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"Son, this is the woman I chose over your mom--you know, the one I committed adultery with back when we were married. Now that that's over with, and our family's broken up, I want you to be the chief witness to my latest promise of marital fidelity." Sounds sick to me. Is it OK by you?

Well, I don't know what kind of person "mom" was. Maybe she was horrible to "dad". Maybe the "son" actually likes Judith Nathan and is welcoming her as a stepmother.

I just don't make judgments about people I don't know as easily as some others do, apparently.

If the young man didn't want to do it, I imagine he could have said no.

I was the matron of honor in a wedding recently that was not unlike his one; the best man was the groom's 12 year-old son from a previous marriage (his dad left an alcoholic, abusive woman and married my friend a few years later), and that kid was one of the happiest people in the room. Maybe that's why I can't assume this will leave a big emotional scar on the Guiliani boy.

"Son, this is the woman I chose over your mom--you know, the one I committed adultery with back when we were married. Now that that's over with, and our family's broken up, I want you to be the chief witness to my latest promise of marital fidelity." Sounds sick to me. Is it OK by you?

The Giulianis had a very publicly miserable and dysfunctional marriage. They were never seen in public together; she publicly dropped his last name and took back her prior husband's last name; she sought out a role in that Talking Cooters play, just when he was starting to gear up his race for the Senate; when he was re-elected in 1997, she made a point of seeking out the media so that she could say she didn't know if she was going to vote for him; etc.

That family was "broken up" long before Rudy took up with a woman who loves him for himself, not for whatever power she could get from him. Did you know that shortly after he was first elected, his wife had a tantrum when he wouldn't give her a "Hillary-like role" in City Hall?