Everyone is abuzz today with news that Law & Order star Fred Thompson has jumped into the Republican presidential race.

I'd rather talk about Rudy. David Boaz in the New York Daily News tells Libertarians to beware of him. Finally, someone in big media talks about his abysmal record as U.S. Attorney in New York.

As a U.S. attorney in the 1980s, Giuliani conducted what University of Chicago Law Prof. Daniel Fischel called a "reign of terror" against Wall Street. He pioneered the use of the midday, televised "perp walk" for white-collar defendants who posed no threat to the community - precisely the sort of power play for which conservatives reviled former state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. And Giuliani's use of federal racketeering statutes was so disturbing that the Justice Department changed its guidelines on the law.

Moving on to the present:

The GOP Presidential candidates on interrogation:

[Brit] Hume [asked] the candidates . . . How aggressively would you interrogate" . . . captured suspects?

Rudy Giuliani — . . . "I'd say every method they could think of," affirmed Giuliani.

. . . Mitt Romney . . . "Enhanced interrogation techniques have to be used."

Via Josh Marshall and Andrew Sullivan, Gestapo Chief Muller's "enhanced interrogation" techniques.

As Sullivan writes:

There is no comparison between the political system in Germany in 1937 and the U.S. in 2007. What I am reporting is a simple empirical fact: . . . The very phrase used by the president to describe torture-that-isn't-somehow-torture - "enhanced interrogation techniques" - is a term originally coined by the Nazis. The techniques are indistinguishable. The methods were clearly understood in 1948 as war-crimes. The punishment for them was death.

I do not care one way or the other if the Democrats hold a Presidential debate on Fox, but my Gawd, if you are going to criticize folks for not appearing, as Kucinich does here, try to not sound so stupid:

Rep. Kucinich . . . criticized his opponents who were unwilling to show up to the CBC/Fox debate. "Fox broadcasts the World Series, too, but is it any less of a World Series because it's on Fox?

Um, last I looked, Fox did not have Brit Hume calling the World Series, Representative. I have an idea, why not have the Democratic Debate on The Simpsons? I mean if you want to be a figure of ridicule, what better venue Congressman?

Via TPM, The Politico has been picked on a lot by the left blogs and today there can be no wonder why after this:

But, like Dwight Eisenhower's in 1952, Giuliani's national security stature after the Sept. 11 attacks more likely explains his continued popularity within the religious right, whose voters have long held hawkish positions on the issue.

Like five star General Supreme Allied Commander during the Good War/Greatest Generation Dwight David Eisenhower?

As Sargent puts it:

In the real world, of course, Rudy doesn't have national security stature at all. He was a mob-busting U.S. Attorney, ran New York as mayor for two terms, walked through the smoke and dust on 9/11, then did a bit of globe-trotting as part of his post-mayoralty moneymaking efforts. Rudy has no national security experience of any kind -- let alone "stature" in this field.

But Rudy gives good press conferences right Politico. Honestly, how stupid can you be?

Meet the new Rudy -- the silly comb-over is gone. And he's trying out a new personality.

Mr. Giuliani laughs, he gestures expansively, he even pokes fun at his tendency to wax a wee bit authoritarian. (He suggests a touch of the cane was necessary to impose discipline on that liberal asylum known as New York.) He shakes hands with reporters he once viewed as “jerky” and assures them he is fine with tough questions about abortion, where he has settled on a position supporting a woman’s right to choose, and about gun control, where is he at least halfway into a policy back-flip.

Expect the next change to be to his wardrobe.

He dresses in the one-size-too-large suits he has favored since his days as a federal prosecutor, with the top shirt button fastened and tie knotted tight. It is difficult to imagine anyone asking him a “really dopey” (two favorite Giuliani words now in abeyance) question about his favored style in underwear, as someone once did of Bill Clinton.

Thank goodness only Judi has to see him in his underwear.

If Rudy Giuliani can't even manage civil discourse with his children and ex-spouse, how will he manage the various adversarial encounters he will face as President?

Rudy and Judy went to Harvard-bound Caroline's high school graduation today. They sat 30 yards from former Mrs. Giuliani Donna Hanover and son Andrew and never spoke to them.

When the commencement speaker, Sen. Charles Schumer, noted Giuliani's presence and the audience broke into applause, Hanover and her son, Andrew Giuliani, sat stone-faced and didn't clap.

But Hanover and Andrew jumped up and cheered when the Harvard-bound 17-year-old Caroline received her diploma from the tony Trinity School, while Giuliani and his wife, Judith, didn't even crack a smile.

Then Rudy and Judy ducked out early.

Rudy and Judith Giuliani avoided his children and ex-wife by arriving minutes before the ceremony began, entering through a side entrance, and they ducked out 10 minutes before it ended....At the graduation yesterday, Andrew did not acknowledge his father and stepmother and would not say whether the couple would join them later.

Rudy didn't attend Andrew's high-school graduation. Did he attend this one only so the press would report he was there?

Credit where credit is due, and today it goes to New Mexico Governor and presidential hopeful Bill Richardson, who says he will oppose the Immigration compromise because it is too onerous for immigrants:

Mr. Richardson initially said he would support the immigration compromise announced earlier this week. But on Wednesday, he said that after reading it in detail, he had decided to oppose it, saying the measure placed too great a burden on immigrants — tearing apart families that wanted to settle in the United States, creating a permanent tier of second-class immigrant workers and financing a border fence that Mr. Richardson had long opposed.

“This is fundamentally flawed in its current form, and I would oppose it,” he said. “We need bipartisanship, but we also need legislation that is compassionate. I’m not sure that this is.”

Thank you, Governor Richardson.

More....

The New York Times has the story of former Rudy Giuliani insider and head of New York's Office of Emergency Management Jerry Hauer.

In recent days, Mr. Hauer has challenged Mr. Giuliani’s recollection that he had little role as mayor in placing the city’s emergency command center at the ill-fated World Trade Center.

Mr. Hauer has also disputed the claim by the Giuliani campaign that the mayor’s wife, Judith Giuliani, had coordinated a help center for families after the attack.

And then there's Rudy temperment and retaliatory nature:

The last thing Rudy Giuliani needs is praise from Bernie Kerik. But, that's what he's getting.

With friends like these....

Keep it up Bernie.

Another take: The New Republic on Giuliani.

Giuliani is now pursuing the same strategy of sowing division, only this time on a national level. To hear him tell it, the election will pit weak-kneed Democrats against hard-line Republicans. "I listen a little to the Democrats, and, if one of them gets elected, we are going on defense," he recently told an audience in New Hampshire. "We will wave the white flag on Iraq. We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation, and we will be back to our preSeptember 11 attitude of defense."

The New Republic piece cautions not to count Rudy out of the race. It says his sowing of dissent among Republicans is a planned strategy. One can only hope it's a strategy doomed to fail.

Rudy Giuliani disclosed on his federal tax returns that he considers his wife an employee and paid her $125k a year for speechwriting help, an arrangement that pre-dated their marriage. The money was included as income on their joint tax return and they paid taxes on it.

Rudy Giuliani's haul for the 126 speeches he gave from January 2006 to March 2007 was $11.4 million, records filed this week show, which means he kicked back something less than 2% to his wife over that period.

That's a pretty insignificant figure given his entire speech income. Because she was an employee, I assume he also got to deduct her airline and other individual travel expenses that the paying company may not have picked up. Their suite would be covered since they shared it, but what about the meals and other related items?

My take: I don't believe for a second the pay was for her speechwriting help. It sounds like a clothing, hair and makeup allowance, and the only way to deduct it was to make her an employee.

Yes, I lived through 9/11 too. Oh, Rudy meant he was in NYC during 9/11. So did 8 million other people. But those 8 million people were not the bonehead who put the City's emergency response headquarters in the World Trade Center over the objections of experts - who objected to Rudy's plan because, maybe Rudy did not know this, the WTC was attacked by terrorists in 1993:

"Your director of emergency management suggested, recommended, that you not put it [in the World Trade Center] because it had been a target in 1993. Why did you do that?" asked Wallace.

"My director of emergency management recommended 7 World Trade Center," replied Giuliani.

"I've got a copy right here of Jerry Hauer's directive to you," Wallace came back, "and I -- there were meetings in which Jerry Hauer said that it's a bad idea and the police chief, Howard Safir said it was a bad idea."

As someone who lived through 9/11, I have to question the sanity of the notion that a blustering fool whose only talent is self-promotion and whose most important decision related to 9/11, where to put his command center, was as idiotic as one could imagine, is running for President on the strength of his stupidity. Yes, for it was his stupidity in placing the command center precisely where it was recommended NOT to be that made his endless 9/11 press conferences necessary.

Rudy is a poster boy for the absurdity of politics.

The Washington Post investigates Rudy and Giuliani Partners financial wheelings and dealings from the get-go. An interesting read.

It left me wondering, why is Rudy really running for President? Aside from his arrogance and sense of self-importance, I think the answer is because he can afford to.