The Dish

Firefighters are being recruited to report on people who appear "hostile, uncooperative or expressing hate or discontent with the United States." Discontent?

Deeper and deeper:

A top aide was unable to say why Giuliani’s administration and his successor’s rebuffed questions from the city’s top fiscal watchdog in 2001 and 2002. City Comptroller William Thompson said Thursday his auditors were “stonewalled” by the Giuliani administration when they inquired about the unusual billing procedures, which he called "disturbing."

In itself, this doesn’t strike me as a big deal. But it’s a sign of what may well be coming with the Giuliani candidacy: so many skeletons from so many New York City closets that he begins to become a liability. People talk of how Huckabee could weaken Romney and allow Rudy to win. But what if Rudy and Romney so destroy one another that Huckabee comes up between them. He’s been rising in South Carolina all year as well. And Giuliani has been sliding there constantly in the past nine months.

A reader writes:

Like you, I am torn between Ron Paul and John McCain as my Republican candidate of choice in the Presidential election. I would be quite proud to cast a vote for either; Paul’s uncompromising dedication to true conservatism is inspiring, and McCain’s personal honor, and his credibility as a leader in the struggle against Islamist repression, are appealing.

Where we diverge, I think, is in our views of last night’s debate. Yes, McCain shone on the torture issue; we’ve come to expect that from him. And if I were more devout, I too would say "God bless him" for it. And yet I can’t quite get past the cheapness and pettiness of McCain’s rhetorical tactics. I refer specifically to his exchange with Paul over Iraq, to which you also objected.

We all want to believe in John McCain. But moral credibility is a double-edged sword. As valuable a commodity as it is when employed for honorable purposes, it is all the more dangerous when employed in pursuit of ignoble ends.

In other words: when Rudy Giuliani says shallow, puerile, and dishonorable things, it bugs me, but it doesn’t SCARE me, because everybody expects that of Giuliani. We all know–his supporters and opponents alike–that he’s a political animal and a turd of a human being, and his use of a tactic does nothing to burnish its credibility.

When John McCain employs his moral force in an unworthy rhetorical tactic, that’s another matter entirely. The tactic comes to seem less offensive because a person of McCain’s moral stature engages in it.

And that, in turn, leads me to wonder whether we can afford to have a man of McCain’s moral stature engaged in the process of Presidential politics. Because when John McCain debases himself, he debases us all. And it disappoints me far, far more than anything Rudy Giuliani could possibly do.

America needs Ron Paul, and America needs John McCain.  But we need them both at their best.  And time after time, it seems to me, the demands of Presidential politics have caused John McCain to stoop, and Ron Paul to elevate himself.  It’s increasingly hard for me to see myself rewarding John McCain for this behavior by endorsing him.

A video of it in action. In a few years, every library should have one. No more ordering up from the stacks! Don’t try and buy this book, tho. Kinda defeats the purpose.

He did it for the NYPD!

The latest sleaze. After Giuliani’s blanket denial of any impropriety during the debate last night, the New York City comptroller Bill Thompson responded today:

"In the end, it’s a very convoluted way of getting things done. If anyone hoped that no one would notice, they were being foolish."

And this is a classic from ABC News:

The Giuliani campaign would not provide evidence to support their explanation.

Look: if you’re cheating on your wife, you need two security details. Of course, one is going to be hush-hush. And the tax-payer foots the bill. A simple question: How does any sane person trust the power of the presidency with this money-raking friend of mobbed-up Kerik and accused child-molester Placa?

"After a five-year study of of leadership covering virtually all sectors of American life, we came to the inescapable conclusion that judgment regularly trumps experience.  Our central finding is that judgment is the core, the nucleus of exemplary leadership.  With good judgment, little else matters.  WIthout it, nothing else matters," – Warren Bennis and Noel Tichy, Wall Street Journal. (Firewalled, alas.)

Tim catches one:

Other than the hellish heat, a crushing carbon dioxide atmosphere and corrosive clouds of sulfuric acid, Venus is a lot like Earth, scientists said yesterday.

Maybe in a century’s time …