Rudy Giuliani and his business partner

If you ignore vote-counting shenanigans, and accept the appalling notion that George W. Bush was elected twice to be President of the United States, you could look at it this way: He beat Gore by presenting himself as steady and not a flip-flopper, and he beat Kerry by presenting himself as more responsible and capable with respect to defending the homeland.

Here’s a story at the interstices between comedy and tragedy.

First, Bush flip-flopped on the Department of Homeland Security. He opposed the creation of the Department before he was in favor of it. Well, at least he didn’t say he invented the Internet.

But then it came time appoint a head of the new Secretary of Homeland Security. Who better than Bernie Kerick? He is the former New York City police commissioner, who pled guilty today to two misdemeanor charges of corruption. He was fined a mere $221,000.

Over on HuffPo, Kerik is described as a “former Giuliani official.” Actually, he was Giuliani’s business partner, after he was Giuliani’s police commissioner, which was after he was Giuliani’s driver and body-guard.

At the 2004 Republican National Convention, Rudolph Giuliani told the adoring audience that when he was standing in the rubble of the World Trade Center, he turned to Bernie Kerik and said, “Bernie, thank God George Bush is our President.” That’s obvious poppy-cock.

(During a 2003 GOP fundraiser, Giuliani told a different version, minus Kerik: "I remember that day saying a little prayer of thank-you that George Bush was our president." Probably the grain of truth in the story is that on Sept. 14, 2001, as Giuliani reported two months later on Meet the Press, he remarked to Kerik, “Thank God he [Bush] is here. [i.e., in New York]”)

Here’s the comedy part: people are talking about Rudy Giuliani as a potential Republican Presidential candidate. This is a guy who in addition to being the business partner of a convicted crook, is a liberal from New York, who was kicked out of Gracie Mansion by a wife with a domestic relations restraining order, went to live with a gay couple, and informed his wife that he was divorcing her on the evening news.

You go, Rudy.

“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”