NewBocaGuy: December 2007

Monday, December 31, 2007

911, 911, 911 .... That 's all ?

Bill Bramhall
NY Daily News
December 31, 2007

© Copyright 2007 NYDailyNews.com.

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Decisions

BocaGuy:
This Sunday I'm taking a break from talking about the real short comings of Rudy Giuliani. The Iowa caucus is January 3. The time has come for a decision on who to vote for President. We have friends in New Hampshire who are supporting one of the candidates. We respect their opinions, but we have our own.

The following blog best matches my own personal beliefs.

An Endorsement

Simply Left Behind
December 30, 2007

I've put this off long enough, even though in truth, I don't have to do this until the New York primary. Since that gets lost in the flurry of Super Tuesday endorsements, I figured I may as well stake my claim now.

I've spent the entire past year on the fence about whom to support for the Democratic presidential nomination. I had my list narrowed down to three people: Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and then, Barack Obama.

Edwards I discounted quickly, when his lack of character and toughness was on display for all to see with the whole "Catholic League/Bloggers" debacle. If he couldn't either shit or get off the pot..."Oooh, I don't want to arouse my base against me! Oooh, I don't want to take on the big, mean Catholic League!"...on that ridiculously inconsequential issue; if that's his idea of leadership, then he was the wrong choice. And that was just one issue: his flipflopping apology for the Iraq war vote smelled too calculated, and then there was the whole heartstring tug of Elizabeth's cancer, and running or not running. ....
( read more )

Copyright 2007 Simply Left Behind

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Terror Talk With Rudy ‘Tough Guy’ Giuliani

Truthdig

Dec 27, 2007

guardian.co.uk

Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani’s just the guy to come out swinging against “the Muslims,” according to boosters at a New Hampshire love-in shown on this clip from the Guardian. Notes one staunch supporter, “These people are very dedicated ... very smart in their own way,” and it takes America’s Mayor to win what Giuliani calls the “Islamic terrorist war” at hand.

Not so fast, says Giuliani biographer Wayne Barrett, who appears in the Guardian video with a few inconvenient pointers about his subject’s past when it comes to fighting crime in New York and his actual preparedness for the 9/11 attacks.

Follow this link to watch the clip.

Giuliani Returns to a Familiar Theme: 9/11

Editor: Rudy has one response to everything - 911. It get old quick

Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

Rudolph W. Giuliani, top left, at a campaign stop Friday afternoon in Fort Dodge, Iowa. His campaign has recently renewed its emphasis on terrorism issues.

MICHAEL COOPER
The New York Times
December 29, 2007

FORT DODGE, Iowa — With his campaign hitting a rocky patch just before the first votes are cast, Rudolph W. Giuliani is returning to the themes that transformed him from a lame-duck mayor of New York City to a popular national figure six years ago and eventually to a leading presidential candidate: the Sept. 11 attacks and the threats posed by terrorism.

Mr. Giuliani’s retooled stump speech compares the Sept. 11 generation to the generation that won World War II. He is running a new television advertisement that shows firefighters atop the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center site. And this week, Mr. Giuliani, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, seized on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the suicide bombing in Pakistan to warn audiences that it “reminds us of the kind of world that we live in.”

“For me this is a particularly personal experience,” Mr. Giuliani said in Florida as he discussed the assassination of Ms. Bhutto on Thursday, “because I lived through Sept. 11, 2001, and then I lived through the attacks in London a few years later.”... ( read more )

Friday, December 28, 2007

Likes Rudy, Likes Booty

Runnin' Scared

Another of Giuliani's lovable cronies comes to the ex-mayor's defense in a time of need

Wayne Barrett

Village Voice
December 26th, 2007

Ed Norris
photo: WHFS Radio

Rudy Giuliani's city-subsidized love trysts, celebrated in the "Driving Miss Judi" hoopla of recent weeks, appear to have inspired imitators. We already know all about Bernie Kerik's highest-form-of-flattery mimicry—his infamous seizure of a Ground Zero apartment, set aside for first responders, for a juggling act of escapades with two, as Rudy would put it, "very special friends." And then there's the saga of Ed Norris, who rose to deputy commissioner for operations at the NYPD in his mid-30s under Giuliani and became Baltimore's police commissioner in 2000.

Norris, who was still at NYPD headquarters when the Judi Nathan adventure began in 1999, pled guilty to federal charges in 2004 that he had used a supplemental police fund in Baltimore as if it were his own ATM, "financing romantic encounters with several different women." The original indictment referred to eight women entertained by the police chief on the public tab, but that was later reduced to six. Prosecutors also claimed that the married Norris used the apartment of his chief of staff for workday liaisons that were called "naps," sometimes occurring several times a day. Within months of taking over as police commissioner, he billed an October 2000 stay with "female number one" at the Best Western Seaport in New York to the fund, according to the indictment. The estimated $20,000 in playtime billings included luxury hotels and gifts from Victoria's Secret, and his final plea included admitting to looting the funds and not paying taxes on the income. ... ( read more )

Under Attack, Drug Maker Turned to Giuliani for Help

Barry Meier and Eric Lipton

December 28, 2007

In western Virginia, far from the limelight, United States Attorney John L. Brownlee found himself on the telephone last year with a political and legal superstar, Rudolph W. Giuliani.

For years, Mr. Brownlee and his small team had been building a case that the maker of the painkiller OxyContin had misled the public when it claimed the drug was less prone to abuse than competing narcotics. The drug was believed to be a factor in hundreds of deaths involving its abuse. ....

( read more )

Underplayed Story of the Day: Rudy Giuliani's Two Americas

Karen Tumulty
Swampland
Time
December 27, 2007

In an interview with the Tampa Tribune editorial board, the presidential candidate who recently turned around his chartered jet to seek emergency medical treatment was asked why Republican candidates aren't talking about health care, and he explained:

"I suspect that our Democratic colleagues would get that question more often in a Democratic audience than we get in a Republican audience," he said. "Maybe more Democrats are concerned about their health care than Republicans, maybe because Republicans have health care or maybe Republicans generally like the idea of private solutions."

That must be it.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Giuliani's Disappearing Act

Jason Horowitz
The Politiker
The New York Observer
December 27, 2007

What was Rudy Giuliani thinking when he decided not to contest the primary all-out in New Hampshire?

That's a question a lot of political observers, and some of Giuliani's own New Hampshire supporters, have been asking lately as the former mayor slides steadily off the national media's radar.

The Giuliani campaign has said that it is a media misperception that Giuliani hasn't been fully engaged in New Hampshire, even as he has spent a lot more time than the other candidates campaigning in February 5 states. (Yesterday, today and part of tomorrow, he's in Florida.) The Giuliani campaign also insists that the former mayor does not need early-voting-state victories because he is so popular in the delegate-rich states that come further down the road. ... ( read more )

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Merry Christmas

Wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

BocaGuy and Pudd

Monday, December 24, 2007

Giuliani Hits a Rocky Stretch as Voting Approaches

ADAM NAGOURNEY
The New York Times
December 24, 2007

HAMPTON, N.H. — Rudolph W. Giuliani has entered a turbulent period in his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, marked by what his aides acknowledge are missteps, sharp shifts in strategy and evidence that reports about his personal life have hurt his national standing.

A $3 million investment in radio and television advertising in New Hampshire, a belated effort to become competitive in this state, is now viewed by the campaign as a largely wasted expenditure.

A Boston Globe poll published Sunday found that support for Mr. Giuliani had dropped in New Hampshire over the past month, even before any fallout from the decision on Wednesday by an ailing Mr. Giuliani to have his campaign plane turn around and take him back to St. Louis, where he spent the night in the hospital. ... ( read more )

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Giuliani Claims It Would Have Been "Impossible" to Give 9/11 Firefighters Working Radios

Amanda Terkel
Think Progress
December 23, 2007

Today on ABC's This Week, host George Stephanopoulos pushed former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani on why the radios for the 9/11 firefighters didn't work. Giuliani dodged the question, claiming that it would have been "impossible" to have given them working radios:

STEPHANOPOULOS: They make two main charges. Number one, that those firefighters in the north tower, many of them lost their lives because their radios didn't work. They also say you ended the recovery efforts too soon.

GIULIANI: Well, the radios that you're talking about weren't put online for three, four, five years after. So, it would have been impossible for me to have those radios ready. It took the city two or three more years...

STEPHANOPOULOS: But they had malfunctioned in 1993.

GIULIANI: But even with the new equipment, it took another two or three years for those radios to be put online. So it would have been impossible for us to have gotten them online before that, given the fact that it took so long afterwards.

Watch the video to your right:

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Rudy Giuliani's Glass Jaw

Oliver Willis
Like Kryptonite To Stupid
The Blog Report
salon.com
December 19, 2007

The election hasn't begun yet. Not a single vote has been cast. Yet, it looks more and more like the much hyped mayor has a jaw of glass. Today's NBC/Wall Street Journal poll echoes the other numbers out there indicating that Rudy Giuliani has lost his lead nationally. We're in the early stages of the stories about Giuliani's mistress, his corrupt appointee Kerik, and not to mention his icy relationship with his kids. The path to a Democratic presidency goes through Rudy Giuliani. ...
( read more )
Copyright 2005 Salon.com.

Authoritarian Temptation

Can we trust the the presidency to a mayor like Giuliani?

Glenn Greenwald
The American Conservative
January 14, 2008 Issue

One of the most under-discussed aspects of Rudy Giuliani’s quest for the presidency is how politically shrewd he is. Giuliani was elected mayor of one of the great bastions of American liberalism despite being a former Reagan DOJ official and Republican prosecutor renowned for his merciless, at times humiliating, treatment of criminal defendants. And after four years of living under his rule, New Yorkers re-elected Giuliani in a landslide victory against an icon of traditional Big Apple liberalism, Manhattan borough president Ruth Messinger.

Giuliani never disguised himself. While his moderate stances on social issues distinguished him from the Jerry Falwell wing of the 1993 Republican Party, he never pretended to be anything other than what he was. He was not a popular mayor because he softened his prosecutorial zeal or concealed his fixation with imposing order or renounced his faith in centralized power vested in a single, strong, even unchallengeable leader. ... ( read more )

Glenn Greenwald is a contributor to Salon and author of the forthcoming book Great American Hypocrites: Shattering the Big Myths of Republican Politics

Copyright © 2007 The American Conservative

Friday, December 21, 2007

If you thought Darth Cheney was secretive...you'll love Rudy

Pam Spaulding
Pam's House Blend
Fri Dec 21, 2007

Let's see how his campaign responds to this. The AP reports that, while NY government only allows a former mayor to keep a few token gifts when they clean out their desks, Rudy Giuliani would have needed several U-Hauls to remove all the paperwork he whisked out of City Hall, Gracie Mansion and other offices. That doesn't square with his claim that he believes in "open government." Or maybe it depends on the meaning of the word "open."

Under an unprecedented agreement that didn't become public until after he left office, Giuliani secreted out of City Hall the written, photographic and electronic record of his eight years in office - more than 2,000 boxes.
Along with his own files, the trove included the official records of Giuliani's deputy mayors, his chief of staff, his travel office and Gracie Mansion - the mayor's residence that became a legal battlefront during his caustic divorce.
The mayor made famous - and very wealthy - in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks has long described his City Hall as an open book.
In a Republican presidential candidates' debate last week, Giuliani asserted: "My government in New York City was so transparent that they knew every single thing I did almost every time I did it. ... I can't think of a public figure that's had a more transparent life than I've had."
But the public record, as reviewed by The Associated Press, shows a City Hall that had a reputation of resistance - even hostility - toward open government, the First Amendment and the public's access to simple facts and figures.
"He ran a government as closed as he could make it," said attorney Floyd Abrams, a widely recognized First Amendment authority who faced off against city lawyers when Giuliani sought to shut the Brooklyn Museum of Art because the mayor considered a painting sacrilegious.

This is a scathing article and a must-read. It documents a man so controlling and paranoid that requests for benign public data having nothing to do with security (such as number of working water fountains in the city's parks), required a formal request to the mayor's office. ... ( read more )

House Blend logo © 2005

Rudy Giuliani scares the crap out of even conservatives

Brilliant at Breakfast
Jill
Friday, December 21, 2007

This essay in American Conservative comes to us via Cernig at Newshoggers, whom I really need to make a point of reading every day. Michael C. Desch makes the point that if you like George W. Bush's doctrine of Endless War, you are going to just LOVE Rudy Giuliani:

The core of senior advisors includes former Commentary editor Norman Podhoretz, Martin Kramer (Middle East), Stephen Rosen (defense), S. Enders Wimbush (diplomacy), Peter Berkowitz (statecraft, human rights, and freedom), Kim Holmes (foreign policy), and perhaps Daniel Pipes. Giuliani’s chief foreign-policy advisor is retired diplomat and Yale instructor Charles Hill. In the face of controversy about how many neoconservatives were playing prominent roles, Podhoretz bragged to the New York Observer,“Giuliani doesn’t think that this is a liability.”

Podhoretz is the person whose presence has done the most to set in concrete the notion that Team Rudy is all neocon all the time. Famous for arguing that we are in the midst of “World War IV,” Podhoretz is scathing in his criticism of those he suspects of not waging the war with enough vigor. He even charges that many senior military officers show insufficient stomach for the fight, singling out former CENTCOM commander John Abizaid and his successor, Adm. William Fallon. Podhoretz is also an assiduous peddler of the new neocon myth that the antiwar camp stabbed President Bush in the back. ...
( read more )

Thursday, December 20, 2007

A bad day for Rudy Giuliani

Tim Grieve
War Room
salon.com
Thursday, Dec 20, 2007

It seems like just yesterday that we wondering why voters haven't paid more attention to the troubles befalling Rudy Giuliani. As it turns out, maybe they have.

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll of Republican nationwide shows that Giuliani "has lost his national lead in the Republican field after a flurry of negative publicity about his personal and business activities." Romney led the pack by double digits six weeks ago; now he's tied with Mitt Romney, three percentage points ahead of Mike Huckabee and six points up over John McCain. ... ( read more )

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Giuliani's Kerik Woes Resurface Through Informant

Candidate Distancing Himself From Former Confidant

John Solomon and Matthew Mosk

Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 19, 2007

In the heady days of the 1990s when Rudolph W. Giuliani was mayor of New York and Bernard B. Kerik was one of his most trusted lieutenants, Lawrence Ray enjoyed his own wild ride.

Ray was one of Kerik's closest friends and the best man at his 1998 wedding. As Kerik was rising to become New York's police commissioner, Ray was in touch with him regularly -- lending him money, discussing possible business opportunities, and using Ray's contacts in Russia to arrange a meeting for Giuliani with former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Much has changed since then. Giuliani is now a leading Republican presidential candidate. Kerik has pleaded guilty to state ethics charges and is under federal indictment. And Ray, a convicted felon now in prison on a parole violation, has turned on his former friend. He has provided to state and federal authorities half a dozen boxes of e-mails, memos, faxes, financial statements, photographs and other materials about Kerik's alleged wrongdoing. ... ( read more )

© 2007 The Washington Post Company

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Bad Sex in the City

JoAnn Wypijewski
The Nation
December 12, 2007

There is something untrustworthy about a man who can't conduct a decent affair. Rudy Giuliani never could. He flaunted his girlfriend Judi Nathan (now a proper lady with a proper lady's name, Mrs. Judith Giuliani) at public events while he was mayor and still married to Donna Hanover, with whom he had no understanding about elective affinities. He used his son Andrew as his beard, claiming he was teaching the boy golf those many weekends when he was cavorting with Judi in Southampton. He announced his new love, and concomitant dumping of the old, at a 2001 press conference, thus informing Donna their marriage was over at the precise moment that any New Yorker listening to 1010 WINS learned of it. Then he tried to push her and the children out of Gracie Mansion so he could get on with his life.

In the return whiff of scandal around Rudy and Judi the hoary details of their crass courtship are said to be of no consequence. Let's not get into his private life, commentators quickly warned, eager to steer political discussion clear of anything that might actually rub up against the realities of life experienced by the common horde. Let's talk about the issues, the "new" ones here being hardly newer than what any New Yorker had long known: that the NYPD accompanied the pair on their trysts; that (hark!) these police escorts were paid for from the public purse and involved some finagled accounting. ... ( read more )

Monday, December 17, 2007

N.Y. State Poll: Giuliani Down 11, Huckabee Up 11

Katharine Jose
The Politiker
The New York Observer
December 17, 2007

Getty Images

Rudy Giuliani's lead in the New York State Republican primary has shrunk from 45 percent to 34 percent in two months, according to a Quinnipiac poll released today. Mike Huckabee, now in second place, has surged from one percent, in the last poll, to 12 percent.

Hillary Clinton still holds a commanding lead among Democrats with 55 percent of the vote, while Barack Obama is in second place with 17 percent. ... ( read more )

The Office I Left Giuliani

JOHN S. MARTIN Jr.

Op-Ed Contributor
The New York Times
December 17, 2007

ON “Meet the Press” a week ago, Rudolph W. Giuliani attempted to deflect criticism of his close relationship with his former police commissioner, Bernard Kerik, by saying that his misjudgment of Mr. Kerik had to be weighed against his other accomplishments. “How can I not have pretty good judgment about the people who work for me and not been able to turn around the United States attorney’s office?” he asked. But Mr. Giuliani’s claim to have turned around the Manhattan United States attorney’s office is not only untrue, it is an insult to the outstanding men and women who have served in that office over the last 50 years.

When he became the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York in 1983 (I was his immediate predecessor), Mr. Giuliani did not take over a moribund prosecutor’s office; he became the head of the premier United States attorney’s office in the country, with a tradition of excellence stretching back 30 years under the leadership of such legal luminaries as Robert M. Morgenthau, the current Manhattan district attorney, and Robert B. Fiske Jr., the original Whitewater special prosecutor. Mr. Giuliani took over an office staffed by a group of the finest young lawyers in the country. ... ( read more )

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Rudy Giuliani has female problems - poll

BY HELEN KENNEDY
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Sunday, December 16th 2007

Rudy Giuliani's messy personal life is a big turnoff to women, who favor Hillary Clinton over him by a healthy margin in a new Daily News national poll of female voters.

Pitting the two New Yorkers against each other in a hypothetical general election, the poll found that Clinton wallops Giuliani among women, 45% to 30%.

The public humiliation of his second wife, bodyguards for his girlfriend and a frosty relationship with his kids: It all makes wives and moms around the country skeptical of putting him in the White House.

"If he can't control his personal life, I just don't see how he can control the country," sniffed Norma Naegele, 61, a housewife in Lucas, Kan. ... ( read more )

Giuliani's Grand Campaign Plan Now Has Major Hole

Sam Stein
The Huffington Post
December 16, 2007

There could be a major hole in Rudy Giuliani's campaign plans. The former New York City mayor had all but written off the early primaries in favor of a strong showing in the more populous states afterwards. Now, however, a new poll finds him in a startling third place in one of those crucial locales.

On Friday, Rasmussen Reports released a poll (yes, it comes with caveats regarding methodology) showing Giuliani at 19 percent support in Florida, a state once thought of as a lock for Hizzoner. The figure represents an eight percentage point drop from November and puts the former New York City mayor well behind the GOP flavor of the month, Mike Huckabee, who registers at 27 percent. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, splits the two at 23 percent support. ... ( read more )

Copyright © 2007 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

Latter-Day Republicans vs. the Church of Oprah

Frank Rich
Op-Ed Columnist
The New York Times
December 16, 2007

THIS campaign season has been in desperate need of its own reincarnation of Howard Beale from “Network”: a TV talking head who would get mad as hell and not take it anymore. Last weekend that prayer was answered when Lawrence O’Donnell, an excitable Democratic analyst, seized a YouTube moment while appearing on one of the Beltway’s more repellent Sunday bloviathons, “The McLaughlin Group.”

Pushed over the edge by his peers’ polite chatter about Mitt Romney’s sermon on “Faith in America,” Mr. O’Donnell branded the speech “the worst” of his lifetime. Then he went on a rampage about Mr. Romney’s Mormon religion, shouting (among other things) that until 1978 it was “an officially racist faith.” ... ( read more )

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Most Revealing Fibs: Rudy Giuliani

Michael Dobbs
The Fact Checker
Washington Post
December 16, 2007

All political candidates make mistakes, but some mistakes are more revealing than others. A candidate's fibs and exaggerations, and his or her willingness to correct them, tell us something about that person's character and approach to campaigning. To coincide with "The Front Runners" series in the newspaper this week, The Fact Checker is taking a look at the "most revealing fibs" of each of the candidates. Last but not least: Rudy Giuliani. ... ( read more )

© Copyright 1996-2007 The Washington Post Company

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Can Rudy stop his slide?

BY TOM BRUNE tom.brune@newsday.com
December 14, 2007
WASHINGTON - Amid sliding poll numbers, Rudy Giuliani will try to reclaim his role Saturday as the Republican's front-running national leader by outlining an optimistic vision of how he would run the country as president.

"Some people look at the challenges we face as a nation and they fear the future. I welcome it," he will say in a pair of speeches in Florida, according to excerpts released Friday night.

Giuliani recently has been on the defensive, attacked on his immigration record and besieged by damaging news about his personal affairs as mayor, giving rise to an apparent concern among supporters that he needs to turn things around. ( read more )

Copyright © 2007, Newsday Inc.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Rudy: All Business

MICHAEL WEISSKOPF AND MASSIMO CALABRESI
Time
Thursday, Dec. 13, 2007

Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani.

Danny Wilcox Frazier / Redux for TIME

Not long after he stepped down as mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani received an intriguing offer. A group of officials from a Florida company called Seisint Inc. asked him to promote a powerful new database technology capable of tracking potential terrorists and other criminals. Their timing was perfect. Giuliani had just opened Giuliani Partners (GP), a consulting shop that planned to specialize in helping companies like Seisint grow. "Nobody knew us; everybody knew him," says Michael Brauser, a major shareholder who negotiated the December 2002 contract between GP and the Boca Raton�based firm. "It was an unbelievable fit." ... ( read more )

Copyright © 2007 Time Inc.

The S-Chip Grinch: No Health Insurance for You!

Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, and Ali Frick

The Progress Report
December 13, 2007

HEALTH CARE

Bush Vetoes Kids...Again

For the second time in three months, President Bush yesterday vetoed bipartisan legislation that "would have expanded the State Children's Health Insurance (SCHIP) program "by $35 billion over five years and would have boosted its enrollment to about 10 million children." It was the seventh veto of Bush's presidency and the second veto of a children's health bill. In an October press conference, Bush explained that he will continue vetoing bills simply to "ensure that I am relevant. That's one way to ensure that I'm in the process." Similar to his last rejection of SCHIP two months ago, Bush vetoed the bill yesterday "in private." Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) responded, "This is indeed a sad action for him to take, because so many children in our country need access to quality health care." "In case there was any doubt that President Bush's priorities could not be farther from those of the American people, he has vetoed yet another bipartisan bill to renew the successful [State] Children's Health Insurance Program," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said yesterday, adding, "We will not rest until the President joins us." ...
( read more )

© Center for American Progress Action Fund

Giuliani Channels Norquist

Katharine Jose
The Politicker
December 12, 2007

Rudy Giuliani has a new radio ad in New Hampshire in which he says that lowering taxes increases revenue.

RUDY GIULIANI: “There’s no question. Taxes go down. Revenues go up.”

Transcript:

RUDY GIULIANI: “There’s no question. Taxes go down. Revenues go up.”

VOICEOVER: “He cut taxes 23 times by 9 billion. Reduced welfare 640,000. Eliminated 20,000 bureaucrats. And cut real per capita spending. All in a place where people said it was impossible. Now, Rudy Giuliani has a new plan. He’ll cut taxes. Lower income taxes. Reduce business taxes. And do away with the marriage penalty and the death tax for good.” ... ( read more )

The GOP Race: None of the Above

MICHAEL DUFFY
Time
Thursday, December 13, 2007

Republican presidential candidates Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Rudolph Giuliani, Fred Thompson and John McCain on stage at the debate in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Chip Litherland / The New York Times / Redux

Republicans normally pour the same amount of uncertainty into picking a presidential nominee that Buckingham Palace puts into its Changing of the Guard. That is, as little as possible. Republicans prefer to find a brand-name, big-state Governor, surround him with the same right-thinking brains on taxes, foreign policy and the New Testament, back him with all the cash he will need to corner TV time in New Hampshire and then run the nominee through a quick gauntlet of primaries before anyone else has a chance at the prize. The whole thing makes for more of a ritual than a race, but there's no doubting that the formula works. In the past seven presidential elections, GOP nominees have lost only twice. ... ( read more )

Copyright © 2007 Time Inc.

The Man From Target

GAIL COLLINS
Op-Ed Columnist
The New York Times
December 13, 2007

Huckabee! Huckabee! The man of the hour! What is it that voters love so much about this guy? Is it a hitherto inchoate yearning for a president who knows less about international affairs than they do? Hope that a man who can lose 100 pounds could also get rid of the federal deficit? ... ( read more )

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Destroying Accountability

Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, and Ali Frick
Center for American Progress Action Fund
December 12, 2007

CIA Director Michael Hayden is set to appear before the House Intelligence Committee today in a closed-door hearing to answer questions about the CIA's destruction of videotapes the history of why the tapes were destroyed. documenting the torture of detainees. After testifying to the Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday, Hayden told reporters he had laid out "the narrative,
... ( read more ... )
© Center for American Progress Action Fund

Say Hello to Mister 9/11 Man!

The Dream Is Dead

MAUREEN DOWD
Op-Ed Columnist
The New York Times
December 12, 2007

The man crowned by Tommy Franks as “the dumbest [expletive] guy on the planet” just made the dumbest [expletive] speech on the planet.

Doug Feith, the former Rummy gofer who drove the neocon plan to get us into Iraq, and then dawdled without a plan as Iraq crashed into chaos, was the headliner at a reunion meeting of the wooly-headed hawks Monday night at the American Enterprise Institute.

( read more ... )

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

The Giuliani Giggle (Video)

TENNESSEE GUERILLA WOMEN
Monday, December 10, 2007

Rudy Giuliani had so much fun on Meet the Press, he couldn't stop giggling. Unlike the so-called Hillary cackle, the Giuliani Giggle hurts my ears. How come Tweety isn't mocking and ridiculing Rudy for his silly giggles? Oh, I remember, Tweety has a man-love thing.

(more ...)

Guiliani TV ad questioned

by Jason George
The Swamp
Tribune's Washington Bureau
December 10, 2007

MANCHESTER, N.H. – Rudy Guiliani's newest television ad brims with some of his favorite campaign themes: the threat of Muslim extremism, the brilliance of Ronald Reagan and Rudy's own tough guy approach to fighting terrorism.

It also seems to get its history confused. (more ...)

The GOP's Iran option is off the table

Rudy Giuliani was counting on Iran as a weapon of mass distraction in the '08 race. But the flailing Republican right has just been disarmed.

By Juan Cole
salon.com

Dec. 11, 2007 | The conclusions of the latest National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iran's lack of a nuclear weapons program will have a profound impact on the 2008 presidential campaign. The report may well prove a key element in throwing the election to the Democrats. (more ...)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/12/11/iran_08/

Monday, December 10, 2007

When Rudy Met Russert: Giuliani Advocates Secret Service Protection for Presidential Mistresses

Steve Benen: Watching the show, it was tempting to keep a bottle of Maalox in one hand, and a shovel to trudge through the nonsense in the other

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/70150/

Are you there, God? It's me, Rudy

An unholy trinity of issues -- abortion, immigration and his messy personal life -- could hurt Giuliani's chances with his key constituency, Catholic voters.

By Thomas F. Schaller
salon.com
December 10, 2007

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/12/10/rudy_catholics/

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Meet The Press: Rudy Tries To Explain Why He Chose Cash Over Iraq Study Group

By: Logan Murphy

GOP presidential candidate, Rudy Giuliani, appeared on Meet The Press this morning and in a stunning reversal of policy, host Tim Russert actually grilled him, asking him tough questions AND followed up. Rudy looked lost and confused at times as he bumbled, stumbled and backtracked his way through this terrible interview. His attempts to defend his shady past and the myriad scandals torpedoing his campaign — failed miserably.

In this clip, Russert hits America’s Mayor with a question about the Iraq Study Group and why he chose to skip ISG meetings to make huge sums of money for speaking engagements. Rudy claims he discussed dropping out with James Baker (that’s news), but thought being involved with the ISG would be a bad idea because he was thinking about running for president - but hadn’t made up his mind yet. Huh? Being an ISG member would have been a huge feather in his cap now that he’s actually running, but why would he bother with such trivial matters as learning how to avoid another disaster like Iraq when he could make major cash on the lecture circuit?

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/12/09/meet-the-press-rudy-giulianis-excuses-for-abandoning-iraq-study-group/