And the big knives haven't even come out yet Guiliani.

You might remember back here that I provided a sample of Lower Manahattanite's predictions on the knives that would soon be out amongst the citizens of New York City to shank once-NYC-mayor and now Republican presidential hopeful, Rudy Guiliani.

Damned if he wasn't right on the mark as the International Association of Firefighters, a week after Lower Manhattanite foretold it, produced a video which tears into Guiliani declaring him and his actions on September 11th, 2001, an urban myth.

“We have the remains of dead heroes at the garbage dump because of Giuliani and his administration and they’re still there today and they won’t remove them,” claims FDNY Deputy Chief Jim Riches on the DVD.

A little later Greg Sargent at TPM Cafe searched out a video of Guiliani screaming "Bullshit!" at a (ahem!) rally of off-duty New York City policemen. Guiliani had lost his bid to claim the NYC mayor's chair three years earlier to David Dinkins, New York's only black mayor. The police protest was over changes Dinkins was proposing, not the least of which was the requirement for the cops to live in the NYC boroughs. The video clip, which Sargent hoped to use to demonstrate Guiliani's reliability and temperament got a reaction from some of the elite of the right-wing dumbosphere namely, Michelle Malkin, Ann Althouse and, one who describes womens' vaginas as a mixture of bacon and playdough, Ace Of Spades.

Of course, all of them are attempting to dismiss Guiliani's moment of profanity as little more than an effective word for the occasion, (a police rally), and an attempt by TPM to hack Guiliani in an out of context video intended to shock the tender ears of "values" voters.

Except that the video is only a short sample of what was going on that day. None of Malkin, Althouse nor even Ace, live in NYC and clearly didn't take the time to dig into the reason that clip exists.

They could have asked Lower Manhattanite. If they had, they might not have written a word.

See, that clip, is a snippet of what went down at that rally that day. Rudy SCREAMED "Bullshit!" several times during his screed as a punctuation to pointed lines. I remember the news reports of that day, and they were quite reticent to show him whipping that crowd up, so they edited that portion of the rally. But...they can't edit history. And I know the history verrrrr-rrrrrry well.

[...]

That fateful September day, between 9,000 and 10,000 cops showed up for Rudy's "pro-police" rally. To give you an idea of how many cops that was, NYPD force levels were considerably less than what they are today. Back then, the force was about 29,000 strong. Nearly a third of the force turned out that day. One out of every three cops in NY were there, just beyond the mayor's door. Screaming. Angry. And yes, a lot of 'em were drunk.

[...]

I was told by my co-worker not to come downtown that day for good reason. There was police-perpetrated anarchy in the streets downtown...and Black folks had a lot to be afraid of in Lower Manhattan that day. I remember the news footage. Cops jumping up and down on cars in the area. Harassing citizens. Drunk and disorderly—and in no mood to be civil to Black folks.

Rudy Guiliani, you see, had, according to most news outlets that day, used a pro-police rally to incite a riot - among off-duty cops - with strong racial overtones. The off-duty policemen rushed city hall and prevented one city councilor from entering the building while addressing her in the basest possible racist language.

And the thing that fomented this whole event wants to be president of the United States. Wouldn't the world love that following the worst president in history.

You need to read the whole thing. It's remarkably delicious and, well, Lower Manhattanite's style just adds to the joy.

The line up to stomp on Rudy Guiliani

Lowermanhattanite winds through the past activities of US presidential candidate Rudy Guiliani in a post which spreads a little butter on the toast that was Guiliani's term as mayor of New York City.

It's good. It's very good.

I'm not just talking about the city's aggrieved, workaday Johnny Lunchpails and Suzy Run-In-Her-Stockings having issues with the Rudester. Noooooo, you see--Rudy Giuliani is that rare beast that engenders ill-will at every stop in his climb to lord it over the last bunch of people he worked with. And in so doing, his list of fucked-over folk who hold a grudge against him is as long as his now-defunct combover was once wide. There are people who have lain in wait--some for years, with crates full of dusty, Schadenfreude-laced molotovs ready to toss at his campaign--but, they're holding off just now on chucking the really incendiary shit, if you can believe that. Instead, some have let fly with a few cherry bombs and M-80s, just to get the baggy-suited little fascist's attention. And, they've also let the thing that had it fully existed then, would have rendered him null and void during his first successful mayoral campaign, namely the internet--do a lot of the recent dirty work for them--that and his seeming compulsion to feel that he can soooo do no wrong, and that even his goofiest pronouncement or crazed bray is "Like...hey! Cool, bro!" in the eyes of most sane folk. But...lurk they do, these people with tales of the unspoken Rudy, ready to go with their shit at just the most opportune, the most damaging, and mean-as-fuck time possible. Now, I know you're saying, "Oh please! What politician doesnt make enemies on the rise to the top? Big whoop!" Well, that's the difference between what a person who didn't live here in NYC in the years leading up to the luckiest day in Giuliani's life--September 11th, 2001--and those who did, actually know about the so-called "America's Mayor". To give you an idea of some of the people crouched in the bush with blow-guns trained on Giuliani's pasty, concave ass, dig on this stuff:

Read on. It's great. Steve Gilliard would be proud.

George W Bush is going to be a tough act to follow

But Rudy Guiliani is going to give it his best shot.

Matt Taibbi has a great article in Rolling Stone detailing what actually makes up Guiliani.

Rudy giuliani is a true American hero, and we know this because he does all the things we expect of heroes these days -- like make $16 million a year, and lobby for Hugo Chávez and Rupert Murdoch, and promote wars without ever having served in the military, and hire a lawyer to call his second wife a "stuck pig," and organize absurd, grandstanding pogroms against minor foreign artists, and generally drift through life being a shameless opportunist with an outsize ego who doesn't even bother to conceal the fact that he's had a hard-on for the presidency since he was in diapers. In the media age, we can't have a hero humble enough to actually be one; what is needed is a tireless scoundrel, a cad willing to pose all day long for photos, who'll accept $100,000 to talk about heroism for an hour, who has the balls to take a $2.7 million advance to write a book about himself called Leadership. That's Rudy Giuliani. Our hero. And a perfect choice to uphold the legacy of George W. Bush.

Which would make you wonder how such a scumball, who's popularity as mayor of New York City was somewhat akin to that of a New York gutter rat until a bunch of suicidal Arabs bailed him out by taking everyone's mind off the corruption and bizarre antics of Guiliani's municipal regime, could stand a snowball's chance in hell of winning the US presidency.

Suddenly, Guiliani grew a halo. And now, he's making hay on the disaster which others dealt with, he's hanging out with Karl Rove's operatives and he's engaged in a smear campaign on his nearest Democratic Party opponent.

Pure Bush.

One would like to think that Guiliani, with a background so corrupt that the good fellas from across the river consider him competition, doesn't stand a chance. But then, Taibbi explains it in classic form.

Yes, Rudy is smarter than Bush. But his political strength -- and he knows it -- comes from America's unrelenting passion for never bothering to take that extra step to figure shit out.

Maybe a continuously running marquee on the bottom of the TV screen detailing Guiliani's history would solve the problem. You know, during this program.

No?

No. I didn't really think so either.

Nice bling, Rudy

Digby shines a light on the sleaze that is Rudy Guiliani with this column from The Village Voice.

The greatest love affair of Rudy Giuliani's life has become a sordid scandal.

His monogamous embrace of the Yankees as mayor was so fervent that when he tried to deliver a West Side stadium to them early in his administration, or approved a last-minute $400 million subsidy for their new Bronx stadium, New Yorkers blithely ascribed the bad deals to a heaving heart.

It turns out he also had an outstretched hand.

Sports fans grew accustomed to seeing Giuliani, in Yankee jacket and cap, within camera view of the team's dugout at every one of the 40 postseason home games the Yankees played while he was mayor. His devotion reached such heights that at the 1995 Inner Circle press dinner, he played himself handing the city over to George Steinbrenner in a lampoon version of the Broadway musical Damn Yankees, succumbing to a scantily clad Lola who importuned him on behalf of the Boss to the tune of "Whatever Lola Wants (Lola Gets)." Mike Bloomberg understood years later that the song was no joke; he nixed Rudy's stadium deal in his first weeks in office.

It is only now, however, as Giuliani campaigns for president, that we are beginning to learn that this relationship went even deeper. Giuliani has been seen on the campaign trail wearing a World Series ring, a valuable prize we never knew he had. Indeed, the Yankees have told the Voice that he has four rings, one for every world championship the Yankees won while he was mayor. Voice calls to other cities whose teams won the Series in the past decade have determined that Giuliani is the only mayor with a ring, much less four. If it sounds innocent, wait for the price tag. These are certainly no Canal Street cubic zirconia knockoffs.

With Giuliani's name inscribed in the 1996, 1998, 1999, and 2000 diamond-and-gold rings, memorabilia and baseball experts say they are collectively worth a minimum of $200,000. The Yankees say that Giuliani did pay for his rings—but only $16,000, and years after he had left office. Anyone paying for the rings is as unusual as a mayor getting one, since neither the Yankees nor any other recent champion have sold rings to virtually anyone. The meager payment, however, is less than half of the replacement value of the rings, and that's a fraction of the market price, especially with the added value of Giuliani's name.

What's more troubling is that Giuliani's receipt of the rings may be a serious breach of the law, and one that could still be prosecuted. New York officials are barred from taking a gift of greater than $50 value from anyone doing business with the city, and under Giuliani, that statute was enforced aggressively against others. His administration forced a fire department chief, for example, to retire, forfeit $93,105 in salary, and pay a $6,000 fine for taking Broadway tickets to two shows and a free week in a ski condo from a city vendor. The city's Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB) has applied the gift rule to discounts as well, unless the cheaper rate "is available generally to all government employees." When a buildings department deputy commissioner was indicted in 2000 for taking Mets and Rangers tickets, as well as a family trip to Florida, from a vendor, an outraged Giuliani denounced his conduct as "reprehensible," particularly "at high levels in city agencies," and said that such officials had to be "singled out" and "used as examples."

As Digby says, I'm beginning to understand why, in spite of the fact that he's not a social conservative, that he's the front-runner for the Republican nomination for president. On the defining issues, he's definitely one of them.

Yeah. A guy running on the basis of a one day event who openly wears his corruption on his hand. That should put him in good position to take over leadership of the Republican Goodfellas.

Are Americans ready for a national ban on ferrets?

The thing I like about reading James Wolcott is that I always seem to learn something completely new about the world. That coupled with the fact that he effortlessly irritates the shit out of untold numbers of right-wingers makes his writing all that more inviting. His latest is no exception.

Admittedly I know next to nothing about New York City politics. I never have. When Rudy Guiliani was mayor of New York he had little effect on anything that affected me. My myopic view of the world did not include New York unless I had a cargo consigned to that city and often that meant going to, well, New Jersey.

It wasn't until September 11th, 2001 that Rudy Guiliani actually made enough of an appearance outside the confines of his precincts that I took any notice.

At that time, I would not have known he had a fanatic hatred for ferrets.

As Guiliani makes his bid for the US presidency Wolcott sheds a little light on what may be the worst choice of candidate the Republicans have to offer.

I have never understood Giuliani's fatwa against ferrets and the human beings who are devoted to them. I am fond of ferrets, though I have never owned nor even petted one. But there is something about their avid features that makes me think they would have been a natural fit for me and my apartment lifestyle back in bachelor days.

Fatwa against ferrets? Wolcott links to Michael Wolff who pulls out the stops on Guiliani and it's worth reading every delicious word.

Rudy Guiliani is nuts. He is completely off-center, self-possessed and has never done anything significantly progressive. His moment of national highlight came after two airliners controlled by other fanatics laid waste to his city and killed a good chunk of his fellow citizens. On this act, one which he did not control, he is laying the foundation for his campaign, including suggesting insisting that the only way to prevent further terrorist acts is to elect him.

So, based on that last paragraph, and the fanaticism with which Guiliani pursues even minor issues, like a ban on ferrets in New York City, you could assume that he doesn't stand a chance of being elected to the oval office.

Now, look at what is president of the United States at this time, and look at what he did to get there.