Giuliani leads the GOP robo call attack

Listen to the ultra-annoying and stupid robo-calls that Rudy Giuliani, America's Profiteer, is doing on behalf of the McCain campaign. I have a hard time believing that robo-calls on either side of the campaign make much of, if not any, difference in the minds of voters. The only reason I can even think of why 9iu1ian1 would partake in such dumb activity is because he's looking for a plum assignment in a would-be McCain administration.

By the way, Rudy's voice makes me want to stick my head in an oven. I wish during one of his robo calls he would say "sufferin' succotash."

However, the stupidity isn't stopping there. On the Thom Hartmann Show last week, a caller from the Carolinas called in to tell a story about how he received a robo-call at 3 a.m. with some blatantly leading, GOP-leaning questions asked by a voice that lamely sounded like Barack Obama. After about 10 minutes, the call was finally identified as coming from the Republican Party. It's not a stretch to say that after 10 minutes that was mentioned just so the party could cover itself legally.

This is just another lame attempt to hoodwink voters. I firmly believe, as long as there isn't wholesale election fraud in selected states, that the American public truly isn't going to buy it on election day and that Barack Obama will be our next president.

Having said that, I sure hope that the Obama campaign, as well as Democratic voters, aren't even remotely getting complacent about his chances, because I still believe that this is going to be a remarkably close election.

McCain's campaign mgr tied to Freddie Mac

In a tragic sort of way, I'm simultaneously angry and amused at how the left and right are falling all over themselves, trying to score cheap political points over arguably our worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. (And most are saying that we are far from out of the woods - there's a cheerful thought as we head into the weekend!)

Anyway, there isn't a person anywhere along the political spectrum who can't point to the other side and find some political advertisements that are misleading in some way, Barack Obama included. My message to those people, especially the ones who get fired up, is to take a step back and research the facts, not the wind-blown rhetoric of a political campaign. Yes, I occasionally list and discuss some political ads, but I try and take ads from both sides at face value - just about anyone from any political persuasion can take a snowflake of truth and turn it into an avalanche of bullshit.

A few nights ago, Rachel Maddow (above video) sat down with Newsweek's Michael Isikoff to discuss revelations that John McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, was paid $15,000 a month by Freddie Mac as recently as last month, directly contradicting statements made by the McCain campaign as late as Tuesday.

The New York Times has plenty more where that came from:

One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain's campaign manager from the end of 2005 through last month, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement. The disclosure contradicts a statement Sunday night by Mr. McCain that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had no involvement with the company for the last several years. Mr. Davis's firm received the payments from the company, Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month along with Fannie Mae.

Wait - it gets better: (Hat tip to C&L) For the last few weeks, the McCain camp has been trying to tie Obama to disgraced former Freddie Mac CEO Franklin Raines, arguing that an alleged "relationship" (a single contact from an Obama campaign official that both parties deny amounted to anything) somehow taints Obama, despite the inconvenient truth that McSame's senior campaign official was receiving thousands from Freddie Mac as late as last month. This isn't the first time that the stench of political hypocrisy from the McCain camp has been overpowering, it's just the latest. (My personal favorite has got to be "I will veto any legislation with earmarks!" during McLame's acceptance speech, just days after selecting the queen of earmarks, Sarah Palin.)

Here's a little more, from DNC Rapid-Response Manager Jesse Lee (h/t C&L):

The two sources, who requested anonymity discussing sensitive information, told NEWSWEEK that Davis himself approached Freddie Mac in 2006 and asked for a new consulting arrangement that would allow his firm to continue to be paid. The arrangement was approved by Hollis McLoughlin, Freddie Mac's senior vice president for external relations, because 'he [Davis] was John McCain's campaign manager and it was felt you couldn't say no,' said one of the sources.

I've been highly entertained by John McCain's reaction to the financial crisis, especially when he "suspended" his campaign to rush off to Washington to "deal with our financial crisis." I can't recall a more pathetically transparent political move during a presidential election in memory, period. He's a desperate campaigner, running out of time ~ his convention bounce is a memory, as is the time when his moniker Maverick actually meant something. If McCain were so concerned with coming up with a solution to our economic crisis, why did he wait until a little over 48 hours before the first presidential debate to "suspend" his campaign? My theory will surprise no one - McCain's running scared, specifically on economic matters, because quite frankly, he's the man without a plan. But, he certainly has his PR spin skills honed to a dull edge. From McCain's presser the other day, just in case you missed it...

And it looks like McCain's wind-blown PR rhetoric was just the big sham we all knew it to be anyway; he showed up at the White House today for the big meeting with Bush, and according to Politico (another noted right-wing Website masquerading as an objective news source) he reportedly had very little to say in the meeting. Ironic, since he's been the one all over the media in the last 48 hours saying he "had to suspend his campaign" so he could go help fix the crisis. Maybe he thought that just by being in the room, his "expertise" would rub off on the rest of the attendees. You know, in the way McCain asserts that Palin "knows as much about energy as anyone else in the country because she lives in Alaska." Seriously folks - what's next? Are we going to elect the wholly unqualified and dishonorable profiteer Rudy 9iu1ian1 as president because he was mayor of New York City during 9-11? Oh wait, we weren't dumb enough to fall for that one. I guess there IS hope for America after all. *Smirk*

Olbermann remembers 9/11

The other night, on the eve of the 9-11 anniversary, Keith Olbermann savaged the Republicans for its treatment of and exploitation of the worst attack on our soil in modern American history. If watched it two or three times, feeling equal parts amazement that someone had the temerity to criticize the 9-11 party (a slogan so deserving of the GOP for many reasons), and also disbelief that our corporate media allows Olbermann's voice to remain on the air when he's so critical of the party of the corporate media, the GOP. When I hear Olbermann wield his rhetorical cudgel in his uniquely sardonic way, the only conclusion I can come to as to why he's allowed to say such things is that the corporate media wants to at least have the appearance of being "bipartisan"; whenever someone (and so few do) say that the media is dominated by right wing voices (which is almost completely is), Repubes can scream "Keith Olbermann!" and "Jon Stewart!" Hey, whatever - at least Olbermann is out there, and he is more pissed than ever. Thank God for him.

He was particularly sage when he took the GOP to task for trying to "own" 9-11, which is has virtually franchised to any Republican seeking higher office. I wonder if the Republican National Committee will soon begin collecting royalties whenever a GOP nominee for a federal, state, or local office invokes "9-11" against his or her Democratic opponent. It seems we aren't too far away. Anyway, here's Olbermann on the trademarking of 9-11 by the GOP:

9-11 has become a brand name, a Republican campaign slogan, propaganda of the lowest form. 9-11 has become 9-11 with a trademark logo; 9-11™ has sustained a president who long ago should have been dismissed or impeached. It has kept him and his gang of financial or constitutional crooks in office without literally any means of visible support.

[...]

...the political party in office at the time of attacks at the local, state and national levels, the party which uniformly ignored the warnings, and the presidential administration already through 20 percent of its first term, and no longer wet behind the ears, have not only thus escaped any blame for the criminal malfeasance and neglect that allowed the attacks to occur, but that presidency and political party have managed to make it seem as if the other political party would be solely and irredeemably responsible for any similar catastrophe in the future...

He also takes some significant swipes at Rudy Giuliani, America's Profiteer, who really can't be repudiated harshly enough for his idiotic and moronic criticisms of the Democratic Party since 9-11, as well as his endlessly pimping himself as being a "brave leader" in the hours and days after 9-11. Kudos to Olbermann for mentioning that Giuliani didn't do DICK (my word) between the two World Trade Center attacks in the 1990s, during which most of the time he was mayor of New York City, and was in a position to do much. (That would include having the city's emergency response center located at the World Trade Center, which the FDNY and NYPD were vehemently opposed to, which Olbermann mentions, and also getting a working radio system that would have allowed the NYPD and FDNY to communicate to one another on the morning of 9-11; it's not a stretch to say that the appallingly bad radios that the city did have on 9-11 cost more than a few first responders their lives.)

Giuliani is literally a political caricature, a farce, a product of little more than a slick PR campaign, that couldn't even fool GOP voters into voting for him during the primaries, when he didn't win one freaking state. I read a pretty scathing indictment of him this past spring in The New Yorker, which summed up pretty nicely how most feel about him: "Those who know him best like him least." I still crack up that a few people I see during my long commute have "Rudy" stickers on their cars - I sometimes have to strongly resist the urge to tell these people that they are "number one," or to roll down my window to tell them how mind-numbingly stupid they really are.

(Giuliani Illustration brilliantly drawn by Derek Chatwood, © 2008 All Rights Reserved)

Olbermann really slammed the GOP for it's supposed 9-11 tribute film broadcast during the GOP Convention last week, chiding the powers that be in our fear mongering party for the images and footage displayed, saying:

The Republicans gave us sociological pornography; a virtual snuff film. Years ago, the television networks, to the applause of this nation, and to the relief of its mental health authorities, voluntarily stopped showing the most graphic of the images of the World Trade Center, except with the strongest of warnings. And yet the Republicans at their convention, having virtually seized control of the cable news operations, showed the worst of it...

I can't think of much more to add to that, other than to say I'm glad that Olbermann brought up how our corporate media is run by companies who have a vested interest in seeing that John McCain gets elected. This is especially true considering that Obama has publicly stated that if elected, he wants to enforce the Sherman Antitrust Act, which would effectively break up the enormous media conglomerates. This rates as a pretty big mistake; they were going to fight Obama's election anyway, but he should have waited to reveal these plans until after he's elected, if he indeed wins.

One final thought - I LOVE it that Olbermann raked McCain over the coals for Mac's patently asinine pronouncement that "he knows how to catch bin Laden." Anyone who believes that comment at face value ought to be deported, at best. Olbermann hammers the point home about McCain's pledge to run a "clean campaign"; anyone but the most rabid Republican knew that was a lie when he said it - all that was needed was time to prove how dishonest it was. Well, we now have that proof.

By the way, more specifics on Olbermann's reaction to the GOP's 9-11 "tribute film" in a bit.

Economy got you down? Gas too expensive? No worries - Let the demagoguery begin!

The people over at Talking Points Memo have put together a wonderful montage of Republican fear mongering over the last few days about Barack Obama's opinion on the Surge, which every Republican in the Western Hemisphere is huffing and puffing as a resounding success. Just wondering, where have we seen that kind of ass clownery before?

Oh yea, that. Now I remember. Amazing that most Repubes have not gotten one thing right about this war, from its length, to its cost, to who would pay for it, that we would be greeted as liberators, etc. (Do I really need to list them all?), yet now we are supposed to trust the party of foreign policy competence. Are they kidding? Sadly, no.

On a day when Obama is making a historic speech in the heart of Berlin, all the leading Republicans can do is sit back and watch, and whine that he "wasn't right about the surge." It's equivalent to a bunch of under-aged kids who are trying to get into a high school party, and no one will let them in, so they sit out in the street, screaming, while no one pays attention to them, throwing pebbles at the house.

I guess no one is showing the McCain campaign the poll numbers these days (good) that show the overwhelming majority of Americans feel that the economy is the number one issue this fall, and it's their number one concern. Sure, we all want to feel safe, but exactly how has Bush and his war mongering candidate done that? They still haven't found bin Laden, Iraq was never a threat and our homeland is still dreadfully unprepared for another attack. What's more, if you can't afford gas or your mortgage, you aren't nearly as worried about national security.

Yet, all we hear about is Iraq, Iraq, Iraq from right-wing blowhards on TV. Well, I guess when you have nothing else to run on, you have to beat the one drum you have left. And they are going to beat it HARD. One of the most under reported stories in our corporate media right now is how Karl Rove is simultaneously working for Faux News while serving as a consultant for the McCain campaign. So, many of the Rovian tactics will no doubt be dragged from the closet, dusted off and thrown into battle vs. Obama. I sure hope Obama is ready; so far, it seems like he is. He's up against it in some ways, even though he's doing well in the polls. Just wondering, are any Obama consultants working for a major network?

And, I'm sorry, but why in the world is Rudy 9iu1ian1 still on TV? Why do his opinions matter? And why isn't the media playing up his differences with John McCain (as well as Mitt Romney's) like it did and continues to do with Hillary and Obama?!? Well, it is our corporate media, so I guess I'm being all rhetorical and all.

Just because Sylvester Giuliani helped New Yorkers endure 9-11, that does not make him some sort of foreign policy expert. Far from it. Just as John McCain serving as a POW doesn't qualify him as an expert on foreign policy, or fighting wars, for that matter. I can only hope that McCain keeps repeating the absurd line, "My friends, I know how to win wars," followed by the creepy smile. Because sooner or later, someone, somewhere, is going to get the balls to say, "Exactly how is that, Senator?"

Shocker: McCain's Hillary love is about two weeks old

There was a time not long ago when Hillary Clinton was persona non grata in the Republican Party. But, in recent days, American's Profiteer, Rudy Giuliani, and John McCain have been making nice with Hillary. Why? Because McCain desperately needs her supporters if he even has a remote shot at becoming president. (And because 9iu1ian1 desperately wants to be McCain's running mate - the only way he'll ever have even an outside shot at gaining national elected office.)

And there was a time not too long ago where McCain thought it was funny when one of his ignorant, asinine supporters called Hillary a "bitch" during a Q&A session. Now that's classy.

It gets better. McCain also had to apologize once for making this unspeakable joke about Chelsea Clinton at a Washington dinner in 1998:

Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because Janet Reno is her father.

Hmm. He calls his wife a "cunt," laughs at a joke calling Hillary Clinton a "bitch," and calls Janet Reno a "man." And women are considering voting for this guy?

He later apologized for the joke, but how could Hillary, Bill or Chelsea take that apology seriously? How do you unring a bell like that?

I have to give the Clintons credit - they have much thicker skins than I could ever hope to have - reason 1,001 why I'll never go into politics. Me? After that crack about Chelsea (she was 18 at the time), if I were Bill Clinton, I would have sent him a gift certificate to Hollywood Tan so he can darken the scars from the two melanomas he's had removed. I know, I'm no better than him now, and I'm okay with that. I was brought up with manners, and 95 percent of the time I have them, but that five percent is saved for churlish rubes like John McCain. Then, I can get into the gutter with the worst of them. I'm not proud of it, but I absolutely detest misogyny, or picking on someone's kids - something that McCain finds amusing.

What sickens me even more is that many women, simply out of spite, are even considering voting for him just because their candidate didn't win. Well boo hoo - Howard Dean lost in '04 and I campaigned like hell for John Kerry in Bucks County, Pa. because his party (MY party) believes in things that are completely foreign to President Bush. Taking a look at McCain's history of hateful comments about women, much less his voting record, ought to disabuse Hillary supporters of the notion of voting for him, but we'll see soon enough.

And by the way, Chelsea Clinton is about 1,000 percent prettier than Cindy McCain, or the McCains' daughter, Megan. <-- She's 21, so I don't feel bad.

Rudy's broken record: Dems still on defense on terrorism

If this Giuliani tripe in the video above sounds familiar, it's because it is - it's from the play book that Bush used in 2004 against John Kerry.

Seriously, why is this man still opening up his mouth? What's more, I'd like to know how enduring 9-11 makes Rudy any sort of an expert on terrorism. His decisions prior to 9-11 were a disaster for New York City, from deciding to put the city's emergency response center at the World Trade Center (after the 1993 WTC bombing) to not addressing the the radio problems of the NYPD and FDNY, which certainly cost both departments lives on the morning of 9-11. He likes to rail on Obama's lack of foreign policy experience, but what experience did he have? Being a mayor of NYC doesn't qualify one to run the country any more (and I'd say maybe even less) than a U.S. Senator. No wonder voters overwhelmingly rejected him.

Pretty funny to hear Rudy talk about what we should have done to the people responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Or, should I say, try to talk about it. The men responsible for the '93 attack, Mohammad Salameh, Nidal Ayyad, Mahmud Abouhalima, Ahmad Ajaj and Mohammed Jamal Khalifa were brought to justice. In 1994, Salameh, Ayyad, Abouhalima and Ajaj were all sentenced to life in prison. Mohammed Jamal Khalifa was deported in 1995 and was acquitted in Jordan of all charges.

Just another quick point - isn't our base in Guantanamo Bay considered U.S. territory? Just a thought I had after listening to Giuliani talk about extending rights to people abroad.

Anyway, I digress, but I'd like to know which country Giuliani thinks we should have invaded because of the '93 bombing? What's more, Rudy didn't open his mouth in the 1990s while he was mayor of NYC about the piss-poor job he thought our government was doing, did he? Funny how the Clinton administration wasn't doing a poor job of combating terrorism until he decided to run for the U.S. Senate in 2000 and for president earlier this year.

It's also pretty funny to hear a former U.S. Attorney having contempt for the law enforcement approach to combating terrorism.

And the USS Cole bombing that Giuliani and Republicans like to endlessly cite as an example of Democrats' weakness? It happened on October 12, 2000, and the Navy released its report on January 19, 2001, hours before George W. Bush assumed the presidency. Exactly what was President Clinton supposed to do, hours before he left office?

I guess Giuliani thinks that most Americans are stupid and don't read about this stuff.

Giuliani's mentioning what Hillary said about Obama (multiple times) also falls flat, but get used to that - it's what Republicans are going to try and use against Obama in the general election this fall. I don't think it's going to work. Why mention what Hillary said, Rudy? You can't come up with any criticisms of your own? It's a pathetic attempt to try and be clever, to use a Democrat's words against another Democrat. No wonder this guy didn't win one state during the primaries. Oh well, back to profiting from 9-11, Mr. Mayor.

Please, McCain, pick 9iu1iani - it would be a dream.

Hill & Bill have made million$ - so what?

[Click for larger image]

I have to give GOP hack Matt Drudge credit for one thing - he's brilliant at coming up with new reasons for totally despising him.

Splashed across his site when I got home tonight - the above headline - which probably marks the 988th time he's taken the GOP lead in attacking the Clintons. If I could get good enough odds from a sucker, I'd bet a few c-notes that this dominates the news over the weekend, especially the Sunday morning talk shows.

After I saw this headline, I got into 1990s mode all over again - frothing at the mouth with partisan outrage. Both Hillary and President Clinton have disappointed me immensely and on more than one occasion during this presidential campaign, but I have no problem at all with this and I really wonder what the big deal is.

Why? Well, first of all, all modern presidents get rich when they leave office. Reagan certainly did. Bush Sr. hasn't been hurting for cash, that's for sure. Neither has Clinton. Quickly now, look into your crystal ball - how many millions do you think Dubya and Laura will be worth? Each successive president cashes in, and Clinton is no exception.

I remember a time not so long ago that people were outraged and outright LIVID that President Clinton raised in the neighborhood of $500 million for his presidential library in Little Rock, Arkansas. His political opponents to this day are furious that the list of donors have not been disclosed, and they do have a point. I don't like the fact that outgoing presidents can do all sorts of favors (ahem, pardons) in return for a fat wad of cash for the monument under construction to himself, i.e., the presidential library.

But guess what?

President Bush hasn't disclosed the hundreds, if not thousands of donors to his presidential library. Current estimates have the cost of his self-serving monument costing in the neighborhood of $1 billion. When the day comes that Bush discloses all of his donors and how much they have given, I will be the first to condemn President Clinton and give kudos to Bush on this Website. Guess what? It's not gonna happen. No, let me rephrase that - look right - THAT'S when Bush will come clean with all of his political favors.

I'm not happy about political favors in exchange for money or political donations on the part of any politician in our country. But, it happens, and it's been part of the system for so long, it's impossible to single out any politician for particular scorn, unless it's a hugely corrupt politician or a very special case.

The bottom line is that our Natural Embarrassment, the clown currently in the Oval Office, is the most secretive president since at least Nixon, and I'd make the case the most secretive ever. We probably won't even ever know the extent to his secrecy and under-handed dealings, but I do know this - Kenneth Lay, before the rape and pillage fall of Enron, donated hundreds of thousands to Bush's inaugural ball in January 2001. Following 9-11, guess which company got tens of millions in tax breaks? C'mon, I don't really need to write it, do I?

Here's another cheerful thought - the Clintons were millions and millions in debt when they left office due to legal bills from the GOP witch hunt to get them at all costs. And by the way, Drudge played no small part in that.

One final thought - I wonder if Mitt Romney or America's Profiteer, Rudy Giuliani, would be getting this kind of financial scrutiny if they were still in the presidential race? In a word, no.

I can only hope and pray that McSame will be stupid enough to pick Romney or Giuliani as his running mate. Please, God, PLEASE.

Update:
It's already starting. I don't expect HuffPo to be as blatantly partisan as Drudge is, but really, Arianna?

American flies five from Chicago to London, on a 777!

I've got a few environmental things I've been meaning to get to, and then I'll get back to the political stuff.

This one is from last week - an American Airlines Boeing 777 flew from Chicago to London with five passengers aboard. I certainly understand that the airlines have been hit with rising fuel costs, and that passengers have to pay extra to compensate for rising fuel costs. However, this incident goes above and beyond the call of stupidity. It's stories like this that anger me to no end. This is an example of how the consumer gets screwed - by airlines making idiotic, absurd decisions like this one. Makes it kind of hard to by sympathetic to the airlines for rising fuel costs. (Oh, and why the hell am I never on one of these flights? Nooo - of course not - I get the five-year old who's been up at the crack of dawn who likes to entertain himself by kicking my seat back for 1,000 miles. Whee.)

From The Telegraph (U.K.):

A major airline is under fire from environmentalists for flying an aircraft across the Atlantic with only five passengers on board.

The flight from Chicago to London meant that the plane, a Boeing 777, used 22,000 gallons of fuel.

It led to American Airlines being accused of reckless behavior by green lobby groups.

The latest "eco-scandal" flight took place on Feb. 9 after American was forced to cancel one of its four daily services from Chicago to London.

While it was able to find places for nearly all the passengers on the fully-booked flight, five still had to be accommodated. Those who did fly were upgraded to the business class cabin.

But while they enjoyed lavish hospitality, the airline was accused of an "obscene waste of fuel" by Friends of the Earth.

It is estimated that each passenger produced 43 tons of CO2 – consuming enough fuel to carry a Ford Mondeo around the world five times.

Operating the near empty flight is estimated as having cost American about £30,000. But a spokesman said it had no alternative.

"With such a small passenger load we did consider whether we could cancel the flight and re-accommodate the five remaining passengers on other flights.

"However, this would have left a plane load of west-bound passengers stranded in London Heathrow who were due to fly back to the US on the same aircraft.

"We sought alternative flights for the west-bound passengers but heavy loads out of London that day meant that this was not possible."

Richard Dyer, Friends of the Earth's transport campaigner said: "Flying virtually empty planes is an obscene waste of fuel. Through no fault of their own, each passenger's carbon footprint for this flight is about 45 times what it would have been if the plane had been full.

"Governments must stop granting the aviation industry the unfair privileges that allow this to happen by taxing aviation fuel and including emissions from aviation in international agreements to tackle climate change."

It's stories like this that motivate me to blog and try to make a nano-difference in the world.

I'm sure the airline was in a bind, and I'm trying to understand such a stupid story. Whenever there's a price increase, it seems like the customer, the flier, gets screwed. It's bad enough that United recently became the first, and no doubt the last airline to begin charging $25 for a second checked bag.

And today, a barrel of oil closed at $111. How soon do you think consumers are going to get lambasted for that development? Partly, that's understandable, but of course Wall Street still has to be happy with fat profits, and there are CEOs that need seven- and eight-figure salaries. Yet, American is carrying five people on a 777 from Chicago to London.

The best part about this story? The reaction to it. I originally found this story on Attytood, one of my favorite Philly blogs. The minute any environmental story is brought up, it takes neo-con artists about five seconds to bring up Al Gore. (Nevermind that the story about his electric bill has been thoroughly debunked - read about that Here.)

Bringing up how celebs, politicians and liberals fly on private jets doesn't take away from the outrage of this story. Incidentally, liberals aren't the only politicians who fly in private jets. Click Here to see how America's Profiteer Mayor demands a Gulfstream IV private jet or better for his speaking engagements. But, I guess to be fair, since he now has the popularity of Chlamydia, his demands may have to be tempered just a bit. Aww, poor baby. I'm sure he'll manage to get by.

And quite frankly, considering the experience of flying commercial these days - overbearing restrictions that aren't keeping us safe, availability of flights, breathtakingly rude TSA agents and all the rest, if I were lucky enough to be incredibly wealthy, you bet your ass I'd have a private jet. I'd make up the difference in my carbon footprint in dozens and dozens of other ways.

Oh, and by the way - Al Gore is probably still doing more for the environment than you are, and he damn well is doing more than our National Embarrassment, President Bush, who only recently even took the tremendously bold and courageous political step of acknowledging that humans are "contributing" to the climate crisis.

Thank God for small favors, Mr. President.

Holy Spitz - NY Gov to resign

...And he should.

Wow - another politician undone by a sex scandal. You'd think that would-be politicians, especially ones who have made their bones by putting criminals in jail (and thereby making enemies in the process), would know one of the cardinal rules in politics - never take the bait, because you are going to be hyper-scrutinized. I guess soon-to-be-former NY Governor Eliot Spitzer never got that memo, or that lesson.

Spitzer shocked New York citizens, as well as the political world around the country, by copping to the use of prostitutes on over half a dozen occasions. It's a press conference we've seen all too often in the last 15 years - a disgraced male politician, with his wife standing by his side, no doubt humiliated on the inside, but putting on a brave face for the cameras.

Spitzer's tale is an amazing one, and not in a good way. (You can always count on the NY tabloid dailies to supply amusing headlines, and since it's a Democrat, of course the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post isn't going to miss an opportunity (left).

According to HuffPo, Spitzer will announce he will step down within the next day or so. Even if he doesn't want to, he probably doesn't have a choice - NY GOP legislators are threatening impeachment, a battle Spitzer would be sure to lose.

Two things bear watching from this scandal - 1. who will run for governor to replace Spitzer (my money is on America's Profiteer, Rudy 9iu1ian1), and 2. how New York and national Repubes will spin this about how Democrats are immoral and not with family values. Of course, going all the way back to the circus impeachment of President Clinton, Repubes don't even come close to representing the so-called "family values" they claim to uphold, but since most of the voting public has a memory span of about 15 minutes, it may not matter.

I don't believe this scandal with have much of an effect on the presidential election, though; New York is solid ground for the Democratic nominee, no matter if it's Hillary or Obama.

Anyway, it appears it's not the actual use of prostitutes that sparked the investigation of Spitzer, but how they were paid for. From The New York Times:

After a report that Gov. Eliot Spitzer had patronized a prostitution ring, officials in Albany greeted the news with shock, and some on Wall Street, a frequent target of his investigations as attorney general, were unsympathetic.

Mr. Spitzer received counsel from his advisers late Monday at his Fifth Avenue apartment, and had not emerged as of early Tuesday morning. A top administration official said Tuesday morning that no announcement had been scheduled. ...

Mr. Spitzer's family and his top assistants debated Monday morning at Mr. Spitzer's apartment about whether he should step down, a person who spoke to the governor said. Silda Wall Spitzer, who was among them, told her husband that he should not resign in haste; as did Lloyd Constantine, a senior adviser and a longtime friend of the governor. But most of his others saw no way for him to survive.

Seems pretty cut and dry - Spitzer is toast, and he deserves to be.

What's worse, the guy has three teenage daughters. I can't imagine the humiliation that they must be going through. Here is the text of his brief press conference yesterday:

Good afternoon.

For the past nine years, eight years as attorney general, and one as governor, I have tried to uphold a vision of progressive politics that would rebuild New York and create opportunity for all. We sought to bring real change to New York and that will continue.

Today I want to briefly address a private matter. I have acted in a way that violates my obligations to my family and violates my, or any, sense of right and wrong. I apologize first and most importantly to my family. I apologize to the public, whom I promised better.

I do not believe that politics in the long run is about individuals. It is about ideas, the public good, and doing what is best for the state of New York. But I have disappointed and failed to live up to the standard I expected of myself. I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family.

I will not be taking questions. Thank you very much. I will report back to you in short order. Thank you very much.

I love how when politicians announce misdeeds, they never come out and say what they did. Probably because they don't want that footage replayed, over and over, on the likes of Fox News and CNN.

Maybe Spitzer and former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevy can start up their own company - Govs Aren't Us.

Sheesh - here's hoping that Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell hasn't had his hands where they shouldn't be, or we'll have a tri-state trifecta of gubernatorial idiocy.

More on Rendell later today...

I'll miss the Rudy ads, anyway

I can't help but kick just a little more dirt on the political grave of America's Profiteer. (By the way, can someone let me know where that grave is, so I can go relieve myself on it?)

Anyway, Giuliani's Reagan fetish knows no bounds. Of all the political ads we will see between now and November, this one has got to make any list of the dumbest of this presidential campaign, and maybe ever.

Ads like the one above have got to be the reason why this jackass will never be president. So, let's get this straight - the Iranian hostages were released an hour after Reagan took office because of anything Reagan did? Riiiight. Reagan did precisely nothing to get them released; the Iranians waited to release the hostages until after Carter left office for no other reason than to make him look bad.

Of course, Giuliani assumes that voters are stupid and lazy and won't check on the facts. Well, those of us who were alive and remember what happened back then know that this line of reasoning is fit for Comedy Central.

I never cease to get a kick out of the lionization of Reagan, either, and last night 9iu11iani didn't disappoint:

Rudy: The party of Lincoln and Reagan and Bush...

Bad-Dum-Bump! Tip your servers!

Well, one out of three ain't bad. As Bill Maher once most sagely noted, the Republican-led Congress renamed National Airport in Washington, D.C. after Reagan so they could say, "I'm coooooming into Reagan!" (And the irony that an airport is named after Reagan at all, after he fired the air-traffic controllers in the early 1980s is, to say the least, ironic.)

The political death of 9iu11ani - sweet!

The Florida primary results are in, and all I can say is this: Two down, one to go.

Fred Thompson
Rudy Giuliani

Next up: Judas John McCain

Mike Huckabee is a political lightweight who has no hope of becoming president, and his religious fundamentalism is the last thing we need in the White House right now. I also have issues with Mitt Romney, but I'd take Romney or Huckabee over (Gasp!) President McCain.

However, I'm thrilled to death that the arrogant, disgusting and despicable 9-11 profiteer is out of the race. Not since Newt Gingrich, uh, Rick Santorum have I been so delighted at someone's political demise.

Here's hoping that McCain gets his political comeuppance, and soon. I heard him on Meet the Press over the weekend, and his hubris was breathtaking, specifically regarding the War in Iraq. He did everything but say "I told you so," regarding the surge escalation in Iraq. McCain would have licked himself all over if he could, which would no doubt have delighted Tim Russert.

As if the war in Iraq wasn't a big enough lie, now we have to endure warmongers like McCain declaring that victory in Iraq is not only possible, but probable. I hate trot out the Vietnam cliché, but it's apropos - McCain is merely another politician who is putting his political future and that of his party over the best interests of our country. I'm so sick to death of politicians like McCain and Joe Lieberman unwilling to accept the obvious - that we will not win in Iraq, and we are pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into a hole in the desert - all for the oil and to try and prove a political point.

Long after McCain is dead, we will be paying off Bush's War. And the last thing we need is a Bush clone in the White House, refusing to admit the obvious - that the costs of the war far outweigh any benefit.

Florida Primary graphic via C&L

Latest This Modern World

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This is my favorite This Modern World so far in 2007, and it really says a great deal about the PR machine that is the Giuliani image (and myth). His arrogant braggadocio regarding his "brilliant" decisions during and after 9-11 should give everyone pause, but unfortunately, many have bought into the myth. I don't believe any of it - not for a city minute.

I have no idea who will receive the nomination for either party, but I don't believe Giuliani's candidacy will last much beyond Super Tuesday.

Latest This Modern World

[Click for larger image]

Tom Tomorrow really hit the nail on the head this week. Congressional Democrats, specifically in the Senate, are some of the most unprincipled elected leaders I have ever seen. Not only have they done nothing about funding the war in Iraq, but they just managed to confirm our new attorney general, Michael Mukasey, who gave some truly disturbing answers about torture during his confirmation hearings.

How high are my hopes for our new attorney general? About as hight as a snake's belly. Bonus: Mukasey has very close ties to Rudy Giuliani. Although our new AG has promised to recuse himself from any cases involving Giuliani or Rudy's corrupt partner and federally indicted boot licker, Bernie Kerkik.

Proof positive that it's a small world: According to the New York Post, our new AG's son, Marc Mukasey, has been assigned by Giuliani's campaign to block Bernie Kerik's legal defense team from interviewing witnesses that might assist his defense. Why am I not surprised?

The outrage of FDNY radios on 9-11

This is a pretty damning video about Rudy Giuliani's outrageous inaction and foot dragging about the well-documented problems with the New York Fire Department's radio equipment during his tenure as mayor. The city knew about the problems with the radio equipment as early as the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. America's Profiteer became mayor 11 months after the '93 attack, and he had nearly eight years to fix this problem. The Giuliani administration failed to do so.

The radios were ordered in the spring of 2001 in a no-bid contract to Motorola. Where have we heard of no-bid contracts before? Oh yea - the Bush administration. Under Bush's watch, no-bid contracts have become as common as the sun rising and setting.

It's beyond contempt that Rudy Giuliani was brazen enough to publicly say these words (in the video above):

Their willingness [New York City Firefighters], the way I describe it, to stand their ground, and not retreat, the fact that so many of them interpreted it that way, kept a much calmer situation...

Family members of deceased FDNY firefighters and firefighters themselves can be heard shouting "No!" in the back of the room, and rightfully so, for so many reasons.

First of all, how does Rudy know how the firefighters who lost their lives interpreted the orders of their commanders, or if they even heard them? Based on the problems with these same radios in 1993, the likelihood that firefighters did hear the order to evacuate is very unlikely. And it's just patently absurd for Giuliani to insinuate that the firefighters willfully ignored the order to evacuate to twin towers out of bravery. That's just cover for his administration's screw up for inexcusably not fixing the problem that the FDNY had faulty, wonky radios. Put another way, would the firefighters have been viewed as cowards if they had high-tailed it out of the twin towers if they had heard the order to evacuate? Of course not. Giuliani's idiotic reasoning simply makes no sense.

I really do hope that America wakes up and quits buying into the myth that Giuliani was a spectacular leader up to, before and after 9-11. It just isn't going to hold up.

So, why does all this matter? I've written it before and I'll write it probably dozens of more times before the '08 election (or until Giuliani is defeated): if he's going to run as the 9-11 Candidate, his decisions, before, during and immediately after 9-11 until the end of his term as New York City's mayor bear scrutiny. When that scrutiny comes, much of the Giuliani mystique of being a great leader with the golden touch is going to lose much of its luster.

Notice the people in this video are family members of firefighters who died, or former leaders of the FDNY. Once the primaries draw nigh, I wonder how long it will take the likes of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Michelle Malkin and the rest of the intolerant right wing cabal attack the people in this video? It's not a question of if, but a question of when.

And that's nearly as much of an outrage as the radios themselves that New York City firefighters were stuck with on the morning of September 11.

Go Here to sign the petition to demand that this issue be investigated by New York City Council. And find more videos that are breaking down the Giuliani myth at The Real Rudy. I'll be featuring and discussing many more of that sites videos here in the months to come.

Hillary's margin among Dems highest yet

According to Gallup, Hillary Clinton has finally reached the majority mark - 50 percent of likely Democratic Primary voters now favor Clinton by an overwhelming margin over Sen. Barack Obama and John Edwards. According to the latest polls, it's not even close. Is this good or bad for the Democratic Party? I'm not so sure. I loved former President Bill Clinton - I voted for him twice, and would have voted for him a third and likely a fourth time were it not for the 22nd Amendment. However, I'm not sold on Hillary yet. To be brutally honest, I'm voting for whomever the Democratic nominee is in 2008, and will, chances are, actively campaign for that nominee.

However, to hear some of the political pundits tell it, Hillary is not "electable." I used to buy into that bunk as well. I no longer do. To wit, author and social commentator Judith Warner, in a New York Times op-ed piece, took on the issue of Hillary's electability head on this past Friday. It's not that long, and I thought it so thought provoking, I thought I'd share it with you. My comments follow.

The shocks just keep on coming:

Hillary Clinton leads the Democratic field with 51 percent of the vote.

She beats Barack Obama by 24 percentage points among black Democrats.

She is projected now to beat Giuliani – or at the very least to be in a statistical dead heat with him in the general election.

This wasn't supposed to happen. According to the received wisdom of those in-the-know here in Washington, Hillary was supposed to be divisive, unelectable, "radioactive."

It was the fault of Bill and Monica, and the fact that you never knew when there was going to be another Bill and Monica. It was the fault of Hillary – for not taking the hard line on Bill and Monica the way a woman of her stature and standing was supposed to do. And it was the fault of voters – those people out there who would never, ever elect another Clinton.

Why? Because … everyone said so.

("I think the one thing we know about Hillary, the one thing we absolutely know, bottom line, [is] she can't win, right?" is how MSNBC host Tucker Carlson once put it to New Republic editor-at-large Peter Beinart. "She is unelectable.")

The "we" world of Tucker Carlson knew what they knew about Hillary Clinton — right up until about this week, I think — because they spend an awful lot of time talking to, socializing with and interviewing one another. [Emphasis Mine]

What they don't do all that much is venture outside of a certain set of zip codes to get a feel for the way most people are actually living. They don't sign up for adjustable rate mortgages, visit emergency rooms to get their primary health care, leave their children in unlicensed day care or lose their jobs because they have to drive their mothers home from the hospital after hip replacement surgery.

Hillary Clinton's supporters, it turns out, do.

Alongside the newest set of poll results showing Clinton's surprising levels of popularity among lower- and middle-class women, white moderate women, even black voters, was another story this week, based on a new set of data from the I.R.S.

It showed that America's most wealthy earn an even greater share of the nation's income than they did in 2000, at the peak of the tech boom. The wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, the Wall Street Journal reported, earned 21.2 percent of all income in 2005 (the latest date for which these data are available), up from the high of 20.8 percent they'd reached in the bull market of 2000. The bottom 50 percent of people earned 12.8 percent of all income, compared with 13 percent in 2000. And the median tax filer's income fell 2 percent when adjusted for inflation (to about $31,000) between 2000 and 2005.

More and more people are being priced out of a middle class existence. Because of housing prices, because of health care costs, because of tax policy, because of the cost of child care, The Good Life – a life of relative comfort and financial security – is now, in many parts of the country, an upper-middle-class luxury.

Given all this, you would think that Clinton's big policy announcement this week on improving life for working families would have been big news.

After all, it contained a number of huge new middle class entitlements: paid family leave and sick leave, most notably. There were a number of tried-and-true triggers for outrage from the right wing and the business community like government standards and quality controls for child care. There could have been debate stoked among the many childless workers who now feel parents are getting too much "special treatment" in the workplace (Clinton supports legislation to protect parents and pregnant women from job discrimination). At the very least, someone could have accused Clinton of trying to bring back welfare. (She supports subsidies for low-income parents who wish to stay home to raise their children.) Or someone could have questioned how realistic it really is to pay for all that – to the tune of $1.75 billion per year – simply by cracking down on the "abusive" use of tax shelters, as Clinton proposes to do.

But there was none of this. Clinton's family policy speech in New Hampshire all but sank like a stone. If it was covered at all, it was often packaged as part of a feature on her attempts to curry favor with female voters. ("Clinton shows femininity," read a Boston Globe headline.) It was as though the opinion-makers and agenda-setters, waiting with bated breath for Bill to slip up, just one more time, couldn't see or hear the message to middle-class voters.

("I do see you and I do hear you," Clinton said in a speech on "rebuilding the middle class" earlier this month. "You're not invisible to me.")

In contemplating the disconnect, as I often have done, between Hillary and her upper-middle-class peers, I find myself thinking of psychologist Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

In Maslow's theory of human motivation, needs were mapped out in a pyramid form. The broad array of physiological needs was at the bottom, followed by the almost equally wide range of safety needs: things like bodily and financial security, secure physical health and work, and property ownership. Transcendent needs, like truth, justice, wisdom and self-actualization, were in the tiniest triangle up at the top. As their "lower-level" needs were met, Maslow theorized, people moved up the pyramid; they did not – unless the material circumstances of their lives changed dramatically – move back.

The American middle class, it seems to me, is looking to politicians now to satisfy a pretty basic – and urgent – level of need. Yet people in the upper middle class — with their excellent health benefits, schools, salaries, retirement plans, nannies and private after-school programs — have journeyed so far from that level of need that, it often seems to me, they literally cannot hear what resonates with the middle class. That creates a problematic blind spot for those who write, edit or produce what comes to be known about our politicians and their policies.

Having used that Maslow pyramid analogy, I want to make clear that I do not mean to impute to upper middle class people a "higher" (in the sense of "better") form of political reasoning. I am merely trying to say that the wealth gap has brought an experience gap that is in turn producing a gap in perception — one that, I predict, will yield a wealth of surprises in this election period.

Hopefully, they'll be good ones.

Quite frankly, I'm not so sure I agree with the tone of Warner's comments.

Almost everywhere I look, people are crying out for change - looking for something new, including many Republicans I know. Compare and contrast the current atmosphere with the election of 2000. Were many people decrying how horrible the 1990s were under President Clinton? Most were not. But, so many horrifying developments have happened under President Bush's watch, it's hard to know where to begin to list them. A quick list...

• Homeland security, which is supposedly Bush and the GOP's "strong suit" - has hardly been addressed and strengthened to the level where it needs to be to reasonably thwart another terrorist attack. We are probably the most poorly prepared for a terrorist attack at any time since 9-11, despite the spin you hear from the Bush administration and GOP candidates. I just heard on television last week that more than 60 percent of bomb parts are passing through airport screeners during tests. That's encouraging - they've only had over six years to get it right. But thank God they're catching my saline solution when I forget to take it out of my carry-on bag.

• The environment exists for plundering and exploration, not preservation in the eyes of this administration.

• More people than ever are without medical coverage, yet all we get are sound bites from hapless, babbling Republican candidates about "socialized medicine" and "Hillarycare."

• Civil liberties have come under assault more on Bush's watch than under any administration in history (with the willful help of a vast majority of Republicans in Congress).

• The gap between the top one percent of wealthiest Americans and the poorest among us is as large as it's ever been.

• Thanks to absurdly reckless tax cuts, which have overwhelmingly favored the rich) we will be paying down record deficits for decades and decades to come. No doubt if a Democrat is elected in '08 and subsequently tries to fix the problem of our record deficits (which will surely need fixing), it will be those "tax and spend liberals who are raising your taxes again" when many of these taxes should never, EVER have been lowered in the first place, including dividend taxes and the GOP-spun "death tax."

• Our infrastructure is crumbling, and Bush's answer following the tragic bridge collapse in Minneapolis was to use "money that has already been allocated" to fix urgent problems..

• Our military is stretched to the breaking point, and they've been shit on by the Republican leadership in Congress and by Bush each and every step of the way, including turning down a pay raise (Bush said a 3.5 percent pay raise was too costly), horrific after-care when our mentally and physically wounded heroes return home, and the curtailing of leaves at home before returning to battle.

• And oh yea, that war in Iraq? That $600 billion, unmitigated disaster? We'll be paying for this catastrophic blunder for years, if not decades to come in terms of loss of life, post-traumatic stress of our troops, not to mention what this war is costing us financially and diplomatically. Remember that radical idea of diplomacy? Bush, Cheney and Condi Rice couldn't find it with GPS and a poorly armored Humvee.

I mention this laundry list because I hope it illustrates the absurd situation of our country, and the completely idiotic media coverage that the presidential race has received thus far, which has included critical coverage of candidate haircuts, abortion, lapel pins, Hillary's laugh, and other assorted non-sequiturs, irrelevant issues and nonsense.

My question to Judith Warner is, how can it be a surprise that Hillary is polling at a statistical dead heat against the Republican front runner? It shouldn't be to anyone, save for the likes of narrow-minded, far-right ideologues and their hero pundits like Sean Hannity, Bill O'Lielly, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage.

And all I'm hearing from any of the GOP presidential candidates (save Ron Paul) is more of the same in the War on Terrorism and the War in Iraq.

As for the talking heads like Tucker Carlson (a pundit I've all but completely lost respect for), Limbaugh and the rest of the right-wing, close-minded morons, what they mean when they label Hillary as "unelectable" is that they would never vote for her, and they're sure that men like them would never vote for her. That's why they call her "unelectable." That's rich.

The bottom line is that Republican misogynist men can't handle the thought of a woman holding the highest office in the land, or that horrible pervert Bill Clinton living in the White House ever again. That last point makes me laugh the hardest, considering the sexual deviants that are so rampant among the radical religious right, not to mention Repubes in Congress.

Olbermann slams Hannity for Rudy butt kissing

Since in a while I haven't posted any Keith Olbermann clips in quite a while, this seems like a good place to begin - the other night's Worst Person in the World - none other than college drop-out Sean Hannity, the biggest Giuliani suck-up of them all. Not like we needed any more proof, but Insanity is as partisan as it gets. Even for a talking-head political pundit, it's more than over-the-top to be introducing America's Profiteer at one of his fund raisers.

Fred Thompson cuts a, ahem, "commercial"

This one kinda says it all about Fred Thompson - a look into his past, especially his record as a lobbyist, should not hold up to scrutiny, but whether it will or not depends on whether there is any sort of scrutiny in the first place.

Kind of like Rudy Giuliani, and how his stupid, often idiotic decisions surrounding 9-11 get pathetically little scrutiny.

Many are calling Fred Thompson the "New Ronald Reagan." Greeeeeat - that's just what we need - let's put a man in charge of the very government he dislikes and who thinks government is the problem. No, it's anti-government people like Reagan and Thompson who are the problem. Why would anyone ever think it's a good idea to put someone in charge of something he despises? I never understood that.

I found this cartoon last week about Reagan that brought back all of those unpleasant memories of him, as well as the Reagan wanna-bes in the GOP field [Click the image for a larger view]. ...

Rudy's phoniness higher than his 9-11 profits

I've been out of it politically for a little while now - with school starting back up, coupled with a million other things going on, I just have not had the time. And, when I have had the time, quite frankly, I've been too disgusted to read, watch and write my usual quota about the disgraceful state of politics in our country.

However, leave it to the Republicans on Capitol Hill to get me equal parts fired up, angered, pissed off and motivated. So, in short, I have lots to get to. First, though, I'd be remiss to not comment on the 9-11 Profiteer himself, Rudy Giuliani, and his fifth-grade campaign tricks.

In the video above, America's Mayor would have us believe that his wife called him right in the middle of a campaign speech during a speech to the NRA (an organization that he vilified as mayor of New York City, by the way). Nothing turns people off like insincerity and phoniness. When I first saw this ridiculous footage, I couldn't help but think of GiuLIEani's oft-repeated lie about what he said to his corrupt NYC police chief, Bernie Kerik, on the morning of 9-11: "Thank God George Bush is our president."

Well, really I can't prove that what he said to the sleazy Kerik on 9-11 is a lie, but if it isn't, it should be. I know more than a few simple-minded, partisan rubes who said to me personally following 9-11: "Thank God Gore isn't president." Pretty funny how that laughable statement becomes more and more absurd with each passing day.

GiuLIEani has pulled the cell phone trick before, too; take a look at the footage below...

The best part about the footage of the NRA convention (at top) is that shortly after his little phone stunt, I hear that the crowd started to turn on him. Good. Now, I can't wait for the rest of America to follow suit.

I'm really going to enjoy watching Giuliani fail in his bid for the presidency. First, it was McCain who added joy to my life, and now it will be Rudy.

McCain is the new McGovern
Rudy is the new McCain

Life could be worse.

Rudy's daughter is for Obama

This is sort of a non-story story, but it indicates something, too. When your old children won't back you to be president, maybe you have just a few character flaws? I dunno, just a hunch. There is a saying about Rudy that has gotten a great deal of play since he announced his candidacy: "Those who know him best like him least."

Here's the story, via AP:

The daughter of Republican hopeful Rudy Giuliani has signaled she's backing Democrat Barack Obama for president.According to her Facebook profile, Giuliani's 17-year-old daughter, Caroline, belonged to Democrat Barack Obama's Facebook group "Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack)." She left the group Monday morning after the online magazine Slate sent an inquiry.

Her profile can be viewed by Facebook users who have access to New York City's Trinity School or Harvard University networks. Caroline, who is Giuliani's daughter with his second wife, Donna Hanover, recently graduated from Trinity and will attend Harvard in the fall.

Slate posted a screen shot of her profile, which uses a slightly different last name. She lists herself as having liberal political views.

Giuliani, campaigning in Iowa, declined to comment on his daughter's political preference.

"My daughter I love very much," he told reporters outside an Italian restaurant in Clear Lake. "I have great respect for her, and I'm really proud of her, and I don't comment on children, because I want to give them the maximum degree of privacy.

"The best thing to do, if you want to ask the press to leave the children alone, the best way to do it is not to comment on them one way or the other, except to say you're very proud of them, and you love them very much, which I do," he said.

The Obama campaign did not have any comment.

Giuliani, a leading Republican candidate, has asked for privacy to deal with strained relationships in his family. Son Andrew, 21, has said their relationship became distant after Giuliani's messy divorce from the children's mother and his marriage to third wife Judith Nathan.

"There's obviously a little problem that exists between me and his wife," Andrew Giuliani told The New York Times earlier this year.

In May, Giuliani attended his daughter's high school graduation but kept a low profile, sitting in a last row balcony seat with his wife and leaving without speaking to his daughter, the New York Daily News reported.

Again, this isn't a huge, sensational, politically damaging story in any significant way, but I'm guessing this will make more than a few people wonder. However, I guess that will depend on whether character counts anymore. (It did during the Clinton years, remember?) Lousy father? Check. Lousy husband? Check. Despised mayor, pre-9-11? Check. Myths about his 9-11 leadership? Debunked on a daily basis, with plenty more to come.

More insipid campaign reporting

Stories like this one in The Boston Herald signify precisely what's wrong with our presidential campaign "reporting."

Yesterday, the Herald ran a story that blabbered on and on about how the Romney campaign paid $300 for a pre-debate "primpfest" to get candidate Romney looking his best.

You know what? Big deal. I mean, really, who gives a damn? Of all the things that are going on in this country today and all of the important things that should be covered on the campaign trail, this is the type of media coverage we get. It's simply appalling.

I was angry when the now famous "John Edwards $400 haircut" got so much play, and I'm angry now at this story.

Every campaign is required to publicly disclose how they spend every nickel, and that's not a bad thing, but reporting stories like this is. What redeeming value does a story like this have?

I've contributed a few dollars to campaigns over the years, and frankly, however they spent it, they spent it. I have no control over what they spend. Does anyone honestly think that Romney, Giuliani (heaven forbid), Obama, Hillary Clinton and all the rest are staying in Motel 6s? Yea, me neither.

I have to confess, though, that I did get a laugh from a quote in the Herald's piece, though:

"For $300, I hope he got a manicure and pedicure, too," Democratic political consultant Michael Goldman said. "If Mitt needs to spend $300 to look halfway decent, I can only imagine what Rudy Giuliani is paying."

A-men, Goldman. I'm already tired of looking at Rudy's grill - when he smiles, it looks like a row of urinals at Yankee Stadium. Thank God the campaign is not a beauty contest, because if it was, McCain and Giuliani, the two candidates whom I despise most, would never have declared their candidacies in the first place.

It's alright, though - the way things are shaking out, McCain will be gone by the end of September, and the more people get to know Rudy, the less they like, especially conservatives.