Rudy Giuliani

Rudy Giuliani's scandal sheet is a mile long and as vivid as technicolor. But one adjective has been absent from all of Rudy's scandals - illegal.

Until now.

Atrios writes:

Well before it was publicly known he was seeing her, then-married New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani provided a police driver and city car for his mistress Judith Nathan, former senior city officials tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com. "She used the PD as her personal taxi service," said one former city official who worked for Giuliani.

Big Tent Democrat pounces:

Who is Paul Singer? Despite his vast wealth, he's so secretive that the NY Times had to ambush him to get his photo, and he clearly was not pleased.

this year Mr. Singer became one of the biggest supporters of Rudolph W. Giuliani’s presidential campaign, making his jet available to Mr. Giuliani, while Mr. Singer and workers at his companies have donated $200,000 to the campaign. And he became the largest individual backer of a California ballot initiative that many Democrats believe could sink their chances of winning the presidency.

James Carroll nails it:

Could the United States actually elect as president a Yankee fan who has been rooting for the Red Sox? A father whose own children would boycott his inauguration? A husband whose first wife was his cousin and whose current wife can't remember how many times she married? Could the United States, for that matter, elect a cross-dresser? The Rudy Giuliani surge would be comic if its broader implications were not so grave.

So why is he the GOP frontrunner?

The answer is obvious. A run-of-the-mill political hack was transformed into the nation's only hero on Sept. 11, 2001. While President Bush cowered in Curtis LeMay's SAC bunker in Omaha, Giuliani was striding toward Armageddon.

Josh Marshall says Power Trumps All:

I've told a number of people over the last few days that for all the talk of this evangelical third-party candidacy if Rudy gets the nomination, I'll believe it when I see it. Sam Brownback, a big pro-lifer, appears to be laying the groundwork for a Rudy endorsement. It makes a hypocrite of one or the other of them. Probably both. But I bet you'll see others making their peace as well, especially if Romney doesn't, can't make the sale.

Josh is probably right about Brownback and many other militant Republican "pro-lifers" who will dutifully line up behind Giuliani if he's the nominee.

If you thought Rudy Giuliani's devotion to mobbed-up Bernie Kerik showed appalling judgment, wait until you learn about Monsignor Alan Placa - an accused teen molester who has Giuliani's total support.

That's Placa on the right with Rudy and Judy during a trip they took to Rome together in January.

Brian Ross of ABC News is on the story - the same Brian Ross who exposed Mark Foley's abuse of Congressional Pages.

Giuliani Defends, Employs Priest Accused of Molesting Teens

Whether it was $2,010 at the Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia, $4,034 at La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, Calif., or $5,370 at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, the former mayor found himself top-notch lodging.

He also spent more than $565,000 reimbursing various corporate supporters for private jet travel.

Our friends at Brave New Films have just unveiled The Real Rudy:

"It's just not possible."

That was the sentence we heard over and over from families who had firefighter sons, brothers, husbands and fathers killed on 9/11, from experts on emergency response, and from investigative journalists. It was just not possible that Rudy could so distort what happened on 9/11 and his role on that terrible day.

These experts, these grieving and furious family members, were united only by the fact that this story had to be told.

As vultures circle the McCain campaign, the conventional wisdom about his demise is that Iraq brought him down. As Arianna Huffington wrote,

John McCain's cratering campaign is an object lesson in how to kill a candidacy in three simple steps: 1) locate the biggest foreign policy disaster in U.S. history 2) embrace it 3) implode. (Bonus step: spend money like you are Paul Bremmer).

But Glenn Greenwald doesn't buy that analysis because the GOP base still supports the war:

GOP frontrunner Rudy Giuliani unleashed a rightwing firestorm when he told CNN's Dana Bash that he supports federal funding for abortions for poor women:

BASH: So you support taxpayer money or public funding for abortion in some cases?

GIULIANI: If it would deprive someone of a constitutional right, yes. I mean if that — if that's the status of the law then I would, yes. 

Trump Speaks Truth to Power

Looks like the Donald is moving on from dissing Rosie to dissing Bush. Love him or hate him, he's an opinion maker. Hear him candidly speak about Bush, the war, how to get out of it - and the reason we should - NOW!