GOP Nominee
Former Candidates
As if it were an act of Christmas entertainment, America’s so-called “Paper of Record” recently unveiled its latest act of Lance-Armstrong-in-reverse back-peddling.
After much gloating and chest beating, it has taken a closer look at the charge that Mayor Giuliani cooked the books to cover NYPD security costs related to his personal travels. Well, all this turns out to be much ado about next to nothing.
As that paper, whose very name I am loathe to repeat, reported December 20:
“…the records reviewed so far, which account for 93 percent of the mayoral travel expenses for that period, suggest that Mr. Giuliani’s efforts to see Ms. Nathan, who is now his wife, had nothing to do with any accounting legerdemain.”
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration is reviewing the remaining 7 percent of relevant records from Mayor Giuliani’s tenure. So far, however, the supposed shifting of funds, financial cover-ups, and other culinary accounting that were alleged never actually happened.
Once again, this paper has lived up to its motto: “All the News That’s Fit to Print” — specifically at the bottom of page A-35 on the Friday before Christmas weekend.
The exculpatory details are here, on the record, albeit far from the blaring headlines that originally accompanied this now seemingly baseless flap.
December 23rd, 2007 at 6:58 pm
http://frum.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDAzYTdjNmVmMzNiYjlkOWRkODI1NDQ4ZjUzODFhOWU=
December 23rd, 2007 at 7:00 pm
OT:
Why Rudy? III
December 23rd, 2007 at 7:01 pm
What hurts Giuliani is that he was committing adultery and betraying his wife and kids. Then he shamed them by telling the media he was leaving them before he told them himself.
On a personal level it shows him to be a deeply selfish man with little concern for his children or his obligations to his family. Such an irresponsible womanizing makes me concerned Rudy would simply be Bill Clinton round two.
Whether we could trust Rudy given that he betrayed his family, that’s a troubling concern.
December 23rd, 2007 at 7:01 pm
Nice to hear from you, deroy.
December 23rd, 2007 at 7:09 pm
What hurts Giuliani is that he was committing adultery and betraying his wife and kids.
Here’s the new attack on Giuliani. Same as the old attack on Giuliani.
December 23rd, 2007 at 7:12 pm
David Frum:
Innocence is not enough …
… helpfully explains Sam Stein of the Huffington Post. Stein is referring here to the belated acknowledgement that the salacious “sex on the city” allegations against Rudy Giuliani have proven wholly bogus. But no corrections are forthcoming.
Stein adds, however, that innocence may not be enough to protect the mayor against further damaging but false allegations:
And the fact that the ammunition is made up of duds? We can sort that out later … maybe during the genuinely scandal-plagued years of a Hillary Clinton presidency.
December 23rd, 2007 at 7:16 pm
Kavon, don’t you think its time to change the rankings?
At this point, even with McCain making some (media-driven) gains in NH, those most likely to win the nomination are still:
1) Huckabee/Romney
2) McCain
3) Giuliani
4) Thompson
5) Paul
6) Hunter
7) Keyes
December 23rd, 2007 at 7:21 pm
ACT, the ultimate power rankings are Intrade rankings, where real money assesses every factor pertaining to a candidate’s chance to win the nomination. Current standings:
Rudy 28.5
Mitt 24.4
JMac 15.9
Huck 14.7
So you could make a case for Rudy/Mitt tied for first, and McCain/Huck tied for third.
December 23rd, 2007 at 7:33 pm
The MSM stayed completely away from the National Enquirer “update” of the Edwards affair story. Today, Chuck Todd of MSNBC explained why. Edwards produced documents, etc debunking the story and explained that the woman was actually involved with another staffer. The point is that Edwards was proactive in squashing a potentially damaging story. In fairness to Giuliani, I don’t think there was anything he could have done to quash his story except to ask the reporters to do their jobs.
December 23rd, 2007 at 7:40 pm
The issue over shifting funds was something he addressed quickly and it wasn’t something that was considered illegal even if true. If the allegations were true it would simply mean Giuliani was hiding his adultery in a legal fashion. The story obviously was to remind people how Giuliani betrayed and abandoned his wife and kids for a younger woman. On that count the story succeeded.
December 23rd, 2007 at 7:45 pm
If the world had banned from public office those who had committed adultery or who had otherwise imperfect lives, how many world heroes would we have been without? It’d be great for someone to start a list. Even just American heroes would make a nice list, starting with the Founding Fathers.
December 23rd, 2007 at 7:57 pm
When the Republicans have finished spending six or seven years, loudly trumpeting the Starr report that exonerated the Clintons from all the phony scandals that the Republicans spent six or seven years loudly trumpeting - that will be the day that anyone outside your circle will give you the time of day when you come whining about what page the Times runs a story that absolves Rudy from any illegality on his taxpayer-funded adulturous trysts.
December 23rd, 2007 at 8:35 pm
Actually, Metro, there are other money markets that are every bit as effective in assessing every factor. In fact, Drudge linked to them earlier today.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/23/america/letter.php
To save you time:
Romney 5-1
McCain 8-1
Rudy 10-1
Huck 12-1
Fred 20-1
Any Other 25-1
As they say, somebody has to win the nomination.
December 23rd, 2007 at 8:40 pm
The world doesn’t need to ban from public office those who betray their families for younger woman.
Voters have to consider whether they can trust a man’s oath to the Constitution when he broke the one to his wife and children.
December 23rd, 2007 at 8:44 pm
Irish those are odds of being elected President not odds of simply being nominated.
I’ve got to say I like what the odds markets say. They give a 71% chance of Rudy not being the nominee. Those aren’t bad odds for social conservatives.
December 23rd, 2007 at 8:55 pm
Metro, did you notice the Intrade numbers for the IA caucuses and NH primaries? Mitt’s been falling hard in both. Huck’s numbers in IA are nearly triple Mitt’s, and JMac’s closing hard ‘n’ fast in NH!
If the numbers hold, looks like the narrative out of IA will be the millions Mitt blew there against a shoe-string campaign. That should soften him up for NH.
Go Mitt!! And I don’t mean that figuratively. I mean
GO! GET OUT!! GO AWAY NOW!!!
December 23rd, 2007 at 8:56 pm
15
I’m with you. I want holier the thou Presidents only.
Please Sir: May I have another Jimmy Carter.
December 23rd, 2007 at 8:59 pm
Econ grad stud #3
“What hurts Giuliani is that he was committing adultery and betraying his wife and kids. Then he shamed them by telling the media he was leaving them before he told them himself.”
Should we post a list of all the presidential candidates past and present who have committed adultery and therefore shouldn’t run for the presidency?
Is John McCain - who has also committed adultery - a deeply selfish man with little concern for his wife (who was left crippled due to an accident) someone you can’t trust, either?
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0607.benen.html
There is so much emphasis on Rudy’s personal life and he is largely - and unfairly - blamed for all his marital troubles.
As Wiki puts it “Giuliani’s marriage to his wife, broadcast journalist and actress Donna Hanover, had been distant since 1996, and the two were rarely seen in public together. There had been no formal announcement of any change in their relationship, although Hanover had indicated that she and their children would not move to Washington if Giuliani won the race.”
Donna Hanover Giuliani, dropped the Giuliani name and went into acting in 1996, the same year Donna and Rudy stopped being seen in public. Donna starred in films like The People vs. Larry Flynt and Ransom, and she also appeared on many different TV shows. By the year 2000, as Wiki reports: “she scandalized some in the nation by accepting the lead role in Eve Ensler’s controversial play The Vagina Monologues, a feminist work that was known for previously casting high profile actresses such as Gillian Anderson, Melissa Etheridge, Calista Flockhart and Winona Ryder, among others. Veteran New Yorker contributor Peter J. Boyer asserted that Hanover’s acceptance of the role was a “well-struck blow” because Ensler was “an outspoken critic of Giuliani’s policies.”
Does anyone wonder if Donna had any consideration for her husband or children? Who looked after their children while their mother was busy acting? Her taking a role in The Vagina Monologues certainly embarrassed her husband Rudy, and it may have contributed to straining their marriage. Yet, the preferred narrative unfairly characterizes Rudy as the bad guy and Hanover as the victim.
Life is seldom so clean and straightforward. It’s certainly possible - indeed probable - that Hanover’s conduct alienated Rudy as much as Rudy’s conduct may have alienated her.
For practical purposes, Rudy’s marriage was over in 1996 when his wife started embarrassing him and spent her time acting neglecting her children and husband. Indeed, she was nowhere to be seen on his re-election night in 1997, an absence that was very noticed by the NYC media at the time.
I agree that Rudy should have handled his situation better. But that’s a far cry from the portrayal some pin on him as a sort of “adulterous, irresponsible Cassanova.”
December 23rd, 2007 at 9:02 pm
econ,
Thanks for the correction. It goes even farther to prove my point.
December 23rd, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Intrade and Betfair are the two big markets and they are within a percentage point of one another.
If small bookies are offering significantly different odds, then a great potential exists to make money by arbitrage.
December 23rd, 2007 at 9:15 pm
These bookies are probably so small that if you went to them with any significant amount of money, they’d refuse and/or change their odds to match the bigger markets.
December 23rd, 2007 at 9:18 pm
Opinionated, not betraying your wife and kids for a younger wife is holier than thou?
What exactly is too much? Child Abuse?
December 23rd, 2007 at 9:35 pm
EGS, books have been written about the troubled family relationships of past presidents. Rudy has admitted from the start to having made mistakes and being less than perfect.
Impeccable families are not necessarily a guarantee of great leadership, although the one aspect does not logically preclude the other.
December 23rd, 2007 at 10:04 pm
“EGS, books have been written about the troubled family relationships of past presidents. Rudy has admitted from the start to having made mistakes and being less than perfect.�
That’s right. I posted a little while ago here regarding that and my post went through but it doesn’t show up. I don’t know why, because I posted only one link.
December 23rd, 2007 at 10:17 pm
Econ grad stud #3,
“What hurts Giuliani is that he was committing adultery and betraying his wife and kids. Then he shamed them by telling the media he was leaving them before he told them himself.”
Should we post a list of all the presidential candidates past and present who have committed adultery and therefore shouldn’t run for the presidency?
Is John McCain - who has also committed adultery - a deeply selfish man with little concern for his wife (who was left crippled due to an accident) someone you can’t trust, either?
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0607.benen.html
There is so much emphasis on Rudy’s personal life and he is largely - and unfairly - blamed for all his marital troubles.
As Wiki puts it “Giuliani’s marriage to his wife, broadcast journalist and actress Donna Hanover, had been distant since 1996, and the two were rarely seen in public together. There had been no formal announcement of any change in their relationship, although Hanover had indicated that she and their children would not move to Washington if Giuliani won the race.”
Donna Hanover Giuliani dropped the Giuliani name and went into acting in 1996, the same year Donna and Rudy stopped being seen in public. Donna starred in films like The People vs. Larry Flynt and Ransom, and she also appeared on many different TV shows. By the year 2000, as Wiki reports: “she scandalized some in the nation by accepting the lead role in Eve Ensler’s controversial play The Vagina Monologues, a feminist work that was known for previously casting high profile actresses such as Gillian Anderson, Melissa Etheridge, Calista Flockhart and Winona Ryder, among others. Veteran New Yorker contributor Peter J. Boyer asserted that Hanover’s acceptance of the role was a “well-struck blow” because Ensler was “an outspoken critic of Giuliani’s policies.”
Does anyone wonder if Donna had any consideration for her husband or children? Who looked after their children while their mother was busy acting? Her taking a role in The Vagina Monologues certainly embarrassed her husband Rudy, and it may have contributed to straining their marriage. Yet, the preferred narrative unfairly characterizes Rudy as the bad guy and Hanover as the victim.
Life is seldom so clean and straightforward. It’s certainly possible - indeed probable - that Hanover’s conduct alienated Rudy as much as Rudy’s conduct may have alienated her.
For practical purposes, Rudy’s marriage was over in 1996 when his wife started embarrassing him and spent her time acting neglecting her children and husband. Indeed, she was nowhere to be seen on his re-election night in 1997, an absence that was very noticed by the NYC media at the time.
I agree that Rudy should have handled his situation better. But that’s a far cry from the portrayal some pin on him as a sort of adulterous, irresponsible Casanova.
December 23rd, 2007 at 10:29 pm
21 econ grad stud
Why do SoCons have an obsession with other people’s lives?
I’m curious. Do you you ask your doctor how he/she is getting along with their spouse? If a fireman comes to rescue you, care about his dating habits?
Has George W Bush made a single correct or incorrect decision because he appears to be in a happy marriage.
Giuliani must be a hell of a leader and politician. He performed terrifically as NYC’s Mayor while in an an unfortunate state of marital discord. His wife being at least equally guilty.
Imagine what an even greater President he could be when, as now, he is happily married.
December 23rd, 2007 at 11:42 pm
MarkG,
You think Romney is going to lose IOWA….SOL (Snicker-Out-Loud)
THE HUCK-A-BUST is COMING……Jan. 3rd!!!
Mark My Words….
And then the Romney Train will be Full-Steam-Ahead….to the Nomination
MERRY CHRISTMAS….Everybody!!
December 24th, 2007 at 12:29 am
23 and 24 — Great posts!
December 24th, 2007 at 4:08 am
“Why do SoCons have an obsession with other people’s lives?” What a silly question. You may as well ask why FiCons are obsessed with other people’s money.
RE: The Inrade numbers. Metro, you post constantly about what the “smart money” is doing. Can you explain why the In-trade market is anything more than poll-chasers? If there is predictive power in these numbers, why do they shift so much? Why do they lag the polls, rather than leading them?
Let’s figure out what the smart money is doing on Intrade. There are two ways to make money on Intrade: owning the winner’s contract at the end of the run, or buying contracts low and selling high. People making money on the second method have absolutely no interest in accurately predicting the outcome of the election (or the primaries). Instead, they are interested in taking advantage of the variations in the price of the contracts. By always looking to buy low and sell high, they will tend to encourage a close race, especially among frontrunners. Any race with a clear frontrunner is going to have less variability, because anyone who already owns a contract for the frontrunner is not going to sell it if they are confident they can hold out for the maximum value.
The other way of making money on Intrade does depend on making predictions. Should we trust these predictions? No more than I would trust the predictions of people playing a roulette wheel in Vegas. The reality is, looking at the numbers, if the winner was decided tomorrow, most people would lose money. Are you really suggesting we should trust a group of people when the majority of them are wrong?
Intrade has two kinds of people: the first, who will not influence the numbers towards accurate predictions, and the second, who are inherently untrustworthy. If I want a prediction, I’ll stick with the polls and US primary history.