[UPDATE: Rudy's credibility takes another hit as his own former emergency management director, and Bush's 2002 choice to plan for preparedness for WMD attacks, SLAMS Giuliani as being "...a control freak who micro-manages decision, he has a confrontational character trait and picks fights just to score points. He is the last thing this country needs as president right now." Seems NO ONE who knows him likes or respects Rudy Giuliani.] Rudy Giuliani is, by many accounts, the Republican frontrunner. Ignore for a moment that most Republicans will not like his pro-choice stand. The real question is will Americans like his anti-firefighter and anti-family positions. I have already discussed the fact that New York Firefighters detest Rudy Giuliani. Firefighters DESPISE Giuliani. He was partly responsible for the deaths of many firefighters on 9/11, having refused to upgrade the radio equipment for firefighters so that it would actually work. He also conspired with the Bush administration to hide the fact that the smoke from ground zero was toxic, thus condemning many surviving firefighters to respiratory disease that cut short their careers...and probably their lives. Firefighters have publicly advised America to "not just say no, but HELL NO to Rudy Giuliani". But it seems Rudy's family also are not fans. I won't go into the sordid details of his affairs. Those are mostly private matters and I leave it to the Republicans to drag out all the dirt on Rudy's sex life. But what gets me is his betrayal of his children. His children have no love for Rudy Giuliani. This has been long known. But what has recently been made public is the fact that Rudy's daughter is openly a Barack Obama supporter. If I may quote Slate regarding Rudy's relationship with his children:

It's not news that Rudy and his two children, Caroline and her 21-year-old brother Andrew, have a rocky relationship. Caroline and Andrew are the children of Donna Hanover, Rudy's second wife. In March, Andrew, who is a junior at Duke, told the New York Times that he and his father had been estranged for some time, and he has spoken candidly about his objections to Giuliani's marriage to Judith Nathan. And after the wedding, the Times reported, Giuliani also stopped attending Caroline's high-school events. Though he went to her high-school graduation, he left without speaking to her and did not join in the post-graduation family celebration, according to the New York Daily News.

Remember, this is Republican family values at work. Rudy's semi-abandonment of his children is right in line not only with his selfish, prima donna personality, but also with the general trend in the Republican party where the likes of Tom DeLay would abandon a gravely ill wife for a trophy wife for political gain. Typical. And yet I am sure somehow Karl Rove will try to spin abandonment of both firefighters and his own children as somehow a brave and noble thing if he wins the Republican nomination. After all, Bush himself was best known for going AWOL in Vietnam, pissing on police cars while drunk, and generally failing at everything he ever attempted in his entire life unless daddy bailed him out. If Karl Rove can pitch the bratty Bush to America, he can pitch Rudy Giuliani. But we can hope America doesn't fall for it this time.