with the sense to connect the dots.

Robertson's endorsement, while taking some of the heat away from Rudy's buddy Bernie, could not completely overshadow the matter. On November 9 Bernie was indicted in federal court for numerous felonies, including fraud, tax evasion, obstruction, applying a false loan application, and making false statements. But things may not be looking so down for Kerik, as he has a true friend in Giuliani. When asked if he would pardon Kerik if voted into office, Giuliani skirted around the question, saying it wasn't a fair inquiry. In another blow in Giuliani's attempt to free himself of Kerik talk, Judith Regan - the woman that Kerik brought to the apartment originially intended for 9/11 workers for some lovin' - is coming out and saying that she was asked to lie to federal investigators about Kerik by the honchos at HarperCollins Publishing LLC, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp which is the parent company of such balanced media outlets as the New York Post and Fox News. Regan also alleges that the orders were coming from higher than HarperCollins, insinuating that they were as high up as News Corp. itself. While Regan's comments should be taken with a grain of salt (this is, after all, a woman who did not mind that Kerik was married and had another lover while sleeping with him, but the fact that his wife was pregnant was what sent her over the edge and she also tried to publish OJ's book If I Did It), it does - whether her accusations are correct or not - bring Kerik back into the spotlight, which also brings Giuliani into a negative light. As far as her assertions that it was coming from as high as Murdoch over at News Corp., I am wary of this accusation given Murdoch's baffling support of Clinton in the past and for president. Whatever Regan's agenda (or Murdoch's, for that matter) none of this pans out well for Rudy. What else does not pan well for Rudy? The lack of an endorsement from the New York City chapter of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association with their president, Patrick Lynch, making it clear how the association felt regarding Giuliani's push for public office: "Giuliani has wrapped himself firmly in the cloak of 9/11 for his own political purposes. But the real heroes of 9/11, those who helped to evacuate those towers and lived to tell the tale and all those who participated in the recovery and cleanup, know the truth. Rudy Giuliani has no real credentials as a terrorism fighter. His only credentials lie in managing the cleanup after a terror attack. The New York City Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association could never support Rudy Giuliani for any elected office." It seems that Rudy's popularity may be waning. Peace.

Photos [top to bottom] - Giuliani and Robertson at the latter's announcement of his endorsement of Rudy (Rudy Giuliani's flickr), Judith Regan (www.orbitcast.com), Bernard Kerik (www.politicalfriendster.com)

Giuliani Hopes for Kerik-esque Performance in the White House

Yesterday the former mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, claimed that, "if I have the same degree of success and failure [as has Bernard Kerik] as president of the United States, this country will be in great shape." Anyone with any knowledge of Kerik should be taken aback, as I was, at this statement. Kerik, the police commissioner of New York for a little over a year (August 21, 2000 to December 31, 2001), has had a rocky decade or two, to say the least. Giuliani, for one reason or another, is in love with this guy and this is seriously going to hurt his presidential campaign. Kerik has been proven to have been in cahoots with organized crime-connected construction company Interstate Industrial; a company that paid for $165,000 worth of renovations for his Bronx apartment. In return, Kerik lobbied hard for the company, but that lobbying proved futile when a Kerik friend, who he got hired at Interstate, was caught in a stock scandal with a mob soldier that Interstate had done business with (the whole mess is laid out nicely in this article). As a result, the company lost its $85 million in city contracts. Guess they could do business with the city that Giuliani was in charge of because they were not part of the five families?

Giuliani, of course, claims ignorance when it comes to Kerik's misdeeds. Giuliani has never really been one to listen to other people, as he ignored half of his cabinet when he appointed Kerik as police commissioner. Giuliani did not care that Kerik never graduated high school and that any position above a captain in the NYPD required a college degree. He did not care that Kerik was involved with Interstate (Giuliani claims not to have known this, but there is plenty of evidence to the contrary). Kerik was his man. The two certainly are similar people. They both have overcome upbringings from rougher backgrounds with Kerik's mother having been a prostitute who abandoned her son and Giuliani's father a convicted felon who was hired muscle for the mob (though Giuliani's dad never abandoned the family, his predicate status made it hard to keep a job). But, they both were part of failed marriages and have cheated on their wives with women named Judith. Giuliani, quite infamously, with Judith Nathan (which, of course, was followed by his public announcement of separation from then-wife Donna Hanover before consulting her about it) and Kerik with Judith Regan in an apartment overlooking Ground Zero that was originally intended for those working the site.

Many, including Giuliani himself, point to Kerik's work as police commissioner and say that it outweighs his personal shortcomings (though I would hardly call abusing a public office a "personal" issue). Giuliani says that "There were mistakes made with Bernie Kerik, but what’s the ultimate result for the people of New York City? The ultimate result for the people of New York City was a 74 percent reduction in shootings, a 60 percent reduction in crime..." Kerik was Commissioner from August 2000 to December 2001. In 2000, the crime index was 288,368 (meaning there were 288,368 reported crimes in the year 2000). In 2001 the crime index was 263,764, not including the 3000+ homicides that occurred on 9/11. That is a drop in reported crime of 8.5%, a far cry from the 60% that Giuliani attributes to Kerik. Maybe Giuliani was referring to the whole period of the 90s and attributing it to Kerik, in which case I would be pretty pissed if I were Ray Kelly, William Bratton, or Howard Safir.

So, at the end of the day, Giuliani is not fit to be president of this country. The man just does not have the credentials to do it. Kerik may be to Giuliani what Chappaquiddick was to Ted Kennedy (that's a good SAT analogy for all you high school juniors), except that Giuliani had a poor approval rating as mayor of New York up until September 10, 2001. The fact that he is the Republican front runner is troubling. Either people are not doing their homework when it comes to these presidential elections, or people just do not care (personally, I do not know which is scarier). Maybe if Giuliani gets the Republican ticket he can have Kerik as his running mate. Peace.

Photos (top to bottom) - Rudy Giuliani (wikipedia.org), Bernard Kerik after an arrest in 2006 (wikipedia.org), Kerik and Giuliani; like two peas in a pod (www.jonesreport.com)

Giuliani Sure Knows How to Pick 'Em

I thought maybe that Giuliani's botched choice of South Carolina Treasurer Thomas Ravenel as state chairman for his presidential campaign was a fluke. Apparently not so. This time it is his southern regional chairman of his campaign, Senator David Vitter (R-Louisiana). Unlike Giuliani, who just cheated on his wife and broke up with her in a public press conference, Vitter is not quite the ladies' man Giuliani has proven to be. He has to pay for his women and to do this he turned to the DC Madam, aka Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who is on trial for money laundering and racketeering in connection to her "erotic fantasy service" Pamela Martin & Associates. Apparently Vitter is not the only high-profile Washington insider on the list, as the media have speculated about many influential folks being on the list, including a "Bush administration economist, the head of a conservative think tank, a prominent CEO, several lobbyists and a handful of military officials." Additionally, earlier this year in April, Randall Tobias, a top State Department official, resigned after being linked to the alleged prostitution operation. Tobias denied he did anything wrong, though, saying he just got massages from the "gals." Yeah, just like Reverend Ted Haggard just got a massage from a gigolo who also sold him meth.

So where does this leave Vitter in terms of Giuliani's campaign? Well, Rudy still employs Vitter in the campaign, saying that it's too early to tell whether or not Vitter will be asked to leave or resign from his post. But this seems to be a trend in Giuliani's political career. The (now) three most well-known cases start with Bernard Kerik. Kerik, the police commissioner of NYC from 2000 to 2001, was put into the post by Giuliani despite some extremely shady dealings that Kerik was involved in. Then, when Giuliani wholeheartedly advocated for his buddy for the top Homeland Security job in the Bush administration, he was embarrassed when Kerik repeatedly lied about a nanny he had hired who had a questionable immigration status as well as a penchant for not paying taxes. Then Ravenel in South Carolina, and now Senator Vitter. Vitter says that his past indiscretion(s) was a sin that he has personally resolved with his wife. Also, apparently Vitter can talk with God because he "asked for and received forgiveness" from him. Impressive. What is not impressive, however, is Vitter's reasoning for being staunchly anti-gay marriage. The Senator has said that it ruins the sanctity of marriage and he will be there defending that sanctity in the halls of the Senate. Unless, you know, he needs a quickie and gives the Madam a call - and a few bucks. Peace.

Photos - Top: Senator David Vitter, Republican from Louisiana (vitter.senate.gov), Middle: Rudy Giuliani (www.wikipedia.com), Bottom: DC Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey (www.msnbc.com)

Giuliani for President?

Rudy Giuliani (Wikipedia)

While the hysteria around the presidential election is already getting old (and it's only March), I thought I would throw in my 2 cents about a candidate being talked about a lot by the media. While I hesitated at first to do this post because I feel that this man deserves little face time in the news (I thought he used up all of his 15 minutes after 9/11), I read an article today about him that really kind of summed him up.

CNN.com today reported that Giuliani's law firm is doing business on behalf of CITGO, the Venezuelan-owned (and thus controlled by Hugo Chavez) oil company. Now Giuliani insists that he has nothing to do with the deal, but his name is on the firm's letterhead, and thus he does have something to do with it.

So I guess that this means that Giuliani can talk a good game, but flash some green in his face (to the tune of about $250,000), and all of that rhetoric about how Chavez is not "a friend of the United States" is thrown out of the window. Now would be a time to type into Google define: hypocrite.

Additionally, Giuliani was not a good mayor, but people tend to completely forget this because of the final days of his term. Jack Newfield describes this in his excellent biography of Giuliani called "The Full Rudy" in which he goes through the mayor's terms in office and his policy decisions.

Through the Brooklyn Museum of Art debacle, the numerous police shootings and murders, and the downright bull-headedness of the man, it is apparent that he is not an appropriate choice to run a large city of 8 million, never mind a country of 300 million. The book describes Rudy's style of taking everything related to policy decisions personally, at one point quoting someone close to the mayor as saying that he has "to prove that he has the biggest dick in the room."

But don't take just one person's word for it. Let's look at the people who have been the closest to him throughout his life, such as his children. As CNN.com reported, Rudy is estranged from both of his children with former wife Donna Hanover. His son, Andrew, said that he must focus on his golf game and "even if he wanted to" help his father, he would not have the time. The man is a jerk.

I just want people to look at the facts - namely the man's performance before 9/11 as mayor of New York City. We cannot let (relatively) recent events cloud our memories when it comes to Rudolph Giuliani. The past two elections we have had less than mediocre candidates, and if Giuliani is selected as the Republican candidate, then this country has some major issues. Bush and the Republicans have politicized 9/11 and won the 2004 elections off of it, let's not let Giuliani do that in 2008.