Which is more revolting: another election season run on the ashes of 9-11 or St. Rudy keeping his halo intact, exploiting our national tragedy as his own personal cash cow? I don't believe he can have it both ways.
If St. Rudy is serious about running, that halo will soon be covered with shit... it will fly fast and furiously. When he was mayor, the New York press was rather incurious about his private dalliances; excepting an occasional page six reference or New York magazine snark piece. But it was an open secret that Rudy was "close" with his former Directer of Communications, Cristyne something-or-other, it even got written about in Vanity Fair. I remember one anecdote: he took her shopping downtown on a Saturday, waiting patiently as she tried on this-or-that. Rudy the family man. As the whispers got louder, she left his admin. and somehow landed a cushy job that she may not have been qualified for, with a stratospheric salary... now how did that happen? Hmmmm.... I am sure we will find out, once his presidential campaign takes off.
And then: Judy, Judy, Judy. He squired her about town openly, almost daring the media to go after him. Which they hardly did- but enough that I read an item way back about Rudy spending a holiday (Christmas or Thanksgiving, I don't recall) with Ms. Nathan and her daughter, not with his wife, Donna Hanover and their 2 children. An yes, Donna Hanover. I understand she learned about her marital separation watching a Guiliani press conference. Was it the one where he gushed about his "good friend, Judy Nathan" who was by his side as he received treatment for prostate cancer? I'm sure the details of this affair will be examined in his presidential bid.
Alright. I normally don't give a rat's ass about the private life of any politician, unless they are a HYPOCRITE... profiting off of their own moral superiority or the tragedy of 9-11. Let's see, I think the figure from speaking fees the first year he became a private citizen, was $8 million... St. Rudy was getting $100,000 per speech. We'll find out more about his ghoulish profiteering in the next campaign season.
So, back to the original question. If he does really run, we have to endure another disgusting, 9-11 exploitation-thon... it will be 9-11 all the time, all over again. Running on our past, challenging the patriotism of the opposition, running a campaign of fear and terror. At the same time, Rudy will become damaged goods-- he will be savaged before a national audience who is unfamiliar with his less-saintly qualities. Guiliani Partners will be damaged, as Rudy is savaged, and his association with former partner Bernard Kerik, an unsavory scandalized figure, is examined under a microscope and hyped endlessly by the opposition.
With the same hubris that allowed him, the sitting mayor of a large city, to openly date while he had a wife and 2 kids, he is diving into a presidential campaign thinking that these small details of his life will go unexamined.
HA! I for one will enjoy the shit storm that defiles his profit-soaked, 9-11 mantle of sainthood. Rudy will be a victim of his own enormous ego, his hubris will be his downfall. I don't believe he can get the nomination, and a season of campaigning will leave him damaged goods, hence reduced earning power. That's karma, baby.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/05/11/politics/main194350.shtmlThe woman Hanover blames for seriously damaging her 16-year marriage to the mayor is former City Hall communications director Cristyne Lategano.
At her news conference, Hanover didn’t mention Lategano by name, but said, "For several years, it was difficult to participate in Rudy's public life because of his relationship with one staff member."
Hanover's spokeswoman, Joannie Danielides, later said her boss was referring to Lategano.
In 1997, Vanity Fair magazine reported there was a romantic link between Lategano and Giuliani. Both denied the report and it was never confirmed.
http://archive.salon.com/politics2000/feature/2000/05/04/giuliani/index.htmlMay 4, 2000 | NEW YORK -- Any truce the New York press might have had with Mayor Rudy Giuliani since he announced last week that he has prostate cancer has quickly collapsed, with the local press corps putting the state of the mayor's marriage under scrutiny yet again.
The latest round began Tuesday, when New York Daily News gossip columnist Mitchell Fink ran an item titled "Rudy & Friend Dine & Dine." Giuliani, Fink wrote, "hasn't let the diagnosis of prostate cancer slow him down." The mayor was spotted twice over the weekend dining out with an unnamed "friend," wrote Fink, who did not explicitly reveal the gender of Giuliani's dining companion until the end of the item: "One restaurant staffer opined that the mayor was with his wife," Fink wrote, "but shown a picture of Donna Hanover, he said it wasn't her."
Playing a frantic game of catch-up, the next day's New York Post published a pair of undated surveillance-style photographs of Giuliani's female dining companion coming out of yet another restaurant. One of the photographs -- which were accompanied by the headline "Rudy's mystery brunch pal is Upper East Side divorcée" -- featured Giuliani a few feet away from the woman, whom the Post identified as Judith Nathan.
Gossip that the mayor has a new companion has been circulating among journalists for weeks. Indeed, the Post's photographs were actually snapped at least 11 days before they were published. A source at the Post said that the newspaper heard Giuliani had been spotted on Saturdays eating brunch at a particular restaurant near Gracie Mansion, the mayor's residence, and dispatched a photographer to capture the duo.
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Speculation about the state of Giuliani's marriage -- and possible extramarital affairs -- has run rampant for years in New York. It reached a crescendo in mid-1997 when a Vanity Fair article implied he had an affair with his then-communications director, Cristyne Lategano. That article also took the city's press corps to task for its alleged inadequate coverage of the mayor's marriage, a criticism that the tabloids are eager to avoid this time.