The Giuliani Papers

Giuliani Down But Not Out

The category title for this post is admittedly wishful thinking.

David Saltonstall of the Daily News has a more sober take on the subject:

Rudy Giuliani may be down sharply in the polls as he heads back onto the campaign trail Wednesday, but he's hardly out, at least if he can remain standing beyond the early rounds, a Daily News analysis of state polls shows.

Giuliani can afford to lose some ground, given the size of his still-hefty leads in large, later-voting states with significant delegate counts.

Consider some basic facts: There are 29 states that hold primaries or caucuses between now and Feb. 5, which combined offer a total 1,313 delegates - or 122 more than a Republican needs to win the nomination.
In the 24 states that have conducted public polling, Giuliani remains ahead in 13 - many of them big, winner-take-all states such as New York, New Jersey and Missouri.

Romney and Huckabee, by contrast, are front-runners in only four states each. Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson leads in two, and Arizona Sen. John McCain can claim top billing only in West Virginia, polls show.
The bottom line? If Giuliani wins every state where the most recent polls showed him still ahead, he'll end next month with some 758 delegates.

Giuliani the Despot

Glenn Greenwald explains the great danger of Giuliani as president:

A President Giuliani would inherit an office bestowed with such dark powers as indefinite detention, interrogation methods widely considered to be torture, vast warrantless surveillance authority, and an impenetrable wall of secrecy secured by multiple executive and judicial instruments. Set all of that next to a submissive and impotent Congress and an equally supine media—to say nothing of the prospect of another terrorist attack to exacerbate every one of those factors—and it is hard to imagine a more toxic combination than Rudy Giuliani and the Oval Office.

Our political landscape has now tilted so heavily in favor of unchecked presidential prerogatives that even a lame duck, wildly unpopular, and universally discredited George W. Bush is rarely denied what he wants. With this framework now bolted in place, a newly elected, shrewd, and inherently aggressive Giuliani, whose certainty about his own rightness is matched only by his contempt for those who disagree, could easily run roughshod over any attempts to constrain his actions.

Exactly as one would expect, Giuliani has enthusiastically endorsed virtually every one of the most controversial Bush/Cheney assertions of presidential power. He wants to keep Guantanamo open and mocks concerns over the use of torture, even derisively comparing sleep deprivation to the strain of his own campaign. He not only defends Bush’s warrantless surveillance, but does not recognize the legitimacy of any concerns relating to unchecked government power.

In April, Cato Institute’s president, Ed Crane, asked several candidates if they believed the president should have the authority to arrest U.S. citizens, on U.S. soil, and detain them with no review of any kind. National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru reported Giuliani’s response: “The mayor said that he would want to use this authority infrequently.”

In aggressively rejecting that such a power could exist, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, “The very core of liberty secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of separated powers has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the Executive.” Yet Giuliani’s instinct was to assume that he would automatically possess that tyrannical power.

Giuliani's Secrets

Way back in June when I started this blog one of my first posts was about how Giuliani removed his administration's eight years of records from City Hall and privately "organized" them. No other mayor of New York had done this, assuming that the archives were public property. Rudy returned the boxes of material after they had been "catalogued." The city quickly passed a law forbidding any future removals of that sort.

This story is finally getting more attention:

He not only left office with thousands of boxes of documents Giuliani didn’t want to go public, but he also quietly secured the materials of his deputy mayors, his chief of staff, his travel office and his official residence. While in office, Giuliani sought to limit public access to information on such mundane matters as working water fountains in city parks and the city’s recycling program.

This is now put in context with other reports of Rudy's secret behavior, like paying for his mistress with the city's money:

The burst of press attention focused a bright light on something that had been partly known in the NYC press but had been the subject of little scrutiny during this campaign: the fact that as Mayor Rudy expended tens or perhaps hundreds of thousand of taxpayer dollars on his mistress while his wife and kids were still ensconced at the mayor’s official residence, Gracie Mansion.

It wasn’t just the Shag trips to the Hamptons, that was the least of it. It was NYPD security detail he had assigned to Nathan before their affair was even known — on the basis to fairly obviously bogus ‘threats’ she face. The personal NYPD-expensed valet service she, her friends and family enjoyed thanks to Rudy. Even the NYPD-dog walking.

Two Video Views of Giuliani, One Lies, One Truth

A good little video by London's The Guardian by Wayne Barrett, Rudy's nemesis from the Village Voice.

Compare to Giuliani's latest craven exploitation of 9/11.

Giuliani and OxyContin

Of course, you could have read about it months and months ago right here, but The New York Times front page gets around to it today. Giuliani's cosy get rich deal with the makers of OxyContin.

In 2002, the drug maker, Purdue Pharma of Stamford, Conn., hired Mr. Giuliani and his consulting firm, Giuliani Partners, to help stem the controversy about OxyContin. Among Mr. Giuliani’s missions was the job of convincing public officials that they could trust Purdue because they could trust him.

...his work for Purdue, the company’s first and longest-running client, provides a window into how he used his standing as an eminent lawyer, a Republican insider and a national celebrity to aid a controversial client and build a business fortune.

Dennis Lee, the Virginia state prosecutor for Tazewell County, an area hard hit by OxyContin abuse, said he was stunned several years ago to learn that Mr. Giuliani was working for Purdue. He had a favorable impression of Mr. Giuliani, he said, and a poor opinion of the company, which he said had played down and dissembled about its drug’s problem.

“I was shocked,” Mr. Lee said, “that he would basically become a mouthpiece for Purdue.”

The crisis that brought Purdue to Mr. Giuliani in 2002 involved OxyContin, a time-released form of the narcotic oxycodone, which had turned into a blockbuster product with annual sales of more than $1 billion.

But along the way, the pain medication had also become a popular drug for abuse. Among the company’s critics were officials at the Drug Enforcement Administration who said OxyContin had been a factor in hundreds of overdose deaths. Some D.E.A. officials and others also charged that Purdue had hyped the drug’s resistance to abuse and then failed to act swiftly when its misuse became apparent.

Giuliani was picked as the perfect lobbyist to the DEA:

Asa Hutchinson, the director of the Drug Enforcement Administration in 2002, hardly needed an introduction to Mr. Giuliani. So it was perhaps not surprising that Purdue chose Mr. Giuliani as the person to meet with Mr. Hutchinson at a time when the drug maker was under intense scrutiny by the D.E.A.

“You need to have somebody who has clout to get in the door to legitimately make your presentation,” said Jay P. McCloskey, a former United States attorney in Maine who until recently worked for Purdue as a consultant.

After the meetings, Mr. Hutchinson, who generally did not get involved in individual investigations, asked D.E.A. officials several times to brief him on the inquiry, Laura Nagel, the official in charge of it, has said in previous interviews. She declined to comment for this article.

D.E.A. officials say Mr. Giuliani ultimately did not affect the inquiry’s course. But Purdue Pharma did succeed in favorably resolving the matter. In 2004, it paid a $2 million fine to settle the D.E.A. record-keeping charges without admitting any wrongdoing. The sum was far smaller than the amount first recommended by Ms. Nagel, which one former D.E.A. official said was $20 million.

Giuliani Sick In More Ways Than One

They let Rudy out of the hospital in St. Louis after a touch of flu.

He wishes the diagnosis for his campaign is as benign:

Rudy Giuliani lost his longtime status as the Republican presidential front-runner yesterday, only hours after being taken to hospital with flu-like symptoms, marking the worst 24 hours of his campaign.

After holding a 13-point lead over his nearest rival last month, The Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey has Mr Giuliani tied with Mitt Romney at 20 per cent, slightly ahead of Mike Huckabee on 17 per cent. John McCain was at 14 per cent. The poll highlights that, with only 14 days until the Iowa caucuses on January 3, no Republican can claim to hold the advantage in a highly unpredictable race.

Giuliani Nuttier Than a Fruitcake Xmas Ads

How Al Franken sneaked into Rudy's ad agency to write Giuliani's Christmas ads will be one of this campaign's most interesting stories.

Like this one, where Rudy and Bernie Kerik in a Santa suit talk about giving every American a fruitcake.

And this one, where the same two share a candy cane.

Way to go, Al.

New Informant on Kerik and Giuliani

A new informant has surfaced with evidence against Kerik and Giuliani. Lawrence Ray was one of Kerik's pals during the late 90s and 2000, involved with Kerik's mob-related schemes.

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.

That evidence, reviewed by The Washington Post, shows that Kerik brought Ray into contact with Giuliani on a handful of occasions documented in photos and that he invoked Giuliani's name in connection with a New Jersey construction company with alleged mob ties that is now at the heart of the criminal cases.

Firefighters Organize Against Giuliani

Jim Riches, deputy fire chief who lost a firefighter son on 9/11, has started a group to counter Giuliani's lies about his performance on that day.

...a group of New York firefighters who lost sons in the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attacks is organizing a political committee to take on former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani in Republican primary states.

A leader of the 9/11 Firefighters and Families group met Tuesday with union leaders and political consultants, readying plans to set up a tax-exempt committee that would fund appearances and a media drive against Giuliani.

Jim Riches, a New York deputy fire chief whose firefighter son was killed during the attack, said the group aimed to raise doubts about the central premise of Giuliani's presidential campaign -- his leadership role on Sept. 11. "If we have to follow him around all 2008 we'll do it," Riches said.

After protesting near Giuliani fundraising events in New York to little fanfare, they now plan to raise their voices in Florida, South Carolina and other primary states seen as essential to Giuliani's path to the GOP nomination. "When he announced his plans to run for president we felt he was doing it on the backs of our dead sons," Riches said.

Of course, MSM is pegging the story the start of a 'swift boat' effort. As usual, "journalism" at its worst. The purpose of the swift boaters was to spread lies. Riches and his people are trying to spread the truth.

Why Giuliani is Sinking So Quickly

Rudy is losing and losing fast for a few reasons. One of the main ones is his decision to sacrifice the early contests -- Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina -- and first concentrate on Florida. The wrongheadedness of this strategy is the perfect example of why he is so totally unqualified to be president. His self-enthrallment prevents him from any meaningful familiarity with reality. He has been so entranced with the distant story told by the national poll numbers he misread the battle on the ground in front of him.

Todd Beeton describes:

...his over-reliance on his national lead and his relative neglect of the early states are now biting him in the ass. A few weeks ago I wrote that conventional wisdom had it that Giuliani needed to leave Iowa in 3rd place and New Hampshire in 2nd to have a chance; right now neither of those things appears likely.

And to top it all off is the latest poll out of Florida, which has always been the one state that showed Giuliani way ahead of the pack and, for a while there, holding steady. Not so in the latest Rasmussen Reports survey, which finds Giuliani dropping into 3rd with 19% behind Huckabee with 27%