not a good sign for Giuliani

[sisyphusshrugged]

Christie at Firedoglake links to this piece by Wayne Barrett, who knows more about Giuliani than Giuliani does. It's not pretty (among other altar calls, Barrett points out that at Our Beloved Former Mayor's insistence, the Bunker in the Sky which was destroyed on 9/11 was placed - over the objections of city officials - so that Rudy could walk to it from City Hall, and that Rudy frequently entertained the then Ms. Nathan privately there prior to the dissolution of his marriage).

Much of this is, of course, old news to New Yorkers. What I did find to be a new and interesting bit of information:

Wayne Barrett is the co-author, with Dan Collins, of Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11, which was just published in paperback by HarperCollins [emphasis mine].

Why is this interesting? This is interesting because, as you may recall from the unpleasantness surrounding Mr. Kerik's* ladyfriend Judith Regan (the woman with the OJ book), HarperCollins is owned by Rupert Murdoch. Mr. Murdoch also owns conservative id machine Fox News, activist right wing advocacy organ the New York Post, and now long-time Giuliani supporter the Wall Street Journal.

The Post has been paying quite a bit of attention to Mr. Giuliani and his current wife. The Post deplores all the bad stories out there about them. The Post deplores those stories - each and every one of them - in great and lurid detail (quite a bit of the material in the Vanity Fair profile of Mrs. Giuliani one of their gossip columnists deplores here was deplored first in the Post).

Mr. Murdoch is known to be very involved in setting the political direction of news coverage by his properties.

This is increasingly not looking like a good thing for Mr. Giuliani.


*and speaking of Mr. Kerik, who bets we hear more about this unpleasantness involving the Giuliani/Kerik partnership and Mrs. Pirro (already in legal trouble through the Kerik connection and also apparently not a great favorite of the Post) if Giuliani stays a front runner?

Comments

[rozk.livejournal.com]

Even though it is trivial by comparison with his other faults, what's the betting that Ferretgate gets another airing? For those who missed it, and I cannot remember how I got to hear it, Giuliani completely lost it on the radio with a caller who quietly objected to the Mayor's anti-ferret policies. I have to say that I found myself thinking at the time that a man who would go nuclear over people who keep pets he happens not to like is not a man one would want to cope with a crisis...

[gngrmyrsn.livejournal.com]

God, it's wonderful watching Republicans implode. If I were a better person...I'd still enjoy it.

Ferrets? Not legal in California, but I've never heard our mayor wig out about it.

[danaseilhan.livejournal.com]

Ha. Puhleeze. I've hated that guy since before it was cool. I remember reading in some left-wing activist magazine or another about how he oversaw the tearing down of several NYC community gardens because he'd rather see business buildings in their stead. Never mind they were food gardens and feeding people who otherwise would have needed more food aid.

To be fair he's not the first or only politician to pull that crap; a major community garden was recentlyish destroyed in California (Oakland?), for instance, that had existed for years. But when I hear people say that the only reason NYC's crime rate dropped was that this guy's a fascist, I'm completely not surprised.

[(Anonymous)]

Hasn't there been a lot of scuttlebutt that Clinton's been courting Murdoch for years and that he wants to see her win this one? I remember some reports from NPR's "On the Media" that at least danced around the implications of that about a year ago.

One thing to remember about Murdoch: he's not so much a conservative as much as he is a "suck up to the powerful" - he tries to see where the power is going to be and chum up to it as much as possible.

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

My guess is that he thinks the Republicans can't win, and he wants to do damage to the organized social conservative wing because they're getting in the way of business.

Just my guess, though. His new wife not wanting to spend her life socializing with the current Republican inner circle may have something to do with it.

[(Anonymous)]

HarperCollins also published one or two of Michael Moore's books, and publishes Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States (and has John Edwards under contract). I'd really, really like to believe that Rupert has turned against Rudy, but I think he likes to have lefties in the tent pissing out rather than outside the tent pissing in.

--Steve M.

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

but, you know, that didn't drive him to publish anything that might damage his business interests in China.

I find it very, very difficult to believe that the Post broke the puppy stapling story and the three husbands story and a few other of the beauties at the link while anyone there is invested in Rudy, no matter how popular he was with them in the day.

[(Anonymous)]

You have a point.

I suppose Rupe really has bought the CW twice -- he believes that Rudy can't get the GOP nomination and that Hillary's election is inevitable.

When the polls show Rudy tied or ahead after they've both won the nominations, I think Murdoch will do a 180, however.

--S.

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

I mean, who the hell knows. Could be he thinks she'd be the easiest to beat.

Still, they're being awfully brutal more in sorrow than in anger to Rudy.