The Buried, Unquotable Exoneration (NY Times hides story on Rudy's Travel Expenses)

Captain's Quarters ^ | Dec. 21, 2007 | Ed Morrissey

[jdm]

The New York Times exonerates Rudy Giuliani from charges that he moved travel expenses around through subsidiary agencies in order to hide his affair with his now-wife, Judith. People looking for that exoneration on their feedreaders will find themselves frustrated. Not only did the Times bury the story on one of its blogs, it put it in a graphic format that doesn't allow for copy-and-paste. In fact, it isn't even shown as an entry on the blog itself:

All eight of Mr. Giuliani's trips to the Hamptons in 1999 and 2000, including the period when his relationship was a secret, were charged to his own mayoral expense account, according to the records.

In fact, the amount of money transferred through those agencies represent an insignificant percentage of the total cost of those travel expenses. Furthermore, the Times found that Giuliani had started spreading the costs of travel through subsidiary agencies two years before his affair with Judith, which makes it rather obvious that the motive was not to hide his infidelity. Russ Buettner ends by concluding that Giuliani's accounting had nothing to do with his relationship to Judith.

One might believe that these conclusions might make a few headlines, given all of the attention paid to these allegations. Anderson Cooper asked Giuliani about this pseudoscandal during the nationally-televised CNN/YouTube debate, after all, and Giuliani's record as mayor might be of particular interest to a New York City newspaper. Instead, the Times seemed to go out of its way to hide this report and its exoneration of Giuliani on accusations of manipulating public records for his own personal motivations.

Of course, even a front-page report on this wouldn't unring the bell; the damage has been done, and it has been considerable. It looks like the Times wanted to make sure none of it got undone. (via Power Line)

[jdm]

[Shryke]

Ping the Rudy is Satan list. I’ll get the popcorn.

[roses of sharon]

Typical NY media, but they do run the United States after all, along with Hollywood and Academia.

This is the DNC War Room, when are we going to put a stake thru the heart of these commie vampires?

[Rick.Donaldson]

LOL... popcorn.

I’m SHOCKED to hear this about Rudy. He’s such a stand up guy, I keep getting told.

[roses of sharon]

LOL, we need to change the headline to “Rudy eats aborted babies in his limo, on the way to his gay-bi-transv-HIV mobster meeting with Kerik”.

[Shryke]

Clearly Rudy is the bad guy here.

[tlb]

And this will get into the RudyTruthFile.

yeah right

[Shryke]

I like it, I like it.

[Rick.Donaldson]

You can say that again. :)

I am wondering why Kerik is getting nuked and Rudy is running for the office of President at this point.

ANY OTHER person would be under investigation as well. Kerik might have done something wrong, but, he was under orders from ABOVE - in this case Guiliani. So... I wonder WHY he is still RUNNING even.

[olivia3boys]

Just wondering, am I the only Guiliani supporter on this forum?

I’m actually not 100% certain I’ll vote for him in the primary, and as I’m in CA it will probably be all over anyway by the time I vote—but I recently watched a left-wing documentary designed to make Guiliani seem horrible, and it seems to me he’s just an all around excellent leader, and effective problem solver, compared to the other candidates.

He also seems sensible and sharp. I know his family hates him and all of that. . .but he just seems the best choice compared to the other candidates, all around.

Why was he cross-dressing, anyway? Anyone know? My husband won’t vote for him because of that reason alone. A pity.

[Bob J]

He was on a Saturday Night Live skit. Men dressing as women has a long tradition in comedy. Particularly Britian, for some reason.

[roses of sharon]

Under orders to do what?

[roses of sharon]

I think its still illegal here to talk nice about RG, there was a purge of conservatives on FR a while back who were looking at him.

He strangles puppies you know!

[Rick.Donaldson]

He also seems sensible and sharp. I know his family hates him and all of that. . .but he just seems the best choice compared to the other candidates, all around.

Why was he cross-dressing, anyway? Anyone know? My husband won’t vote for him because of that reason alone. A pity.

Was a SKIT. It’s silly to not vote for someone for that reason.

In my opinion, he’s NOT all-around-good.

He’s against gun ownership as he has clearly shown as NYC Mayor.

He’s pro-immigration (which is ok) but to the point of allowing illegals to stay here.

He’s also more “moderate” on some liberal subjects (abortion, etc).

Sorry, not my cup o’ tea.

Fred, Fred, he’s our man...

[Rick.Donaldson]

Well... let me see, I take it you’re NOT following the Kerik indictments with the Feds then?

According to some of the charges, he was responsible for arranging various hotel rooms and other “secret locations” for Rudy and his, now, wife, to meet while they were having an affair.

You THINK Kerik did that ON HIS OWN? No, he was under orders as the chief of security to make sure that Rudy wasn’t followed, seen, and was in a secret location etc.

Kerik didn’t do that on his own. He may have been in the wrong for abusing his position, and there are questions regarding Rudy’s involvement with hiding the money/.

That’s FRAUD. Hiding money, is fraud. USING it illegally, for his own purposes is MISAPPROPRIATION.

That’s against the law in all states, and in the Federal government. I don’t want a President who misappropriates public funds for his private use and purposes. Sorry, ONE clinton in office is sufficient.

We don’t need a REPUBLICAN president to follow in the footsteps of Billy Boy -and by the same token, we don’t want to see Hillary in office either

[roses of sharon]

NOVEMBER—Bernard Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner and current Rudolph Giuliani political albatross, was indicted today on a slew of federal criminal charges. Kerik, 52, was named in a 16-count indictment charging him with, among other felonies, fraud, tax evasion, obstruction, filing a false loan application, and making an assortment of false statements when applying for various federal posts, including Homeland Security secretary. A copy of the indictment, unsealed in U.S. District Court in White Plains, New York, can be found below. Kerik is accused of corruptly accepting money and “other things of value” in exchange for using his public post to benefit a company seeking municipal business. He was also charged with concealing from the Internal Revenue Service more than $500,000 in income, including about $75,000 he received for a book forward he wrote. Additionally, in 2003, Kerik allegedly falsely told his accountant that he made $80,000 in charitable contributions, information that was later used in the preparation of a false tax return. Six counts in the indictment refer to false statements Kerik made while seeking several federal jobs, including a position with the Iraqi Coalition Provisional Authority and the Homeland Security chief’s job. These alleged lies involved Kerik’s tangled financial dealings and his failure to withhold
taxes from a household employee. (29 pages

The actual indictment is on Smoking Gun, maybe I missed the count on getting hotel rooms for RG, lol.

[Shryke]

Dude - it’s here. I am rather shocked.

[cgbg]

I was an early supporter of Rudy, but he managed to change my mind.

:-)

I was hoping he would moderate his views on social issues and "take the pledge" to at least stay out of the way on those issues.

The last straw for me was the mistress slush fund.

I am sick and tired of politicians and their mistresses and assorted lovers--but stealing from the public treasury to further those activities is way way over the line imho.

Of course, then he had to cover it up, lie about it, the usual stuff.

The reason these politicians lie to their spouses (you know, breaking those silly things called marriage vows :-( ) is because they are congenital liars and lie to everyone and plan to lie to us.

Maybe I live a sheltered life, but I don't know anybody who cheats on their spouse--well, I know one person, but they are such a total dirtbag that I have nothing to do with them. Our politicans have lower moral standards than most of the rest of us (at least those of us who don't work for the MSM)--that is the ugly truth.

I am just hoping Fred finds a pulse and saves us from this sad crop of leftist Republicans.

[READINABLUESTATE]

Journalistic malpractice!

[Eva]

I doubt that this will get much attention on FreeRepublic, either. There is very little interest in truth, regarding Rudy, especially among the Hucksters.