It will certainly be amusing to watch the press barons and sundry journo worthies ignore all this stuff …
Your “Clinton’s sexual impulse control” crack got me thinking. It’s not easy to choose Giuliani’s most outrageous sexual escapade, but I think from the standpoint of evaluating his fitness for public office, his fling with Cristyne Lategano takes the cake.
Let me refresh your memory, in case the details are a little hazy. Lategano was working as Giuliani’s Press Secretary when their affair began, and was later elevated to Communications Director. When the affair ended in May of 1999, he installed her at the helm of the city’s tourism bureau, a $150k/year plum. Lategano, now married, denies that anything improper took place, but Rudy himself has issued a series of artful non-denial denials. His ex-wife, Donna Hanover, has blamed Lategano in public statements and court papers for the demise of her marriage. Wayne Barrett, a sort of dark Boswell to Rudy’s Johnson, assembled a vast amount of circumstantial evidence backing the allegation. And no one who moved in those circles bothers doubting it for a second; the affair was, by its conclusion, common knowledge in the city – what would once have been termed ‘open and notorious adultery.’
I raise this because, this evening, I performed a Lexis-Nexis search for news references to ‘Lategano’ in the last year. I found a dozen references – every one of them in the New York City media. (The Voice, the Observer, the News, the Post – not even the Paper of Record.) In other words, since Rudy has emerged as a serious national candidate, his relationship with Lategano has received zero scrutiny. Even voters who’ve learned of his tempestuous marriages know nothing of this affair.
And that’s not right. Because the Lategano affair embodies the very worst of Rudy – his penchant for mixing private relationships with public business, his duplicity, and his cronyism. Giuliani had an affair with a (much younger) subordinate, and then pensioned her off on the public dime.
At least Lewinsky was an *unpaid* intern.
I raise it because, unlike so many moral issues that intrude into campaigns, this one actually has a direct bearing upon the crucial issues. And from the press, utter silence. Sure, nothing was ever proven, and Lategano’s subsequent denials make this an awkward subject. It’s a sad, tawdry story. But the NYC media hasn’t had any problem covering it. So what’s up with the national press?
Of course, if that doesn’t pan out, they can look into why his main activity at the NYC terror command headquarters prior to 9/11 seems to have been cheating on his wife.
