Rudy, Rudy, Rudy! Still Completely Principle-Free, Proving His Qualification to Succeed Our Leader!

He knew that his boy Kerik had serious ties to organized crime since 2000 and still nominated as police commissioner then pimped him for Secretary of Homeland Security.

Link (and kudos to the Times).

And here's more:

Will reporters and commentators get serious about cutting through the haze of 9/11 mythology that now shrouds Rudy's allegedly Churchillian leadership that day by asking tough questions about his actual performance, or will they cede him 9/11 on his own terms? And relatedly, will reporters and commentators cede Rudy the aura of foreign policy strength based solely on that performance, or will they get past the mythology and aggressively point out his lack of genuine foreign policy experience?

Today the Associated Press begins to answer that question with an effort to put a dent in Rudy's 9/11 halo:

Giuliani, the leader in polls of Republican voters for his party's nomination, has been faulted on two major issues:

-- His administration's failure to provide the World Trade Center's first responders with adequate radios, a long-standing complaint from relatives of the firefighters killed when the twin towers collapsed. The Sept. 11 Commission noted the firefighters at the World Trade Center were using the same ineffective radios employed by the first responders to the 1993 terrorist attack on the trade center...

-- A November 2001 decision to step up removal of the massive rubble pile at ground zero. The firefighters were angered when the then-mayor reduced their numbers among the group searching for remains of their lost "brothers," focusing instead on what they derided as a "scoop and dump" approach. Giuliani agreed to increase the number of firefighters at ground zero just days after ordering the cutback.

Meanwhile, The New York Times also highlights another troubling aspect of his record:

Rudolph W. Giuliani told a grand jury that his former chief investigator remembered having briefed him on some aspects of Bernard B. Kerik’s relationship with a company suspected of ties to organized crime before Mr. Kerik’s appointment as New York City police commissioner, according to court records...

Mr. Giuliani’s testimony amounts to a significantly new version of what information was probably before him in the summer of 2000 as he was debating Mr. Kerik’s appointment as the city’s top law enforcement officer. Mr. Giuliani had previously said that he had never been told of Mr. Kerik’s entanglement with the company before promoting him to the police job or later supporting his failed bid to be the nation’s homeland security secretary.

Finally, today's coverage of his remark yesterday that wife Judy Nathan would be welcome to hang out at cabinet meetings should he be elected President was not terribly kind, either.

Link. And a little more detail on the firefighters' love for Our Next Leader is here.