So far seems the NY Daily News is the only paper to give any major attention to the Shag Fund story, despite the evidence holes in Rudy’s denial. And for what it’s worth, the author of the piece, Ben Smith, used to be at the NYDN.

(ed.note: The Times also reports on the story, though deep, deep in the A section.)

(Of course, one must take into account that since Drudge did not approve it as a major story — it was flagged as “Rudy Hit With Expense Report” — they likely don’t feel able to cover it aggressively.)

Here’s Rudy’s denial if you haven’t seen it …

Late Update: CBS actually hits the story too. And significantly they’re one of the flew outlets that explicitly hits the non-responsive nature of the Camp Rudy’s response …

Giuliani’s campaign had this response, calling the story a non-issue.

“This is common practice,” the campaign said in a statement. “The NYPD is responsible for providing security for the mayor of New York around the clock.”

“It’s clearly the responsibility of the NYPD to provide the mayor’s security around the clock and that’s what they did,” Giuliani spokesperson Maria Comella told CBS News.

But the question isn’t about his security detail. It’s about how the expenses were billed.

Here at TPM we’re drilling into the Shag Fund story, as homage to Rudy, you might say. But a lot of what we do here is a collaborative effort. So I wanted to map out some of where we think the road map is for further reporting.

If you look at Rudy’s response in the video clip immediately below, he basically concedes he was visiting his then-mistress Nathan. He says that if the money for his trysts were secreted away in funds for the disabled or indigent defense, that was something the police did, not him.

Well, let’s ask the police. Two ways to approach this. You can ask the NYPD today — is it true that the NYPD did this on its own initiative? Did that violate any rules? Why did they do it? Had the police detectives who decided to charge Rudy’s tryst visits to the fund for the disabled discussed with Rudy the need for discretion and secrecy?

You can also ask the folks there at the time. Same questions for them.

I find it hard to believe the police would come up with and pull these accounting shenanigans all on their own. But that’s Rudy’s story.

And what about this claim from a Rudy aide …

Later, an aide said that for accounting purposes, the expenses appear to have been temporarily allocated to city offices and paid for out of the mayor’s budget but that the police department ultimately picked up the tab and reimbursed the mayor’s office at the end of each year.

Is that true? It should be possible to clear that up pretty easily. Was it all reimbursed? Or did the workaround-with-reimbursement have the effect concealing what the money was used for while still making the various disability and indigent defense funds whole?

Just a matter of asking the questions.

Special thanks to TPM Reader PS flagging it.

Perino: White House “doesn’t seek” permanent bases in Iraq. But if they insist, what are we going to say?

TPM Reader VW passes on this link to the earlier Vanity Fair article on the Rudy/Judi affairs that estimated the trysts cost the city about $3000 a pop. But it seems like that was just for the security detail, not the transportation, frills or special prizes.

As I noted earlier, Rudy isn’t denying that he had the city pay for his trips out to the Hamptons to weekend with his then-mistress Judi Nathan, along with picking up the tab for his security detail. That point actually isn’t even news. It was reported at the time in the NY Post and more recently in Vanity Fair.

The key is whether he hid the costs he was billing the city, putting them off as costs for people with disabilities (not sure if Rudy wants to go there in this case) or indigent defense.

But why didn’t they just have their trysts in the city.

Well, you must not have been paying close enough attention. Before 9/11, the city of New York set up an emergency command center in the World Trade Center complex, actually in building 7. After 9/11 this was a matter of some controversy since it obviously wasn’t usable on the day of the attacks. (Building 7 eventually collapsed late in the day on 9/11.) And while no one could have predicted 9/11 precisely, there was a certain gap in logic in building the command center in what had already proven to be a top terrorist target.

However that might be, earlier this year it emerged that Rudy actually spent a lot of time in his personal quarters in the command center pre-9/11 because that’s where he took Judi for their snogfests while their relationship was still a secret.

In fact, it gets better. While it’s difficult to prove, there was a decent amount of circumstantial evidence — and some city officials believed — that Rudy’s reason for wanting the center in building 7 was so that he could walk there easily from city hall for his trysts with Judy.

So just how do we judge the price NYC paid for the Judi affair?

Rudy says Dems may be behind the Shag Fund story.

Along those lines, Rudy’s just gone on the air with a new ad flagging his fiscal responsibility and work to make “government more accountable.”

$3,000 in security costs per shag? Sounds like a big spender …

Dana Perino tap dances through the naval standoff with China . . . Musharraf . . . Iraq War funding . . . and executive privilege claims in the USAs probe, all in today’s White House press briefing:

We knew that Rudy eventually had Judi Nathan assigned her own NYC police security detail. Now it seems that while their affair was still a secret and while Rudy was still married, he set his mistress up with her own personal driver and NYC-taxpayer funded car to get around town.

Hints at a question a few readers have posed — do we really know all those hidden away bills were for Rudy and not Judi?

Whack-job GOP congressman (Hoekstra) was Joe Klein’s source for error-filled column.

Heckuva job …

Late Update: Remember, Hoekstra was the guy claiming that there were elements in the CIA in league with al Qaeda.