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.