Rudy Giuliani is talking about running for president again in 2012. He says if Palin runs it will increase the chances of him getting in the race as well. He says the more Republicans he can show a contrast with the better. I guess he’s going for the RINO candidacy. Allahpundit over at Hot Air has some interesting analysis about Rudy.

Personally, I’m waiting to see if The Donald is really serious about running. You know he’s gonna have the best sound bites.

I remember during the election when she came out publicly in support of Obama while her old man was still in the race. She’s a theater major at Harvard. The fact that she came out of the police station with a smirk on her face after her arrest suggests to me she’s acting out for some reason. Either she has a drug problem or this was a stunt. Kudos to the store owner for not pressing charges.

Maybe Rudy should let her find a way to pay for the rest of that Harvard education herself.

(hat tip Breitbart TV)

Rudy Giuliani has staked his campaign on a strong showing in Florida after largely ignoring other states that kicked off the party nominating process to determine candidates for the November U.S. presidential election.

But polls have shown Giuliani trailing both nationally and in this state with a large population of retired New Yorkers as rivals John McCain and Mitt Romney picked up momentum from wins in states that voted earlier this month.

Rudy suffered a major setback this week when popular Florida Governor, Charlie Crist, decided to endorse John McCain.

Voting is scheduled to wrap up at 7 p.m. EST in most of Florida and an hour later in the northwestern part of the state.

-Chris Jones

If there is another scandal to be found involving Rudy Giuliani, you can bet it’s gonna be discovered not just any day now, but more like any minute.

ABC News is now reporting that 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.

Giuliani allegedly expanded the budget for his security detail at the time. Politico.com reported yesterday that many of the security expenses were initially billed to obscure city agencies, effectively hiding them from oversight.

The former Mayor defended himself saying that he had nothing to do with how his security expenses were filed. He said it was up to the Police to file all the expenses and as far as he knew everything was filed correctly. His campaign has promised to launch an internal investigation.

Giuliani told ABC News today that accusations he assigned a police security detail to his mistress and helped to hide the expenses in the mammoth New York City budget “a pre-debate hit job.”

I have no idea if any of the accusations are true, or how much impact it would have if they were. What I do know is that the media has been on a mission to link Rudy to something scandalous. The narrative that many media outfits such as the New York Times have been pushing is that Rudy is a liar, an opportunist, and a crook.

Therefore, they have been feverishly trying to find anything they can that might prove this narrative to be correct. I have always been skeptical of the liberal media, but after the disgracefully rigged debate last night compliments of CNN, I have my doubts that “objectivity” even exists anymore.

This whole Rudy story has all the hallmarks of a classic political attack, so the best thing to do is let things play out before making any judgments about Giuliani.

-Chris Jones
The Hot Joints

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.

The expenses first surfaced as Giuliani’s two terms as mayor of New York drew to a close in 2001, when a city auditor stumbled across something unusual: $34,000 worth of travel expenses buried in the accounts of the New York City Loft Board.

When the city’s fiscal monitor asked for an explanation, Giuliani’s aides refused, citing “security,” said Jeff Simmons, a spokesman for the city comptroller.

Political website The Politico was finally able to obtain the documents under the Freedom of Information Act. While the extra-marital affair Giuliani had while he was Mayor is old news, the practice of transferring the travel expenses of the Mayor’s security detail to the accounts of obscure mayoral offices has never been brought to light until now.

You can read all the details at The Politico

Frank Rich and other ridiculously far-left columnists never miss an opportunity to write a hit piece on Rudy Giuliani. They love to show pictures of him in costumes that they allege shows he’s a “cross dresser.” They love to mention how many wives he’s had and the funniest of all the charges is that he was a terrible Mayor for the city of New York.

That last charge is probably one of the most foolish claims ever uttered in an election campaign. People who live in New York and are not blinded by far-left ideology know damn well that Rudy may be many things, but a bad Mayor he was not.

Anyone who has either lived in or at least visited New York before Rudy was Mayor, while he was Mayor, and after he was Mayor know the truth. New York City was a dirty, dangerous, and crime ridden, stink hole before Rudy was Mayor. Central Park was not a place for anyone except crack heads, and the only thing the subway was good for was a good old fashioned mugging.

Columnists like Frank Rich and Paul Krugman love to mock Rudy when he rattles off his accomplishments as Mayor of New York. Rich and Krugman are without a doubt two of the most dishonest columnists in the country anyway, but what makes their distortions of Giuliani especially egregious, is that they’re New Yorkers. They know full well the sad shape the city was in before Rudy and they know what an amazing place it is now. They try and credit anyone or anything for the 56% drop in crime, or the 66% reduction in homicides, except Rudy Giuliani.

The reason Rich, Krugman, and other far-left ideologues love to attack Rudy is because he is their worst nightmare as a Republican candidate. Unlike George W. Bush, Rudy is someone who appeals to a wide range of political persuasions.

Social conservatives can get behind him, because Pat Robertson is supporting him. Moderate Democrats who at one time were just called Democrats can support Rudy, because of his liberal views on abortion, gay marriage, and other social issues. Democrats who believe this country should have a strong National Security are gonna support Rudy as well.

In effect Rudy represents the best qualities of the old Democratic party (the Lieberman, JFK wing) and the best qualities of the Republican Party.

That is why the far-left is feverishly trying to create any controversy possible that might cast doubt in voters minds about his candidacy.

Frank Rich’s column today is about the Bernard Kerik Idictment, and the recently filed lawsuit by disgraced publishing diva Judith Regan. Regan makes the charge that officials at Newscorp (which owns Fox News) encouraged her to lie to the Feds about her relationship with Bernard Kerik, because it could possibly damage the Giuliani campaign.

What that has to do with her being fired after bringing a ton of heat down on Rupert Murdoch and Newscorp after the O.J. Simpson book debacle, is anyone’s guess. I think she may have just been spending too much time with Dan Rather, but lets hope his insanity hasn’t spread any further.

There has been nothing but vociferous condemnation of Rudy Giuliani from the left, even when it was only a whisper that he was thinking about running for President. I expect this will continue, because after all this is politics. I just think it’s important to separate fact from fiction about all the candidates, and the attacks on Rudy’s record as Mayor of New York are quite simply nonsense.

-Chris Jones

From the NYT:

Judith Regan, the former book publisher, says in a lawsuit filed today protesting her dismissal by the News Corporation, the media conglomerate, that a senior executive there encouraged her to lie to federal investigators about her past affair with Bernard B. Kerik after he had been nominated to become homeland security secretary in late 2004.

The lawsuit asserts that the News Corporation executive wanted to protect the presidential aspirations of Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Kerik’s mentor, who had appointed him New York City police commissioner and had recommended him for the federal post.

Ms. Regan makes the charge at the start of a 70-page filing that seeks $100 million in damages for what she says was a campaign to smear and discredit her by her bosses at HarperCollins and its parent company, News Corporation, after her project to publish a book with O.J. Simpson was abandoned amid a storm of protest.

In the civil complaint filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Ms. Regan says the company has long sought to promote Mr. Giuliani’s ambitions. But the lawsuit does not elaborate on that charge, identify the executive who she says pressured her to mislead investigators, or offer details to support her claim.

In fact, the allegation about the executive makes up a small part of a much broader array of claims concerning what she says was her improper removal from a job atop one of the more commercially successful book publishing operations.

There are also allegedly “damning” audio tapes that are supposed to prove all these allegations. Until I hear some audio tapes I’m not buying whatever it is she’s selling. Even if the allegations about covering for Rudy are true, what the hell does that have to do with her being fired?

Rupert Murdoch fired her, because of all the heat she brought down on NewsCorp over the O.J. Simpson “If I Did It…” debacle. So all this other stuff reeks of a personal vendetta just like Dan “Memogate” Rather’s ridiculous lawsuit.

However, if the allegations do turn out to be true it won’t really mean a whole lot. It will simple mean that NewsCorp is in the tank for the Republicans while every other media company in the United States will continue to be in the tank for the Democrats.

-Chris Jones

An Op-Ed by Rosa Brooks in today’s L.A. Times suggests that the litmus test for nominees used to be the abortion issue, but now is torture.

Why can’t we just call this a compromise? The Democrats can have their abortions as long as we get to torture terrorists. I think that’s a pretty fair trade.

Brooks sarcastically asserts that the reason Rudy Giuliani is the current GOP favorite is because of his endorsement of torture, in spite of his pro-choice/pro-gay marriage positions.

She’s exactly right about that. Republicans are willing to do whatever it takes to win the war on terror and Democrats are not.

I hope the new litmus test for nominees is torture, because I could never support any candidate that doesn’t have the guts to do what’s necessary to defeat our enemies.

You can’t fight a wolf if you’re gonna act like a sheep. The Democrats have shown that they’re a bunch of sheep and shouldn’t be trusted to defend this country under any circumstances.

Joe Lieberman was the only Democrat left with any balls and they kicked him out of the party.

-Chris Jones