The Rudy Mud Keeps Rising

With Bernard Kerik as a character witness, Mr. 9/11 is fast becoming the most ethically challenged Presidential candidate since Bill Clinton came on the scene with a reputation as "Slick Willie."

Giuliani's sleight of hand about the hidden tryst fund that had taxpayers underwriting his courtship expenses enhanced his image this week as the guy with a green eyeshade who inspires other poker players to keep cutting the cards and calling for fresh decks.

To explain why hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses for his security, presumably to protect against terrorists in beachwear while the Mayor was courting Judith Nathan in the Hamptons, were buried in accounts of obscure city offices, Giuliani fell back on that old reliable, a "political hit job." It was only done to speed up slow payments from the Police Department, he claims.

Kerik, Giuliani's police commissioner now under federal indictment for tax fraud and corruption, backs his former boss and business partner. “There would be no need for anyone to conceal his detail’s travel expenses,” Kerik insists.

But the current and former New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly says he knows of no problems with the delay of payments before Giuliani was mayor or afterward.

Blogger Big Tent Democrat, a lawyer, points out related charges that the Mayor's then-mistress, according to a former city official, "used the PD as her personal taxi service," the same practice that led former NY State Comptroller Alan Hevesi to resign as prosecutors were preparing to indict him for felonies over using state employees to chauffeur his wife.

The New York Times, overflowing with Giuliani's truth abuses, did an omnibus piece yesterday about his penchant for "misleading statistics" to claim accomplishments during his tenure as mayor that are "incomplete, exaggerated or just plain wrong."

In coming weeks, there will be more Giuliani mud, some of it from Manhattan fire fighters over 9/11, much of it no doubt inspired by Fred Thompson's New York Chairman, Alfonse D'Amato aka Sen. Pothole, whose day job is lobbying for the Poker Players Alliance to overturn a federal ban on internet gambling. D'Amato is an expert on sleaze.

At some tipping point, this rising tide of sewage could overwhelm the Republican front runner's campaign. If not, we might have a President to make Bill Clinton look like Snow White.