WUDN'T ME Rudy (Photo: Getty Images)
Rudy Giuliani says yesterday's gut punch of a story about some sketchy, taxpayer-funded booty runs to the Hamptons definitely isn't true. But if it is, he sure as hell isn't the guy who should be blamed for it.

That's the story Hizzoner stuck to last night when Anderson Cooper veered off the YouTube question-delivering format and personally pressed Giuliani on the fast-breaking Politico reportage; it paints an unseemly picture of Hizzoner taking the tang express to the Hamptons to see then-side piece Judith Nathan—financed by at least four little-known city departments (and, ultimately, taxpayers). Covering the expenses of Giuliani's traveling security detail: the New York City Loft Board (which Giuliani once proposed for elimination), the Office for People with Disabilities (another one-time target for elimination), the Procurement Policy Board (which he portrayed as the poster child for mismanagement when running against David Dinkins) and the Assigned Counsel Administrative Office (a legal aid organization he tried to curtail because of abuses stemming from lax oversight).

"First of all, it's not true," Giuliani told Cooper immediately before laying out an excuse that essentially concedes the accuracy of Politico's contention while deflecting responsibility for it.

According to Giuliani, the only thing he did wrong was become a target of threats "that I generally don't talk about"—that's what mandated the round-the-clock security detail, which incurred the costs in question (including, in one case, a $1,714.99 bill at the luxurious, sprawling Palm Beach resort, The Breakers). But beyond that, Hizzoner ensured debate watchers he "had nothing to do with the handling of their [the security detail's] records." So apparently somebody decided to tuck questionable travel expenses in the bowels of the mayor's office that would normally be handled by the NYPD. But until the internal investigation that Giuliani has launched is completed, we simply have no idea who their fall guy is going to be in this one. Bernie Kerik, holla!