I think I've been hosed. I wonder how Rudy feels?
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Norman Rockwell's "Gossip"
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In case regular readers hadn't been able to figure this out-- about a month or so ago, if the primary vote been taken then, I most probably would have voted for Rudy Giuliani. At the time, while torn between America's Mayor and Senator McCain, I was thinking that Rudy would have the best shot at taking out the Democrat, whoever their nominee, in the general election. Yet over the past month, my thoughts changed. I had been moved off the Rudy dime-- or so I thought.
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When the headlines on the Drudge Report came out about Hizzoner somehow "cooking the books" while NYC's mayor to cover his then unknown affair with his present wife, I was rather angry. How could I support somebody for president that had done something that I fight hard against here at the local level where I live? My feeling was, if I wouldn't accept a town Selectman or school or county administrator using and/or manipulating public funds for personal reasons, there would be no way I would let that sort of activity slide on the part of my President.
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Thus, I started to reconsider those who I had decided to pass over for Rudy Giuliani. Apparently, I was not alone. We have heard nothing (besides the headache) since the story first broke and was heavily ballyhooed by Drudge other than Rudy's plummeting poll numbers. And why not? Who wants someone manipulating taxdollars as was claimed as our President? Another presidency riddled with Clintonian methods and shenanigans? No way-- Americans, myself included, don't need that. We want a Commander-In-Chief that will lead us through the next phases of the new world war-- not some tangled morass of claims and denials of monkey business from years prior to the attainment of the White House.
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This left me twisting in the wind, my favored candidate having been ripped from all but finality in my mind... and indeed, I was quite sad. Why is it, in politics, that whenever I discover somebody I really like--- there is almost always a fatal flaw?
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Or is there? Could it be that the whole affair was much ado about nothing? "But Doug, surely if the story turned out to be untrue, Drudge would have carried it, right? You know-- given that he gave it the top of the page treatment in the first place."
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Unfortunately, that's not what happened. What? You didn't know that the original claims have been explained and there was really nothing there? Neither did I, until I read this at EyeOn'08:
The day of the CNN/YouTube debate, Matt Drudge, handmaiden of Mitt Romney’s campaign, raised the issue that became known as "Shag Fund." The claim was that Rudy Giuliani had improperly hid expenses for visiting his then girlfriend. Well, it turns out that it just wasn’t true. Powerline and Captain’s Quarters have the details. Total exoneration from the New York Times..In other words, Drudge pushed a bogus story at a time that was quite opportune for the Romney campaign.
Following the above links, it brought me to a New York Times article that, sure enough, set the record straight, reporting the whole story was not as it was originally made out to be. All you gotta do is see the headline:
Giuliani's Office Shifted Money Around? Yes. To Hide Hamptons Trips? Unlikely.
It proves what I've been saying to my wife right along-- as big of a deal as was being made of this matter, if true, I would have thought it would have been even bigger news than it was. Apparently this particular story was buried deep within the inner bowels pages of America's "newspaper of record." The first few paragraphs sum up the whole nonaffair affair:
The headlines have dogged Rudolph W. Giuliani's presidential campaign for weeks. "Security costs for trysts draw attention," said one..The articles questioned whether, as mayor, Mr. Giuliani tried to hide his visits to Judith Nathan in the Hamptons by burying the associated security costs in the budgets of obscure mayoral agencies like the Loft Board..The answer is not likely, according to a review of the city records originally cited as the basis for the assertion.
"The assertion." Trumpeted during a critical period in the presidential primary campaign. "The assertion" that saw the beginning of the slide in Rudy Giuliani's poll numbers nearly across the board that continues. "The assertion" that launched a thousand ships of doubt.
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Now, as I look to the poll numbers, and greatly loathing a Republican win by Mitt Romney, strategically I am being pushed into the arms of Senator McCain. While I am perfectly comfortable and actually excited about possibly casting my vote for him based on all of my personal encounters and conversations with the man,
I cannot help but feel I've been totally hosed by the media in this instance--- both the old media... AND THE NEW!!!
I wonder what Rudy thinks about all this? With only 15 days remaining till we cast our ballots here in Granite State, what more can happen? Will Drudge and the others ever put this clearing of Rudy Giuliani's name front and center? Or will they continue to instead report stuff like this?
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Comments
Posted by: Flap | December 24, 2007 1:15 PM