I honestly thought you were trying to cut Giuliani a little slack, relatively speaking. My mistake. I really should have known better.

Sorry, Bud.

Giuliani has gotten caught lying about nearly everything he's ever said, from the crime stats to his family life. (What other candidate said his dad was a"saint" and his role model and it turned out his dad was a convicted robber and mob enforcer??Sheesh!)

WHY do any of you treat him with more respect than this uber-criminal deserves? At what point do we learn from history?)

Of course, since everyone still treats Bush like he's not a mass murdering psycho intent on destroying America, I'm on the wrong planet evidently.

I've been saying since 1995 that Giuliani ignored terror planning and crime fighting for the Yankees and everyone dismissed me as a nut.

Of course, these same people all said I was nuts when I said (even on Sept 10th) that Rudy would be president.

Yikes.

You deserve the govt you get.

giulianiscandals.blogspot.com

This is off-topic, but when I read Garry Owen's "Speaking of assholes, Tony Snow is resigning due to colon cancer. He's dying." comment, my first thought was, "Cold!" "Harsh", "grim", "unrelenting", and "mean-spirited" might apply, too.

But I don't disagree with it, and I'm gratified to be able to read it here.

I appreciate that the issue of the "civility" of Internet discourse is a major bugaboo, and this site among others has devoted much space in ruminating over it. I regard the charge of "incivility" as equivalent to being labelled "subversive" during the McCarthy Era-- which we never really left behind, but that's another story. Respectable patrons of Internet sites, from popular individual sites to commercial sites like Salon, become reflexively defensive and apologetic when accused of promoting or tolerating "incivility".

I have mixed feelings about The Huffington Post, with its aggressive trash-tabloid presentation; I think better of "Common Dreams", which some months ago added comments capability to their material. I'm confident that Garry's comment would've been censored by both sites. HuffPo, in particular, would pre-empt the possibility by simply "closing comments" when publishing the story.

There is a disclaimer, or a warning, about an inch below where I'm typing that puts commenters on notice that Salon reserves the right to censor comments. It recites the usual reasons for deletion: we may remove letters that are far off-topic or excessively rude, or that violate the law or common decency.

If I'm correct to think that Garry's "not-nice" comment will be permitted to remain, Salon's censors are to be commended-- at least they're being thoughtful and exercising restraint. One of the worst aspects of this on-line censorship, especially as practiced at HuffPo and now Common Dreams, is that the sites are typically disingenuous in the manner in which they practice censorship.

HuffPo prefers not to call it "censorship", because of its pejorative connotation. (How can you have a "liberal" or "progressive" site that welcomes comments but censors them?) And Common Dreams is worse; I've never had any comments censored, but I gather from reading vestiges of replies that offensive comments are silently removed without even a "comment deleted" stub to at least mark the deletion.

There's a creepy, old-Soviet approach to simply "disappearing" comments without acknowledgment or explanation; it's like waiting until your puppy is momentarily distracted and hiding its toy ball because you're sick of playing with it. Furthermore, these sites also disappear comments that call attention to the censorship! (BTW, the final irony is that for all of their concern, all manner of profane and abusive comments by wingnut trolls somehow persist at HuffPo.)

In case anyone is wondering why I'm venting about those other sites: it's because of the chilling effect resulting from the presence of the Invisible Censor; they've neatly arranged it so that they can cut off troublesome dissent about their censorship policy-- so I don't see the point in wasting time risking it. Um, isn't this top-down unilateral authoritarianism the kind of problem we're commenting about in the first place? I've asked them, in vain, to at least offer an ombudsman or space to discuss concerns or complaints about censorship; not surprisingly, I've never gotten a response.

Regardless of the general rules posted on sites, the devil's certainly in the details when it comes to deciding what is unacceptably "rude" or "indecent". Passionate comments about important issues will surely elicit intemperate or impolite expressions. I'm glad whichever Mrs. Grundy is on duty here recognizes that comments like Garry's deserve respect.

It really makes you wonder what Giuliani's priorities would be if he ended up at the White House. It was embarrassing enough to see that, when he was mayor, he worshiped the Yankees. Imagine all the travel he'd be engaging in merely to attend a Yankee game as President. Perhaps the Yankees can switch states. He should certainly be crowned "honorary Yankee."

Those Republicans have this wonderful tendency to be AWOL when danger is present. With the exception of McCain, who never saw the people he killed from the air, they are all so brilliant at avoiding danger and discomfort. Romney was converting French catholics into Mormons in France during the Vietnam war. Bush was doing whatever in Texas and then Alabama during Vietnam and flying around the country when the terrorists struck on 9/11(he just has this uncanny ability to stay away from physical danger danger), Guiliani was attending Yankee games while pretending to be at ground zero. The cardinal of NY was in the Vatican, Whittman was far away from the east coast. Not wanting to be exposed to the toxins and share the burden had nothing to do with it of course.

At the same time Giuliani was MIA at Ground Zero, our local Cardinal was polishing apples and kissing butts at the Vatican for the month of October instead of presiding, as he should have, at every fireman's funeral he could get to. Interviewed from Rome, he had the gall to say that he was enjoying being there. He could have expressed even insincere chafing at the bit but, no. He was having a good time.

His predecessor, Cardinal O'Connor, would have told the Pope that his city had been attacked and that he could not spend a month away from the suffering. And the Pope would have assented because he knew what good episcopal behavior looked like. It looked like Avery Dulles, also a cardinal, who gathered up some kids at Fordham University and helped them wtih their fears.

A lot of people, including Christie Whitman, were AWOL during those weeks and many of the rest of us are bitter about it.

...BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHHH!

www.ronpaul2008.com

My old post about Midwesterners got some notice. I am a Midwesterner. If I could type with a Fargo-style accent, I would.

My message is that Giuliani is considered a fresh face and an interesting new alternative by many people in this part of the country. We have not lived through all his history.

And many people have not heard him recently, trying to sound more-brutal-than-thou on the subject of torture. So, unfortunately, Rudy has a pretty good chance within a large segment of voters here.