Giuliani’s Skeletons

The Blotter reports that Rudy Giuliani “provided a police driver and city car for his mistress Judith Nathan” well “before it was publicly known he was seeing her.”

A former city official who worked for Giuliani summarized it thusly: “She used the PD as her personal taxi service.”

A commenter at the Blotter reacts: “I remember when it was considered to be really bad when politicians used their position of power to carry on affairs behind their wi[f]e’s back.”

Although I’m normally not into personal politics like this - and, frankly, it’s none of anyone’s business whether, when and how Giuliani cheated on his wife - this case isn’t just personal, it’s also public: they - probably - used public money for his mistress. If the story is true, he didn’t pay for it out of his own pocket, New Yorkers paid for it. As such, it’s a legitimate subject to write about, in my opinion.

Giuliani tried to answer some of the charges, but many questions remain (click on some of the links below to find out what some of them are).

We all know that Giuliani has some skeletons in his closet; this is clearly one of them. It seems to me that many questions remain, because there’s simply no good explanation for it.

This will, I’m afraid for Giuliani, hurt his chances of winning the nomination considerably. If there’s one thing conservative voters don’t like it’s a man cheating on his wife. If there’s another thing they don’t like, it’s a man using public money to facilitate him cheating on his wife.

Stop the ACLU comments: “The reciepts included hotel bills at the Hampton for detectives on Long Island where Judith, his mistress, had a condiminium.Rudy says this story won’t hurt him. I think it will. He didn’t deny anything. He only shifted responsibility. Accusations that the city paid for protection during an extra-marital affair will hurt him.” Concluding: “I would say that I’m writing Rudy off my list, but I did that a long time ago. But thats because he is a big gun grabbing liberal.”

Bitsblog displays “but what about Clinton“- syndrome: “Hmmm. Was she wearing a blue dress at the time, I wonder?”

Kevin Drum: “And just to jog your memories, remember that this comes on top of all those rumors that Rudy bucked his advisors and insisted on putting his emergency command post in the World Trade Center so that it would be within walking distance of City Hall, and therefore convenient for in-city trysts with Judi. That turned out not to be such a great idea, but what can you do? Love makes fools of us all.”

Crooks and Liars (with video): “Even if we were to be so gullible as to just take Rudy at his word (and we won’t, but will the msm?) that he had nothing to do with the cooking of the books to hide his travel expenses, does this Enron-for-philanderers accounting system really sound like the answer to our current federal budget woes?”

Josh Marshall: “Rudy isn’t denying anything. He’s just saying he’s not responsible.” And with regards to Giuliani’s (latest) defense: “I’ve basically got two-to-three reporters on this story. And I’m a pretty rough boss so I’ve got them working a bunch of other stuff too. But someone needs to find out who the cops were and just ask them: is that true? Is that how it happened?”

Betsy: “I’d like to hear his explanation of why his lover needed a security detail. This sort of drip drip has to be death to Rudy’s campaign. I thought all this sort of thing would come out if he got the nomination and the Democrats started releasing their oppo files… But this stuff about possibly misusing public funds and public employees for his private life is just a bit too much for me. I’ll give hime the benefit of the doubt that there is some innocent explanation for all this, but it just doesn’t look good.”

Hot Air: “If true, it would theoretically move yesterday’s Politico piece out of the realm of ’sneaky but not necessarily illegal’ to a more nuanced level of impropriety.”