Has a legitimate presidential candidate ever been indicted out of the race before? How about an illegitimate candidate?
Honestly, this is getting ridiculous. Giuliani won’t fire a pedophile priest from his payroll no matter how it might look for his campaign. He pushed his incompetent, mobbed-up henchman for Homeland Security Secretary and, terrifyingly, almost got his wish. He blew 9/11 when he ignored advice and based his emergency command center in the WTC. Why? Apparently so that he could use the lavishly furnished site as an adulterous love nest. The guy has a messianic infallibility complex that would make the president blush.
I can sort of get the 9/11 aura that convinced the GOP to let Giuliani throw his hat in the ring, but at some point the party needs to think about an intervention. With Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff and Duke Cunningham and Mark Foley (and, soon, almost the entire Alaska Congressional delegation) so fresh in the nation’s memory is this guy really the best face that the GOP can put forward?
Maybe some Giulianiacs can stop by and explain the appeal to me. Believe me, I get the idea of electing the Tasmanian Devil and calling him “strong on security.” Well enough if that’s the foreign policy you want. Now look at the trade-off. The guy can’t govern, his cronies will steal anything that isn’t bolted down, he reads 1984 for leadership ideas and he thinks he’s God. I guess that we honestly have to destroy the country in order to save it.
***Update***
***Update 2***
You know, given Trapper John’s thoughts and particularly the way that Fox News has done anything but bury the story, maybe leaking the Hamptons love tryst was the intervention.
JWW
Tim,
you may be right”I guess that we honestly have to destroy the country in order to save it”.
I’m not voting for him unless given no option. He is however not nearly as corrupt as the Clinton faction, and vastly more experienced than Obama, Edwards is a disaster in the making.
Where do you place the trust of the nation? We haven’t a choice, somebody will be elected. Don’t count on Rudy, he may not win the primaries.
Darkness
Ah, I’m never disappointed stopping by here.
I vacillate between hoping Giuliani wins the nomination because he is such an easy target I think it will lead to either a slaughter by 527s and/or a chunk of republican voters disenfranchised and/or a 3rd party candidate. Any of those would be sufficient and it could be all three.
Chuck Butcher
If you think Mayor of NYC is more experience you sure have never been to my neck of the woods. I’d rather stick hot irons up my nose than have a NYC Mayor as Prez & I don’t care what (x) after their name.
John S.
That really does not seem to be the case (imaginary scandals don’t count).
You’re kidding, right? Being the mayor of New York on 9/11 – despite Rudy’s proclamations otherwise – does not give him the penultimate political experience.
demimondian
Shorter JWW: “Clinton! Jacklopes! A noun! A verb! 9/11!”
Psycheout
Hey Tim! It sounds like you’ve been reading Blogs 4 Conservatives! I’ve been fairly hard on Rudy and have mentioned the shady folk he has associated with as well as that priest and his little crony: Bernie Kerik, who he tried to get appointed as head of Homeland Security.
Giuliani just doesn’t seem like the guy I could trust in the White House. New York is one thing. America is something else entirely.
Thanks for reading, Tim F.!
VidaLoca
No. That honor belongs to the lovely Ms. Katherine Harris.
lectric lady
Oh, My Blessed God!
May you make Jurudi Giuliani the Republican nominee!
Blue Jean
Well, at least Rudy could read and understand “1984”, which makes him an improvement over the current occupant. Otherwise, you might just as well be talking about Shrub.
VidaLoca
Why stop there?
“Vote for Pol Pot, he’ll get the agricultual system working again!”
jake
Mmmm. Now there’s something I’d like to see:
“Furthermore, if elected president I pledge to restore America’s values- ”
“Mr. Rudolph William Louis Guiliani?”
“What? What the hell are you doing? I’m giving a speech here.”
“Also known as Rudy Guiliani?”
“Listen punk, get out of here or I’ll have your badge.”
“I’m sorry sir, you’re under arrest.”
Hey, I can dream. And as dreams go, Rudy nabbed by cops in the middle of a debate is a rather tame dream.
Thanks for depriving me of some easy snark.
CaseyL
There are a lot of signs we’re in the fin de siecle stage of nationhood. Electing Rudy would not only hasten the inevitable end, it would be awfully entertaining along the way.
‘Course, it’s easy for me to say that: I live in Seattle, which is about as far from DC as you can get and still be in the continental US, and strongly liberal. A Giuliani Administration might bring out enough of our old cussedness to make secession a real option.
MaryM
Let’s see. Go back to Eisenhower’s exit speach when he says “beware the military-industrial complex” and “some guys in Texas” and fast forward to the latest “ever so briefly current GOP favorite” and BINGO, you have got the GOP flavor “for the moment”. Mr. NYC Mayor will be existed stage right(due to the ever present question about how much corruption will he be hung for including the recent revelation that he billed his cheating on wife 2 X 2 on the city of NYC) for tonights new media darling Mike Huckabee. Since he is just not controllable, he will be dropped tomorrow for McCain (except for that pesty military abuse issue) and then that leaves Mitt who is, after all, a Morman. So here in is the delima the (100 or so very rich families controlling the Republican Party) Republicans face, another thrown election that just plain gets too hard to cover up, or yet another asassination of a (or front-runner for the Democratic Primary) sitting Democratic president that was democratically elected, either by a gun, or by moral asassination. So many questions, so few answers. Maybe a new “9/11”? I really do not think it matters. As long as there are people in this country that think that the earth is only 6,000 years old, you can not change the out come of what will mystify historians about a million years from now-how did we get it so wrong.
Incertus (Brian)
I really don’t think this will hurt Rudy. It’s not like the press has a taste for his blood the way they do for Clinton–either one. This is Troopergate with actual scandal, but with a press that doesn’t give a shit.
TenguPhule
As long as it’s the part the wingnuts are standing on, I’m all for it.
TenguPhule
Shorter JWW: I did not read the part about using 9/11 funds for a love nest. Or the rest of it.
The Wingnut gene pool is long overdue for chlorination.
TenguPhule
And yet Psyche trusts Bush ‘Failed At Every Enterprise in his Life’. Go Figure.
The Entire Republican Candidate list belongs in Prison. Or an Institution. Double Gitmo indeed.
Mike P.
LOL. I (and don’t call me a Republican for it, dammit!) actually own a pool. One year it devloped a nasty pink slime, just a bit lighter than the color of Rudy’s lipstick. That sh*t woulnd’t die! Super-chlorination was called for – and then some. Then you have to scrub and treat again.
I’m just sayin’, his type don’t leave willingly.
Nathan
What have we done when a president who “reads 1984 as an instruction manual” has become more palatable than our current situation?
Tsulagi
Are you really suggesting a pool of Gooper “best faces” actually exists they can choose from?
Assuming Rudy doesn’t have a meth/gay hooker/underage page moment in the next three months, my money would be on Rudy getting the nomination. Then to pander to the SoCon base and cut off the slim possibility of their running an independent pick for Jesus, I could see Rudy offering the VP slot to Huckabee.
Giuliani/Huckabee, a true mirror image of Bush/Cheney. But on growth hormones and steroids. If it came to pass, don’t ask God for help. Rudy would have Huck wiretap all those communications too.
Cinderella Ferret
The Daddy Staters love Rudy. But the Evangelical crowd don’t seem to be taking to him, or Romney, so well in Iowa. Huckabee is gaining ground very quickly on them. If he wins in Iowa, and does well in NH, you could see a big move for him in SC. The Bible Studies degree from that college in Arkansas might be his ticket to the nomination.
I see Huckabee as a well spoken Shrub with some intellectual curiosity. Is Jesus on his side? Who knows. Or, more precisely, who cares. The modern Republican Party is dominated by religious zealots who trivialize their faith and interject a fraudulent moral certainty into the political arena.
It is very important to remind the American people that this is the party that disgraced itself in the Schiavo case. The party of small government had time for the President and the Congress to stake out a treacherous position, and threaten to intervene in a private family matter. I could mention all the other usual topics, but the Schiavo case is the one that is least mentioned. But it should be a clarion call for everyone who has a sick or dying family member. Do you want these rat-bastards telling you how to handle this most private of decisions? Vote Republican and you may have to exercise your 2nd Amendment Rights when the jack-booted thugs kick in your door.
Well, I think I hear a couple of Arrogant Bastard‘s calling my name.
The game ain’t over, it just feels that way most of the time. Yah-tah-hey.
mantis
I think Rudy’s appeal is his deep respect for his constituents.
Lupin
As a demonstration, here is a lovely paean of praise about Adolf Hitler by people who knew him, showing that, no matter how bad you are, loving God, children and dogs, can still buy you sympathy. Rudy is a piece of cake.
scarshapedstar
Rudy would have brought the spite vote. There was never anything else to the man. They were banking on a South Park Episode in which Rudy dresses like a woman and then kicks a bunch of ass Rambo-style, and then Hillary, who is portrayed as a brooding harpy with vagina dentata who queefs little shards of ice, tries to stop him. Or something along those lines.
But the fratboy douchebags are not coming out to vote for a fucking Mormon. Everyone else in the Republican coalition will hold their nose and vote in lockstep, no matter what they say today, but the Beavis and Butt-Head Right will not find the act of voting for Romney to be sufficiently liberal-enraging and they will stay home.
maxbaer (not the original)
Well if this doesn’t do it, maybe being in bed with the guys who tipped off KSM will sink him. I hope Rudy stays around, he’s the gift that keeps on giving.
mds
So, what led the conservative propaganda outlets to catapault a story that’s so potentially damaging to Rudy? The possibility that it was going to get out anyway, so better for him if it gets out now rather than during the general? A generic desire to shoot him down because his baggage has become too visible? Or are the Powers that Be swinging behind another candidate? (Let’s see how much play Drudge and Fox give “Wayne Dumond” or trashing hard drives on the way out of the governor’s office, shall we?) It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
over_educated
Wow, if Guiliani does stay in the race, the negative campaign commercials practically write themselves…
Evinfuilt
They always have, its just we now need a full documentary to cover everything. The good news, its got plenty of sex involved to keep it interesting.
Dana
“If This Goes On—” is a science fiction short novel by Robert A. Heinlein, first serialized in 1940 in Astounding Science-Fiction and revised and expanded for inclusion in the 1953 collection Revolt in 2100. One of his Future History series, it recounts a future theocratic American society, ruled by the latest in a series of “Prophets.” The First Prophet was Nehemiah Scudder, a backwoods preacher turned President (elected in 2012), then dictator (no elections were held in 2016 or later). Scudder was previously mentioned in passing in stories such as Logic of Empire and later on in Heinlein’s final novel To Sail Beyond the Sunset.
So, what do you think? Did Heinlein miss the election of a theocrat to to Presidency of the “Homeland” by only four years, or will Huckabee be back in 2012?
grumpy realist
Heinlein, while loving the US and having great dreams about what we could do, never underestimated the religious nuthead aspect we’ve had since the beginning.
DC in Cda
After all they’ve done for him, you’re not suggesting that Faux News is as sensitive to accusations of political bias as the ‘liberal’, non-conservative media are you? Perish the thought…
jcricket
These are the same people who look back fondly at the era of McCarthyism and internment camps. It’s no surprise that George Orwell’s wholesale indictment of authoritarianism is instead as a glorious celebration.
History, forgetting, repeating, doomed. String ’em together and you’ve got the GOP party platform.
And I don’t think Rudy’s better. Rudy’s GW unchecked by the desire to seem compassionate. If anything it’s like putting Wolfowitz, Perle and Cheney on top of the fucking button after drinking a case of red bull.
JWW
Maybe,
You should implement a braille embosser on your site.. It seems the regular commenters can’t read text. I did not elude to Rudy as being even close to a good candidate.
But they see JWW, assume and type with a closed mind. I find it sad, you see it as power in numbers.
When you follow a fool long enough, you become a fool yourself.