Friday, November 30, 2007

NO JUDI-GATE, PLEASE, WE'RE THE MURDOCH PRESS

For the second day in a row:




In fact I don't see anything about this story on the very busy main page of the Post Web site (Cf. the News and Newsday sites, where the Rudy story leads.)

*****

I seem to have misjudged the impact of this story. I thought it wouldn't mean much to voters because they're blase about Giuliani's personal life (more so than a lot of us self-styled sophisticates are) and because they're numb to all but the worst political corruption. I still think that's true -- but I wasn't counting on how delicious the story would seem to the national and local press (which, in New York, are hard to separate). Also, new details continue to emerge.

Locally, Giuliani angered a lot of reporters as mayor -- he withheld information in a way that Bush and Cheney would admire and he openly expressed contempt for the press. What this means is that he's not the kind of guy who's going to be allowed to slide the way George W. Bush was in 2000 -- he's not a backslapping, nickname-dispensing guy-you'd-wanna-have-a-beer-with.

So they've got a juicy story and they don't like him enough not to run with it.

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