http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=7ebb4b22-83ac-4da6-8073-c70a66166ea5
2/18/2007
Rudy's Fudged Resume
By ***** Ahles
Beware of candidates for president who fudge their resumes.
In 2000, it was sort of amusing when George W. Bush, who wanted to be
seen as a rugged son of Texas, neglected to mention in his official
biography that he was born in the evil East.
We were told he was born July 6, 1946, grew up in Midland, Texas and
had a dog named Spot and cats named India, Cowboy and Ernie, but his
birth in New Haven didn't make the cut.
We couldn't have known then that Bush's little omission was a sign
that we might be electing a president who wouldn't mind misleading us
when it would be to his advantage, but that's how things turned out.
The lesson?
Check the resume.
So far, the most blatant bowdlerizer appears to be the current
Republican front runner, America's mayor himself, Rudy Giuliani.
But unlike George W. Bush, the blank spaces on Rudy's resume go far
beyond a detail like his place of birth.
Check out JoinRudy.com, the Giuliani campaign Web site, and you will
find a detailed review of his career as a crime-busting prosecutor and
a mayor who cut taxes, reduced crime, reformed welfare and improved
the quality of life in New York.
It retells his role after the terrorist attack on 9/11 in valiant
terms, notes his selection as Time's “Person of the Year,” his
knighthood by Queen Elizabeth, and recaps his recent and successful
business career.
Then, near the end, things get briefly personal.
We are told Giuliani married Judith Nathan, “a registered nurse with
an extensive medical and scientific background,” in 2003.
Omitted are Rudy's other two marriages going back to 1968 and, what is
more difficult to understand, any mention of his two kids by spouse
No. 2, kids who were used as political props in happier times.
The most interesting deletion is the fact that Rudy's marriage to his
first wife ended not in a divorce, but in an annulment when, after 14
years, Rudy discovered he and the former Regina Peruggi were second
cousins.
Married to his cousin
Bible Belt Republicans will surely be perplexed by this bit of
domestic intelligence and others will join them in wondering why it
took so long to determine the first Rudolph Giulianis were second
cousins.
Wouldn't Giuliani have noticed that they had invited the same
relatives to their wedding and asked, “Hey, Regina, how come your
cousin Joe is my cousin Joe?”
A divorce is no impediment to nomination or election but Rudy's
marital history is, to understate it, novel, and will surely be
upsetting to the party's powerful religious base, especially in tandem
with his pro-choice stance on abortion, his support for gay rights and
gun control.
These positions are currently undergoing modification on right-wing
talk shows, i.e., pro-choice but hates abortions, pro-civil unions but
against gay marriages, and guns are bad in cities but not so bad in
suburbs and rural areas.
Moderate Republicans shouldn't find too much to savor in a Giuliani
candidacy either.
They will find little to applaud in his Lieberman-like support for
Bush in Iraq, his championing of the Patriot Act and his often
heavy-handed crackdown on crime while mayor.
My most vivid post 9/11 recollection of Giuliani isn't exactly heroic.
It was his ego-driven attempt to extend his term as mayor beyond
January 2002 on the grounds New York couldn't make it without him.
I think this attempted power grab says a lot about the kind of
president a so-sure-of-himself Giuliani would be.
Another Bush, anyone?
________________________________________________
Wonder if phony 9/11 "hero" Rudy's resume includes this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IrE6FMpai8&eurl=
Harry
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