David Saltonstall of the Daily News has a very interesting piece [1] on the unusually, shall we say, sanitary condition of Rudy Giuliani's mayoral archives. Seems Rudy's people snapped up over 2,000 boxes of records from City Hall when he left office, with the promise that the newly-ex-mayor would personally pay to have them privately archived.

And he did. Only, the files were returned without a detailed index -- which makes it extremely difficult to search them. What's more, based on what reporters have found so far, history seems to have decided to be somewhat kinder to Rudy since his people borrowed the records:

A file labeled "Private Life/Divorce" offers nothing more than a few old press clippings about his breakup with Donna Hanover, as well as a transcript from the May 2000 press conference where he described his then-girlfriend and now-wife, Judith Nathan, as "a very good friend."

Meanwhile, Hanover's papers as First Lady have been all but erased. "This subgroup was not filmed," is all the archive says.

Documents from the historic weeks after 9/11 seem similarly scant. Instead of memos detailing concerns about air quality or coordination among agencies, the record consists of a few dry reports that sketch efforts to restore the city bureaucracy. [...]

On the other hand, there are scores of form letters from Giuliani responding to celebrities who commended his leadership after 9/11. Recipients of the mayoral thank-yous included everyone from Donald Trump and Barbra Streisand to the Dalai Lama and Henry Kissinger.

Here's a question: did the Giuliani administration keep records on his shameless power grab attempt in the wake of 9/11? Or were they too busy archiving thank-you notes to the Hollywood crowd?

Saltonstall points out that we many never know the extent to which the records were sanitized, thanks to what Comptroller William Thompson called "an apparent lapse in the chain of accountability." But he reads between the lines:

What's clear is that the archives cast Giuliani in a most positive light, and often in ways that seem aimed at a national audience.

Well, yeah. I mean, he's a hero, right? And he's got the papers to prove it - or at least, he no longer has the papers to disprove it.

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