The New York City Treasury = Rudy Giuliani's Wingman

Hand Caught In The Till...You Cheap, Tacky, Sloppy Bastard?

At the height of my clubbing,/hang-out years—a span that I'll just say ran waaaaaaay longer that it really should have, I rolled with a pretty cool pack of fellas. We were friends outside of the clubbing and night-prowling. Went to school together, worked together sometimes—some of us went back as far as elementary school through various Kevin Bacon-y levels of connection.

We were friends.

And when we hung tough...when we were out and on the prowl, with lust in our hearts, and blood rushing much further below that—we were also each other's wingman.

What's a wingman?

A wingman's your right hand when you wanna make a move.

A wingman'll cock-block another dude so you can make said move unimpeded.

A wingman will occupy her friend who's being a little too clingy.

A wingman'll break the ice for you with a potential paramour—but not shatter it so you can't stand on it at your entrance moment.

A wingman'll go get you drinks if you're at a pivotal point in the “pitch” and you don't want to break the moment.

A wingman will surreptitiously slip you cash of you're short for drinks, dinner...a cab ride home...or even—God, I hate to admit this, dough for a hotel room.

I once made a call for a friend who was on the verge. She lived in Jersey, he lived waaay out in Queens and sparks were hittin' for 'em—big time. My buddy knew I had a friend who worked nights at the Hilton in MIdtown.

“Think he can do something?”

“I'll make the call.”

Buttonholed my coat-check girl friend and used the club's phone. Piece of cake. Secured the room. Breezed by my partner and whispered, “It's done. When you get to the desk, don't give your name—just say 'Room for Charles Xavier'. You'll get a key. 14th floor. Just tip housekeeping.”

“Word.”

That's what a wingman does. It's not pretty. It's grimy, black-ops, black-bag work . But it's what you do for a friend. You grease, you finance, you schmooze, you finagle and cover.

All for the love life of a friend. This you do willingly.

When somebody you aren't tight with personally, filches money out of your pocket to finance his ass-chasing...you are NOT A WINGMAN. YOU ARE A PATSY. A STOOGE. A SUCKA. A “VIC” (as in victim).

It turns out that New York City's taxpayers are that unwilling “Wingman”. We got “vic-ced”. So that Rudolph Giuliani could get some ass...

Via Kos:

As New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani billed obscure city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses amassed during the time when he was beginning an extramarital relationship with future wife Judith Nathan in the Hamptons, according to previously undisclosed government records.

The documents, obtained by Politico under New York’s Freedom of Information Law, show that the mayoral costs had nothing to do with the functions of the little-known city offices that defrayed his tabs, including agencies responsible for regulating loft apartments, aiding the disabled and providing lawyers for indigent defendants.

At the time, the mayor’s office refused to explain the accounting to city auditors, citing “security.”

The Hamptons visits resulted in hotel, gas and other costs for Giuliani’s New York Police Department security detail.

Giuliani’s relationship with Nathan is old news now, and Giuliani regularly asks voters on the campaign trail to forgive his "mistakes."

It’s also impossible to know whether the purpose of all the Hamptons trips was to see Nathan. A Giuliani spokeswoman declined to discuss any aspect of this story, which was explained in detail to her earlier this week

You know...I didn't mind doing a buddy a solid back in the day, because I knew that some place down the road, I could look forward to him having my back—unconditionally. You give, you get. You have each other's back. That's what friends are for.

But a dude who steals from people to finance his ass-grabbery, and then lies about it, well there's only one word for that fella.

THIEF.

THIEF.

THIEF.

While Mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani used/stole city money to pay for his extramarital trysts with his doggy-torturing then mistress, and then, like some piker-ass Dunder-Mifflin-ish middle-manager who's shtupping some chickie on the side and doesn't want wifey or anybody to find out, clumsily expensed it to city agencies who could ill-afford it.

City agencies “aiding the disabled and providing lawyers for indigent defendants.”

That is some pretty low-down shit—even for a dude on the make.

See, we're just finding out about this now because of a phenomenon I'm going to go into some depth about in the next two days about Rudy and his NY posse of ne'er do wells. When he was Mayor here, he got away with unclothed emperor farts like this all the time because of a largely compliant press. When that press would cross him, (a.k.a. tell the truth) he'd ban 'em from press conferences and briefings, or feed exclusives to rivals while freezing out “offenders”. After a term of that shit, and all manner of additional evil occurring on his watch, they finally started checking his ass, and it caught up with him. It showed in his plummeting poll numbers and the only thing that saved him was the fall of the twin towers. Point-fucking-blank.

But as you'll note in the above story—being carried on Countdown, The Politico, and everyone's favorite egg-abuser Drudge(!)—Rudy managed to stonewall that embarrassing story's being sniffed out. That can happen with a local press corps who's grown tired of your bullshit and just wants you to go away like they did with him.

But he's dealing with a national press corps now. Folks with the Pulitzer/“I-Took-Down-X-Person” itch raging from head to toe. And Rudy in his hubris during his mayoral tenure was sloppy with his low-downing about town. He could afford to be...then

This...is now.

We know about Mayor Razor-Lips; 7WTC fuckpad. We know about Bernie's ill-gotten Booty-oir overlooking Ground Zero. We're just starting to find out about the nature of Rudy's “Giuliani Partners” client list (yes Rudy, the gift that keeps on giving is spawning another post on that burgeoning scandal as well), there's what Crazy Judith to-the-second-power has got to say...

AND NOW WE COME TO FIND OUT THAT RUDY GIULIANI EMBEZZLED CITY MONEY TO FINANCE HIS EXTRAMARITAL TRYST...AND COVERED IT UP. HE USED THE CITY'S COFFERS AS HIS UNWITTING “WINGMAN” FOR NABBING...well, there's no nice way to say it...ASS

Plain and simple.

You gonna own up to the pilferage Rudy, or are you gonna play the silence game some more? I don't think it's gonna work. I'm watching the 11:00 Eyewitness News here in NY and they just led off with the story “Bad Billing”.

Talkin' bout you, dog.

Your hometown press.

They are tearing you a new asshole and openly talking about the fact that your people hid the records to hide the affair.

They spent the first five minutes on it. The city Comptroller says you've stonewalled on this. They're showing pictures of the hotels you had the NYPD protetction sleeping in. “The Village Latch”? You say the protection was legal and necessary...but all three networks—ABC, NBC, and CBS's local affiliates are all asking the same question...

“Why hide the records of the security billing in the budgets of obscure city agencies?”

Take your time answering, br'uh.

I just wanna get this Jiffy Pop nice and hot first.


UPDATE#1.:

In comments, Wanderer makes this astute observation:

What I want to know is if NYC will decide to prosecute the Rudy. I mean, it's an easy several counts of grand theft and fraud, all of which could scotch his chances of becoming Duce.”

On paper, this makes perfect sense—because that is exactly what happened here. But I doubt charges'll be brought, because it'll give the city's GOP media forces a chance to bounce back and cry “FOUL!”, and have things looking like a vendetta against him. It could happen if a closer look at the ledgers—and baby, EVERYBODY'S puttin' in city FOIA requests now, turns up other instances of “hide the receipts” chicanery. What hurts him very badly is the trickling out of this kind of info (and trickle out it will), and the tight chaining of him back to the indicted Bernard Kerik—who was his right-hand man and NYPD commissioner at the time of this shadiness. It's the reason I depicted Kerik as his true “Wingman” in the graphic. Bernie, his ass-wrangling buddy signed off on that cover-up—no doubt.

Rudy's trying to throw the NYPD under the bus with this, when it all really goes back to the head of his security detail—Kerik. Kerik IS NOT the NYPD. He's a blemish on them. They took his name OFF the jail out of shame, remember?

Someone deep in the bowels of the NYPD bureaucracy unlocked the box of secrets on this. When someone wants something to stay buried in the city's boxes of red tape, it stays buried. The old commissioner Bill Bratton still has loyalists, and there are enough anti-Kerik guys in high places where it is not a stretch to think that they may have sandbagged Rudy with this intentionally, AT A VERRRY SENSITIVE TIME. His numbers are lagging, and Huckabee is ascendant—what better time to release damaging info?

I called this in my first Rudy post when I said:

“You will find an embittered ex-NY police commissioner, now L.A.'s Top Cop Bill Bratton, championed by many as the father of modern policing, and the high avatar of the CompStat crime tracking system used to help drastically drive crime down in NY, who found himself vilified and eventually dissed by Rudy when the credit for the crime drop started going his way instead of the Mayor's. Giuliani turned on him in a flash, deriding him publicly, and leaking shit privately to reliable press flunkies to make Bratton look bad. He effectively drove Bratton out of town along with a slew of hard-core, 25-and-30 year NYPD brass loyal to Bratton and his methods. Bratton's successors in the job were the corrupt yes-men Howard Safir and yes...Bernard Kerik--of the post 9-11 ripoff, and near hook-up-via-Rudy-as-a-crooked-assed-Homeland-Security-Boss. As Bernie's trial nears, one can only wonder what kind of nasty, Rudy-centric stories will find their way into print from that pipeline of cast-off copper chums of Bill Bratton's. It'd be the kind of stuff that would make "Sweet Smell Of Success" bastard cum laude J.J. Hunsecker say, "Mister...that's plenty cold.

This info has been dug around at for five years, AND NOW IT SURFACES?

Are we kids, or what?

He was sloppy because he thought he was God of the Five Boroughs. I'm sure he's making all sorts of calls to people in town who knew him and still have a hand enough in to maybe call off the dogs, but you'll note that even his hand-picked successor Bloomberg couldn't...or wouldn't make this go away for him. Make of that what you will.

The more he tries to say “The NYPD did it...not ME!”, the more the people at One Police Plaza who hate him—the guys with the bad pallor who work the files and know where every body is buried will slowly roll the bus over his gonads.

His feeble spin? “I needed the security. A Mayor's security is understood! What's the big deal?” The question everyone's asking? “Why'ja stick the city with the bill and try to cover it up?”

Today's New York Daily News and Newsday's Front Pages?



The Post is covering it—albeit reluctantly, but is going on the front page with the end of the Broadway stagehands strike. “Faaaaaaaaaabulous!”

And the instant response on the Daily News' site?

fromNYtoDE Nov 29, 2007 8:31:48 AM
Who in the world would want a cheater and a homewrecker as our president and first lady. What moral speeches could she give to our children. The both disrespected his WIFE. He went even further to make it a point to publicly humiliate Donna. Also, I am tired of him getting the credit for his "leadership" during 9/11. The cops, firemen, EMS workers and regular citizens are the true leaders and heroes. We all new what we needed to do, we didn't need to be lead on anything. The human side of people kicked in during that time. It was not his leadership. It was OUR compassion.
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hjo4 Nov 29, 2007 8:41:59 AM
Some in the media was aware of this, they refused to print the story until they had to.The media also knows but won't tell how the tax payers paid for Judith Nathan and her daughters security detail.The New York media is in Rudy's pocket.There is more to come if the press did their homework.
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chickie1219 Nov 29, 2007 8:46:12 AM
I agree with from NY to DE, this man does not deserve to get any credit for being a hero during 9/11, he is a cheat and a liar and he should just stop trying to run for President he is not worthy. The way he treated his family was just awful no wonder his own children dislike's him.
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iralarry Nov 29, 2007 10:18:14 AM
Giuliani gives new meaning to the term safe sex! What really irks me more than the fact that Rudy Giuliani may have misappropriated funds for his extra security while engaging in personal matters, is that he has the arrogance and temerity to suggest that his security is so much more important than yours or mine! Who do these people think they are? Perhaps a president is deserving of full time security but the Mayor of a city? Please. If he felt his security was in jeopardy, then let him spend his money to protect himself, especially in matters of a personal nature. We are ALL expendable and no life is worth more than another on principle. This demonstrates the self-centered and egotistical nature of this man. He leaves me with such a feeling of loathing I could never be convinced he is the person for the job of President of the US. When elected officials serve the entire good of the people who elect them, don’t engage in kowtowing and graft for personal gain, then they can
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ThatGuy Nov 29, 2007 10:21:31 AM
I myself never liked the man and thought he was a FRAUD, this just proves it. I couldn't agree with you more fromNYtoDE. Who the hell would want this cross dressing clown for President or that whorish skank for First Lady? EXCEPT the die hard Rudy supporters who think he can do no wrong. As I mentioned on another thread, I think they should scrutinize the receipts for the dresses he bought himself..... and the pumps, purses and panties too! I'm sure we paid for those also.
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zabbal Nov 29, 2007 10:51:38 AM
What sleazebags both of them!! He has proven yet again that not only is he a cheat and liar, but he STEALS from the poor to do it. Almost $1m taken away from budgets targeted to help the poor to pay for his adulterating getaways - the man has no shame!! He and his latest wife are tacky thieves, who care about nothing but money, even if it means stealing from the poor. In all American history, I have not seen something so shocking and disgusting as these 2 people and their complete lack of ethics.

Can I get a soda with this? Mmmmmmmm!:

There's more...

“The Game Done Changed”

And itchy-owee! Guess who doesn't like it?

A tough week is a thing you have to learn to live with from time to time.

I had mine a couple of weeks back—got through it.

Last week was a difficult one for some other folks. Condoleezza Rice had the toughest of anybody—seeing the willfully-neglected on her and her boss's parts Mid-East and Asia begin to devolve into an undulating snake-pit of chaos what with the Turkish incusrions into Iraq, and Pakistan's near-anarchy. Toss the cyanide-dipped cherry on top, in her State Department staffers very publicly telling the administration to go fuck itself with the plans to send them into Iraq against their will. I don't think a store-full of Choos and Ferragmaos salved those knife-wounds at all.

And the anointed Madame Clinton had a toughie as well, via fallout from her cloudy, ass-covering replies to the agenda-fueled “gotcha” barbs of Sally Quinn toe-blower Timmy Russert at last week's debate. She misplayed his bitchy paper-waving snipes into a potentially campaign-damaging parsing-cum-waffle. Then she hunkered down afterwards and yes, played the victim card—pretty skillfully I might add—to deflect from her initial gaffe. (A heady gambit that's only gonna piss Russert off that much more, and put Hillary in the control position against him from here on in—as she's probably gonna slowly freeze his ass out and subtly give him NOTHING, as he embarrasses himself flailing at her even harder) It seems to have worked as she's shown no ill-effects in the polls since.

But the person who had a rough week that may have the most lasting effects and is the most ill-equipped to deal with it is our good friend Rudy Giuliani. Homeboy's got all manner of bugs crawling outta the woodpile on him, as noted in Jesse's roundup of a swelling video-dagger library against Der Rudester yesterday. Last week's problems for the man have yet to make to make the video list...but when they do...

It started innocuously enough with his post-S-CHIP vote, anti-government involvement in health care radio ad. That ad featured Giuliani in his hissing, snipe-ey natural state, venomously bitching from the sidelines about an issue to make himself look tough for his own self aggrandizement:

“I had prostate cancer, five, six years ago. My chance of surviving prostate cancer, and thank God I was cured of it, in the United States: 82 percent. My chances of surviving prostate cancer in England: only 44 percent under socialized medicine.”

Okay...he said that. Now, let me digress for a moment. The thing you must understand about Rudy Giuliani is this—he is that most annoying of people you will ever come across in your life—a “Nerd Bully”. He's the bastard who won't fight you in the schoolyard after calling you out for some perceived slight—he'll contact a friend in the class scheduling office and rig your schedule to make sure you have Gym first period and lunch last period so you starve in between. He'll use his position as a hall monitor to delay you over bullshit just enough so you're late for that hard-ass teacher's science class—the teacher who locks the door of the room 30 seconds after the bell has rung, leaving you to go to the principal's office. “Nerd Bullies” live in their own world of sneaky perfidy where they can lie with impunity and enact all manner of draconian, spiteful revenge on people they have it in for.

But when a “Nerd Bully” is forced out of his little bubble of lever-pulling power, and has to deal with direct confrontation over his pronouncements and deeds...they have serious problems with it. They handle it exceedingly poorly.

Giuliani...after his sweeping pronouncement of England's medical system's being akin to that of “the sticks” in Haiti, was immediately called on his statements by various news organizations—particularly by ABC News, The New York Times , and The Boston Globe—as well as all over the Left Blogosphere.

Not only called on it, but then actually fact-checked—once...

“My chance of surviving prostate cancer in England? Only 44 percent under socialized medicine.”

Not so, according to the Office of National Statistics in Britain, which puts the five-year survival rate from prostate cancer, among men, at 74.4 percent.

Then twice...

Maria Comella, a spokeswoman for Mr. Giuliani, said Tuesday the 44 percent figure came from an article in City Journal, a publication of the Manhattan Insititute, a conservative think tank that has provided Mr. Giuliani with many of his ideas.

“The citation is an article in a highly respected intellectual journal written by an expert at a highly respected think tank which the mayor read because he is an intellectually engaged human being,” Ms. Comella said in an e-mail message.

That article, titled “The Ugly Truth About American Health Care,” was written by David Gratzer, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and an adviser to the Giuliani campaign.

“The survival rate for prostate cancer is 81.2 percent here, yet 61.7 percent in France and down to 44.3 percent in England — a striking variation,” Dr. Gratzer wrote in the article.

In an interview, Dr. Gratzer said the statistic came from The Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit group in New York that specializes in health care policy issues, but acknowledged that it was seven years old and “crude.”

But the Commonwealth Fund said Tuesday that Dr. Gratzer had misused their research by calculating a five-year survival rate based on data on prostate cancer incidence and mortality rates in the United States and Britain.

“Five-year survival rates cannot be calculated from incidence and mortality rates, as any good epidemiologist knows,” the group said in a statement.

---------------------------

Asked if Mr. Giuliani will continue to repeat the statistic, and if the ad will continue to run, Ms. Comella responded by e-mail: “Yes. We will.”

And then, a damning third time...

The American Cancer Society says the survival rates are actually higher and it's misleading to compare the two countries.

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The American Cancer Society says five-year survival rates were 95 percent in the U.S. and 60 percent in the United Kingdom, which includes Britain, in 1993-1995, the most recent time period with data to compare.

Rates are even higher today — 99 percent in the U.S. and an estimated 74 percent in the U.K.

American men are far more likely to undergo screening tests that detect the disease in its earliest stages. That means U.S. survival rates include many men whose lives probably weren't in danger — and whose cancers may never have been noticed in the United Kingdom.

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Mortality rates in the two countries are closer — 15 of every 100,000 people die of prostate cancer in the U.K., compared with 12 of 100,000 in the U.S.

“Even if you want to quibble about the statistics, you find me the person who leaves the United States and goes to England for prostate cancer treatment, and I'd like to meet that person,” he told reporters in Washington.

Understand what happened there—Rudy went running over hill and dale, loudly parroting bogus statistics, and evidently thinking that no one would call him on his out-and-out pulling facts out of his pasty, wrinkled ass. Giuliani did this because that IS WHAT HE DID EVERY SINGLE DAY OF HIS MAYORALTY IN NEW YORK. The difference is that as New York Mayor, he was able to get away with it because of his iron-fisted control of virtually every aspect of the city. He chilled free speech with his control over who went where and why, using the NYPD as his personal army. He could freeze out entire news organizations (as he did with NY Newsday over their coverage of police brutality) from access to press conferences and city property—and if you challenged him on it, he'd either sue or counter-sue you using taxpayer's money to fund the case. He would leak exclusives to favored reporters and media arms to reward those who played ball, and to punish those who dared question.

The problem now is that he doesn't run anything anymore, save for his mouth. There is no price to be paid for standing up to his words and pronouncements. So when the reporters looked into his crazy claims about England's health care system and found them not just wanting—but flat out untrue...and printed as much—there was nothing left for him to do but hunker down and go to the “asshole card” of calling the rock-solid debunking of his lies “quibbling about statistics” as he tried to walk away from the steaming pile of screw-up he'd just dropped down his own leg at his feet. The scattershot defensiveness he showed on this was pretty damned telling, because what it highlights is a man who's gotten used to not being called on his lies for a long time, finding himself unable to deal with the phenomenon when it visits him presently.

The “Nerd Bully” now has to deal with people who can call down to the program office as well. People who wear school security sashes, too. They've got the ins with the hair-netted lunch lady just like he does...and he's just as liable to end up with a vengeful, questionable and icky, curly hair mixed in with his Tater-Tots as those he victimized.

There are few things quite as entertaining as seeing a “Nerd Bully” on the receiving end of simple “Nerd Bully-blowback”. And that's what we're starting to see here. These are not mere local news arms staffed by soft-soled hump-busters dependent on a Mayor's largesse to do their stories. These are national-level reporters who quite frankly are looking to make names for themselves. And what better way to make a name for yourself than by sticking a finger in the eye of a front-runner when you catch 'em knee-deep in bullshit? It's what Russert tried to pull on Hillary—except he's doing it out of long-standing Beltway “Queen Bee”-ism towards the outsider Clinton camp. Rudy's “enemies” here are sticking it to him for a couple of reasons:

1.): When he lies, it's so over-the-top that there isn't really that much effort expended in pointing it out—his issue isn't parsing, it's fantasism.

And 2.)—this one is the enjoyable one: He cannot help but be the asshole you LOVE to hate. He has what you'd call, “an eminently punchable persona”. No amount of image consulting can save him from his core self oozing through his pores like sweat when he's under stress, or hell, just walking around for awhile. That assholishness is what made him a pariah here in New York for the last two years he was Mayor—until 9-11 saved him—temporarily in NY as he wore out his welcome a mere 30 days later, and more lastingly in the country's consciousness as they didn't have to deal with him every damned day like NY'ers did. His pissy reaction when confronted with the fact that he lied—“...if you want to quibble about the statistics”—statistics HE HIMSELF BROUGHT UP, is the act of a spoiled brat of a man, and isn't gonna play well with a voting public that while spoiled brat fatigued, at least looks for a little bit of charm in 'em when they show up.

Rudy's got all the charm of a just-opened envelope of “What-the-fuck?” white powder.

Now, I know many of you will say, “But I think this country the way it is now, with all the polarization wants an asshole—a real jerk in charge!”, and a certain way, you'd be right. A chunk of the populace does want that. It's that hard-core 24% who are so pissed with their fortunes gurgling down a Minneapolis Airport shitter that all they want is to double-down hard for the guy most likely to piss off their opposition.

But that's only 24%, people. And to appeal beyond that bunch, you have to draw in moderates, and people who might be looking for that special connection to sway 'em. And regretfully for Rudy, being unable to help acting like an über-asshole isn't that “special connection”. If it were, Rudy would have the lead in the polls that Hillary does over her rivals—and he simply doesn't. It's why an affable glad-hander like Romney, and a cornpone porch-rocker like Thompson can numerically contend with Rudy. They actually bring a hint of...I hate to say it, “You can have a drink with 'em-ism” that Giuliani just doesn't have and can't remotely begin to fake. Rudy has ONE thing going for him, and one thing alone.

September 11th.

And just like a fighter who has but one punch—his right hand, and no defense, if you take that one punch away by circling southpaw, and making every time he throws it—which is all the damned time—look awkward and silly, you can frustrate him and expose him...and set him up for the knockout.

That's exactly what Joe Biden did this past week when he compounded Rudy's difficulties by making his “right hand”—9-11, look weak from simple overuse:

“And the irony is, Rudy Giuliani, probably the most underqualified man since George Bush to seek the presidency, is here talking about any of the people here. Rudy Giuliani... I mean, think about it! Rudy Giuliani. There's only three things he mentions in a sentence -- a noun, a verb, and 9/11. There's nothing else! There's nothing else! And I mean this sincerely. He's genuinely not qualified to be president.”

I'm no Joe Biden fan. I think that in many ways he exemplifies the worst elements of the Senatorial stereotype—the entrenched, patrician blowhard with delusions of grandeur. But the son-of-a-bitch is smart. Smart as hell. And though his mouth runs too long about too much at times, he does have an undeniable gift of gab, and can turn a phrase. And that witty bastard fucked Giuliani up badly with that “noun, verb, 9-11” bit. He effectively, in one short paragraph circled southpaw and made Rudy's every lunge with that 9-11 right look like a pawing miss, and badly fouled up his one-dimensional campaign footwork. Rudy didn't dare address what Biden said—because to open debate on that point about his campaign would be to derail his ENTIRE CAMPAIGN. So he resorted to ineffectual and typically bitchy schoolyard jibes about Biden's plagiarism bugaboos from 20 years ago. Plagiarism jokes so lame that as I said “Johnny Carson rejected 'em in '87.” when Biden screwed up.

The “asshole card” got played yet again. Unfortunately, Rudy's got nothing but those up his sleeves, stashed in his droopy ankle socks, and in a sheath under his chair.

I don't think anywhere near a majority of Americans want a bellicose, anti-social asshole in charge of things come '08. We've barely tolerated the bellicose, affable asshole presently running shit into the ground. He has NO appeal to women (and that will go from zero into negatives on the number line once the inevitable profiles about his personal life hit the national media), and nary a sliver of “cool” or cultural sensibility to pull in younger voters. His base of appeal is to the cranky “Falling Downers”—angry, anti-social White men who just can't cope anymore, and see the world changing around themselves with decreasing control over it...so they lash out, alá the frustrated idiocy of a Duane “Dog” Chapman. They can rule in their own personal little fiefdoms—wannabe Colossi astride their model-train cities of Rhodes, but even those places change.

Their families grow away from them—as have Rudy's and Chapman's kids. The places they call home increasingly look upon them as sideshow exhibits. But on the grand stage, they expose themselves as the petty, mono-dimensional, angry idiots they are...and I don't think people are down for more hectoring and scolding from grumpy hypocrites. This is where the damage of a Mark Foley, a Larry Craig, a “Dick” Curtis, and close-to-the-bone(r) for Rudy, a Bernard Kerik comes into play. The new narrative works very much against scolds and martinets. And Rudy Giuliani is nothing...if not a scold and martinet. The base of folks who are willing to celebrate, and reward those traits in a Commander-in-Chief is shrinking every day due to the trait-havers own hypocritical gaffes.

But Rudy is used to being the big fish, splashing about a little pond—whacking all who complained with his spiny fins. Now...he's in a great, big 'ol' ocean, and all his flapping around doesn't disturb anywhere near as many as it once did. That newfound ineffectualness (wounding his ego) plays to his worst trait...the one he can't cover up...the trait where even if you're right, people still hate the shit out of you, and cheer when you catch hell.

Nobody likes an asshole. It's human nature. And if you are one, you can if you play your cards right, get by for awhile. You can bigfoot, and bogart, keen and screech, and spit and fume your way to a level of intimidation-driven success.

But there comes a time when you have to take a diffrent tack if you want to get beyond your little box-o'-power...and if you cannot even pretend to be somethiung other than a jerk—an asshole, as Rudy apparently cannot...well, as we often say 'round the way when things fall apart...

...”That's yo' ass, br'uh.”

There's more...