NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Saturday, February 21, 2015, 11:10 PM
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JOHN MINCHILLO/APSome people are wondering what happened to the Rudy Giuliani they used to admire.
Hey, Rudy.
I won’t ask how you are doing because we already know.
But just between us, I thought you’d like to know that one of your old friends called me the other day to lament, “What happened to the Rudy I used to love and admire?”
Damned if I know, I admitted, seeing how I never much loved or admired you in the first place.
That, of course, didn’t stop me from venturing a guess: “Perhaps it’s megalomania-infused narcissism with an overlay of overt racism?”
Your old pal confessed that she was disgusted by the horrific statements you’ve made over the past few months, most especially the recent ones declaring that President Obama wasn’t brought up like you or me and that he didn’t even love America.
Well, Mr. Former Mayor, you’re right! President Obama wasn’t brought up, well, like you anyway.
NEW YORK DAILY NEWSDaily News covers Rudy Giuliani's bizarre comments about President Obama.
But then again neither was I nor most other Americans.
For starters, my father, like Barack Obama’s father — and 99% of other American fathers — never knocked over a milkman at gunpoint like your dad did, Rudy.
And while the President’s grandfather, uncle, my father, uncles, brother, cousins, husband and millions of other parents wore and still wear uniforms of the armed forces, your father wore a prison uniform.
OK, like you, I was born in Brooklyn of Italian stock, and moved with my family to Long Island when I was a kid. But that’s where our shared upbringing ends.
But, unlike you, I always knew that the kid at Sunday dinner was my cousin — therefore not someone I would want to marry.
See, my father, Anthony J. Stasi, worked his way through school and then broke his ass every day as a
sanitation man, working his way up to supervisor, while always holding down a part-time job in a drugstore at night.
Your father, Harold Giuliani, was a violent enforcer for a loan shark.
As for love, whether it’s of country or family — seriously, Rudy?
You can’t talk love when your divorce lawyer humiliated your wife and children by saying they should leave Gracie Mansion so your mistress could move in.
EVAN VUCCI/APPresident Obama wasn’t brought up, well, like Giuliani anyway.
A man who loves his country doesn’t appoint his former chauffeur, a thug, as police commissioner.
Nor would he misuse the NYPD to chauffeur around that same mistress nor walk her dog.
A man who loves even himself wouldn’t appoint the sons of his backer, Ray Harding (a crook), to top jobs without qualifications; one of whom went on to use city monies for vacations and to surf child-porn sites.
Before 9/11, which made you a millionaire, Rudy, your approval rating was 50%. After 9/11 you became “America’s mayor.” Still, you crashed and burned as a presidential candidate.
Now? You sound like a guy desperate to become mayor again, or to even just be relevant once more. But the way you’re going? You aren’t worthy of my father’s old entry-level sanitation job. That job requires humility and honor — qualities sorely missing from your résumé.
NO-SPIN ZONE IN GRENADA
The staffers at Mother Jones must be hitting the ganja too hard.
Their latest “exposé” accuses Bill O’Reilly of pulling a Brian Williams and exaggerating his war correspondent experience during the Falklands War.
Seriously? Who would risk a career to lie about the Falklands War? That’s like risking it all to lie about Grenada.
Even the reporters who were there don’t want to admit it.
Bill O’Reilly, who showed proof of what he claimed, may be a firebrand, and a sometimes over-the-top right-winger, but he’s also a brilliant historian who didn’t get where he is by being a prettyboy behind a desk.
O’Reilly is a veteran tabloid reporter who made his bones in the glory days when tabloid reporters were fearless, hard-drinking lunatics who lived for the action.
Besides which, just the third-world bars they hung out in were a hell of a lot scarier than the bullets they were ducking.
NOT SO LETTER PERFECT
Please raise you hand if you answer to any of the following: Whore Julia,
A--hole Brown, SuperBitch, C--- Martinez, Bitch Dog.
No? How about “Hello Dummy?”
Hmmm. Maybe you don’t have cable.
Recently, Comcast was caught sending out customer letters addressed to the above, and now Time Warner, soon to be part of Comcast — perhaps in a show of corporate unity — has been nailed for sending out customer disservice letters of their own.
Even Infinity Broadcasting got into the act with the “Hello Dummy” letter.
Oops. Last week, I got mad at Time Warner for its new, slower modem, which is roughly the size of a 1967 Buick.
I eagerly await my own letter or email: “Dear Whore, Bitch, Dummy, would you like to fill out our easy customer service survey?”
Ah, no.
ANDY KROPA /ANDY KROPA /INVISION/APLester Holt has given "NBC Nightly News" a shot in the arm.HOLT’S RATINGS JOLT
Bravo to Lester Holt – the great NBC correspondent who is getting better ratings than Brian Williams.
Holt and Hoda Kotb — who have quietly waited their turns – were early standouts on “Dateline.” Once, when I was on “Today” and Holt was hosting, I begged him, “Please, Lester, just do it once!”
And he did.
In his best announcer voice, he joked something like, “Larry was a family man, then a serial killer. Tonight on ‘Dateline!’ ”
Filling in as anchor at “NBC Nightly News,” he recently had to say, no joke, “Tonight, the story many of you are talking about . . .” What we were talking about was Brian Williams. Give Holt a hand — and that seat.
GUSTAVO CABALLERO/GETTY IMAGES FOR OMEGAEven in unretouched photos, Cindy Crawford is a vision of beauty – at 49!BEAUTY IS ONLY SKIN-CHEAP
Unretouched photos of Cindy Crawford’s Marie Claire spread and Beyoncé’s L’Oreal shoot were leaked online without their permission last week. Permission? The rest of us would pay to get retouched to look like they do unretouched. Real women, even gorgeous real women, don’t have plastic skin and perfect plastic bodies, especially after they have kids and live lives worth living.
SHOW STOPPERS
Now that the Oscars are so closely controlled and the stars so overmanaged, styled, cleaned up and slick, all that remains for us tonight is the horrible, fake repartee and unfunny, embarrassing jokes the presenters are forced to say.
Gone forever is our nervous anticipation of yet another horrifying mistake like Rob Lowe’s Snow White/dancing furniture disaster, the sneaking streaker, Angelina Jolie’s declaration of being in love with her brother and Marlon Brando’s Indian maid standing in for him in his rejection of the Oscar.
But even with all the new controls in place, at least we did have Anne Hathaway and James Franco (above) stinking up the joint in 2011. It just gives you something to hope for — or at least something to stay awake for.
