Rudy Giuliani: “You're f-cking kidding me!”

Bill Maher has decried the over-abundance of Republican candidates he calls the "You're f-cking kidding me!" candidates. And he's not talking about the Sam Brownbacks, the Tom Tancredos and the Mike Huckabees.

Nixon? "You're f-cking kidding me!"
Reagan? "You're f-cking kidding me!"
George W. Bush? "You're f-cking kidding me!"

And now, Rudy.

Michael Wolff:

The explanation for what makes Rudy so compelling among people who know him best—including New York reporters who've covered him for a generation, and political pros who've worked for him—is simpler: he is nuts, actually mad...

[And] despite what's in front of everybody's face—behavior that's not only in the public record but recapped on the front pages every day—becoming president could really happen for Rudy.

No, that is wrong: virtually every Full Rudy veteran expects the implosion to happen any second.

And yet...and yet...as the front-runner for the same party that produced "Dick" Cheney as VPOTUS, Rudy could become the next POTUS.

"You're f-cking kidding me!"

Sadly, no.

That's why we cannot afford to simply watch what he says -- but what he actually does. And his vaunted record in New York provides plenty of ammunition for anyone willing to use it against him. Besides the fact that the police chief of NYC deserves as much credit as Giuliani for the decline in the crime rate (and was probably fired for eclipsing the mayor) there is "Rudy's WTC problem:"

Anyone who watched Rudolph W. Giuliani preside over ground zero in the days after 9/11 glimpsed elements of his strength: decisiveness, determination, self-confidence...

Those qualities were also on display over the months he directed the cleanup of the collapsed World Trade Center. But today, with evidence that thousands of people who worked at Ground Zero have become sick, many regard Mr. Giuliani’s triumph of leadership as having come with a human cost.

Giuliani's rush to put NYC back to normalcy (and elevate his public profile) was, in the view of the New York City Fire Department International Association of Fire Fighters, deeply offensive and disrespectful:

Giuliani ... made a conscious decision to institute a "scoop-and-dump" operation to expedite the clean-up of Ground Zero in lieu of the more time consuming, but respectful, process of removing debris piece by piece in hope of uncovering more remains.

Mayor Giuliani's actions meant that those who perished would either remain buried at Ground Zero forever, with no closure for families, or be removed like so much garbage and deposited at the Fresh Kills Landfill.

By now everyone should be familiar with the broad outlines of Giuliani's failures pre-9/11. Despite the best advice of his security people, he chose to put the brand new Emergency Operations Center high up in the World Trade Center instead of underground in Brooklyn -- despite the fact that the WTC had already been attacked once before in 1993.

In addition, on 9/11, he violated established emergency response protocols by splitting up the police and fire department command and control structure -- the result of which was the death of dozens of firefighters who had no idea what danger they were in after rushing into the burning buildings. Even without radios that operated on the same frequency as the police (something Giuliani could not, or would not, implement despite urging from security personnel) despite this built-in disadvantage, the firefighters might have been saved had the police and fire chiefs stayed together on 9/11 and communicated what they knew about the developing situation.

So Rudy was wrong before 9/11; wrong on 9/11; and wrong after 9/11.

I've always thought that McCain of all people would sic his attack dogs on Giuliani in the race for the nomination. I always thought that that there would be so much to attack him on that Republicans, before the primaries were over, would eventually believe that Rudy himself was flying one of the jets that hit the WTC that day.

But, sadly, McCain and his candidacy are diminished to the point that Giuliani may get the nomination -- and be a serious contender for the White House.

"You're f-cking kidding me!"