Rudy being advised on Iraq by ...you won't believe it.....John Bolton.

[Hamlette]

"So basically Rudy's in with the one guy who was even too whacked for the Bushies.

The guy really knows how to pick good people."

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/013607.php

(And to think, I once thought he might be the best of the bunch.)

[aquart]

1. After this is over, somebody's gotta write the movie.

How about the guy who plays Monk for Giuliani? Jeff Foxworthy for Bolton?

[alcibiades_mystery]

7. One day this war's gonna end

[Hamlette]

15. not in our lifetime if Bolton has anything to say about it n/t

[Canuckistanian]

2. So, let me get this straight

A has-been mayor who is much hated in his own home town is now seeking the support of a disgraced diplomat who never had the support of Congress in his UN bid?

Sounds like a GOP marriage made in heaven....

[AtomicKitten]

3. Bolton's recent visit to The Daily Show convinced me

... he is bereft of the basic knowledge of how this country works. When he divulged he feels it is the POTUS's job to serve those that voted for him, I almost fell off the sofa.

And I am thrilled he is "advising" Giuliani, no doubt instructing him on how to piss off the rest of the planet to ensure another attack. I'll be looking for some of that Boltonesque crazy talk coming from Rudy's mouth in the debates.

[Hamlette]

14. and Rudy's comment about government funding for abortion

being mandated because abortion is protected under the consititution. The oddest thing about that position is he is a lawyer and he should know that just because it is protected by the constitution doesn't mean the government pays for it (do they buy us guns because the constitution protects the right to bear arms?)

While I agree with him that the government should fund abortions for the poor it is NOT because abortion (privacy) is protected by the constitution. It is because it is the right thing to do. For a lawyer to take his position is so odd. Maybe he really is dumb for a lawyer/mayor.

[AtomicKitten]

16. Rudy has plenty of flip-flop footage to sink his campaign

Same for Mittens. It's gonna be like shooting fish in a barrel in 2008. Woo-hoo.

[Hamlette]

19. he didn't flip flop, he's held the same position all along

the problem is his legal analysis which is dead ass wrong.

A tad surprising for a lawyer.

Which means he's an idiot?

[AtomicKitten]

21. right you are

National Review article from 4/11: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ODRjZDVmM2U4MDMxODc4MjhjYTczNWRmZjk1Mjc0OTc=

Interestingly, I was news-cruising today and actually heard Hannity swear up and down Giuliani had pledged he is now pro-life. Jeez, the mis/disinformation continues.

[Stephanie]

4. Giuliani's not the brightest bulb in the marquee

He was widely hated here in NYC before the towers fell.

[napi21]

9. I've read that he was really hated by before 9/11. WHY?

Was it mostly the blacks that hated him because of the insane things he had the police doing? I don't think I've ever read WHY New Yorkers heted him, just that they did.

[alcibiades_mystery]

13. Giuliani criminalized New York working class culture

When I was growing up (in my teens), we used to hang out in large groups in the parks at night. Yes, we drank beer, and got in gang fights with kids from the other parks, and fucked and laughed, and smoked pot and tripped on shrooms and acid, and generally stayed out of people's hair with the exception of the occasions when somebody got stabbed or knocked up enough to require hospitalization. This is the way people lived in my neighborhood since the 1950's, maybe earlier. On an average Saturday night in the summer, you had 100 people at "The Park" (there are hundreds of such parks in the outer boros); if it was somebody's birthday or a keg party, you had 200. Guys, girls, mean motherfuckers, wannabes, glams, hardcore kids, graffiti writers hitting the handball courts, pot dealers making cash, whatever. That's the way my generation grew up, and the generation before, and the generation before, and the generation before, and the generation before. This was working class culture in the outer boros, black, white, Latino, Indian, whatever (the Asian kids did their business in the poolhalls).

Then came the summer of 1994. Suddenly, the way people in my neighborhood had lived for decades, and the way we had lived since we were old enough to stay out after dinner and buy some beer from the Koreans (that is, since we were 13), was illegal. Illegal. Suddenly, we were getting tickets for being "In the park after dark." Suddenly, we were getting tickets for "Open alcohol in public." In an empty park, mind you. Suddenly, we were getting tickets for loitering - on the same park benches that people had occupied night after night for 50 years. Suddenly, the same beat cops who used to talk with us, and ask us what was going on with such and such beef, and who was packing heat in the high schools, and how's your brother doing, suddenly they were replaced with 21 year old hard asses who were hauling us to Central Booking on bullshit trespassing wraps.

I don't give a fuck what any Yuppie motherfucker says about how well Giuliani "cleaned up the city" with his zero tolerance policies. That fucker killed a way of life that was the essence of New York. And you may read my description of that culture and recoil, but it was a live thing, a living, breathing way of life for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, a way of meeting people and loving people and (yes, sometimes) fighting people, and staving off the anomie of urban existence. A way of connecting. Our fucking way. Our way. And he killed it.

Summer of 1994. The New York Rangers won the Stanley Cup. And Rudolph Giuliani killed New York. That summer, I received 18 desk appearance tickets for living my life in the same way that I did without incident the summer before, and the summer before that, and the summer before that. Fuck Rudy Giuliani.

[Webster Green]

17. Wow!......Great post!

I had heard about how he "cleaned up" the city without knowing what that really meant, but you put me right there with that story.

That is so fucked!

K&R!

[napi21]

18. That was a great description of life as it was. Without making you angry,

at me, can I ask you if you really believe that was a great life? I know it was tradition for you andeveryone you knew,but thinking back now, was all that really good?

I grew up in Pgh. Pa. I'm sure you would consider me as a sheltered nobody, but I can't even imagine gang fights and and hurtingother people in your crowd as being something I'd want to do. I completely understand loving being in the park with your friends, drinking beer, and although I've never doneit,I guess I can even understand the drugs. Whatever makes you feel good and be happy. I just can't get my brain around the fights.

Is the fighting and anger really the New Your you'd want to go back to?

BTW, thanks for answering me. You are the only person who ever took the time to tell me WHY they hated Rudy.

[alcibiades_mystery]

20. It's not something

that can be evaluated in simple terms of good and bad. It was, at the very least, not an administered life. It's not about my enjoyment of it (we enjoyed even the bad things). But it was our culture. It was not handed to us, pre-packaged, at the mall. And it was greazy (check my sig), to be sure. It was unproductive. People got hurt. Sure. People always get hurt. People still get hurt.

There is no going back; the New York that I knew is dead. It's just as dangerous, but there's not as much comedy to go with the danger. There's not the same way of life to ease it. I wouldn't want it for my kid, for sure. But I'm glad I had it myself. That kind of paradox, you know? One time we got ion a beef with some Latino kids from 41st street. It was me and two friends, and a couple of girls, and they were like 20 deep. And it was jawboning and talk until my buddy had had it, and he walked off about 10 feet onto a little patch of grass and put his hands out like "What, motherfuckers?" That was it. The moment of decision (which is, as Kierkegaard says, madness). And I walked over behind him and stood back to back with him, and put my fists up, and we took a beating. But that's fucking ethics, man. There was something in that. You're not thinking, and you can attribute whatever you want to it after the fact, and maybe I attribute ethics. It was a cultural value maybe, or maybe some dumb bullshit that could have been avoided. But, goddamit, there was connection. You felt it. And there was the other ethics, too. Catching some kid you have beef with coming off a bus and then its 12 to 1 on him. That's how it played. Could be you tomorrow.

I know I'm being all weird and "authentic" and nostalgic here. And I know that's suspect in all sorts of ways. But yes. It was preferable to the administered, clean city. "It ain't easy bein' greazy, in this world full of cleanliness, and, y'know, all that other madness." Spoken by Method Man, an outer boros New Yorker of my generation. I know exactly what he's talking about.

[Stephanie]

23. Rudy was considered a fascist by New Yorkers.

He Disnefied Times Square, he kicked out New Yorkers to make the place a giant mall for the tourists. His policing tactics were simply racist. There were MANY incidents of innocent black men shot by cops under Giuliani. Meanwhile he was carousing all over the East Side with his mistress - his second mistress, the first was an employee, Christine Lategano - and publicly humiliating his wife. He was despicable.

[Elwood P Dowd]

5. They are destroying their own party and don't even realize it.

It's like some episode of Star Trek that was never shown because no one would believe it.

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. I believe it...

[Bozita]

8. After Kerik and Bolton, how about Jimmy Swaggart as his religion advisor?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

10. Consider that Ghouliani also was Bernie Kerik's good buddy,

why would it be at all surprising that he'd consult with

JOHN BOLTON!!!

(Which is how Rachel Maddow always screams his name whenever she mentions him, :rofl:)

[Desperadoe]

11. They are old friends.......

...from Plato's Retreat.

[TomInTib]

12. Just when you think that maybe, just maybe, it can't get any more surreal...

How crazy must it truly be?

[Warren DeMontague]

22. At least now Rudy has someone he can go to if he decides to get a toupee.