Punk'd

Rudy Giuliani got thrashed yesterday on Meet the Press, and what was significant to me was that Tim Russert needed two or three other full hours to get to all of the subjects worthy of discussion to put Giuliani on the hot seat. This is a year out from the general election, and there's just too much out there on Rudy right now, so much that you might consider it a deliberate strategy to confuse everyone. I mean, Russert couldn't even get into the unbelievable dishonesty of Rudy's ads (of course, that's not what Russert does; he doesn't measure politicians up against the truth, he measures them up against their own statements). But what did get said was enough.

Russert prosecuted the famed prosecutor, enumerating one Giuliani scandal after another. All Rudy could do was giggle. He reminded me of that ancient clip in which Bobby Kennedy grilled some miscreant at a Senate hearing and the bad guy laughed at every question. Bobby finally said: "Are you going to tell us anything or just giggle? I thought only little girls giggled?." Sexist, yes (it was 1959).

But it destroyed the giggly witness.

That was Rudy yesterday. All giggles and deer-in-the-headlights terror.

And with good reason. There are no good (or any) answers to the questions Russert posed about "Driving Miss Judy," Giuliani and Associates' client list, Bernard Kerik, etc etc.

And Russert didn't even ask about the priest-rapist on Rudy's staff.

Like I said, there wasn't enough time.

And another scandal popped up DURING the show, when Rudy decided to alienate a full subset of the population.

Giuliani, who appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press," said he did not believe homosexuality was aberrant. What is sinful are "the acts, not the orientation."

I know this is the position of the Catholic church, but let's get real; it's a dodge. It means that you are repulsed by gay people and consider their behavior to be sinful. It's like saying you don't have a problem with murderers, just the murder. Would Rudy admit to that very Christian position? Of course not, such a thing is only OK when hating the gay.

Further, it turns out that Giuliani's firm, which he still draws a salary from, was hired by the utility industry to lobby against the addition of a renewable energy standard in the Congressional federal energy bill. The ethically compromised nature of the campaign continues.