Giuliani’s ‘surprise’ phone call

September 21, 2007

Rudy Giuliani and John McCain each addressed the National Rifle Association’s national convention today, and both had their speeches interrupted. One was legitimate; the other probably wasn’t.

McCain, for example, was talking about his support for the Bush administration’s Iraq policy when a couple of protestors interrupted his remarks. As the protestors were led out of the room, McCain leaned into the microphone and bellowed, “Well, my friends, we beat you yesterday, we’ll beat you today … And we’ll beat you tomorrow!”

The NRA crowd, which tends to endorse Bush’s Iraq policy, rose in an enthusiastic standing ovation.

Giuliani, meanwhile, got a very different interruption.

While delivering his big speech today before the National Rifle Association, Rudy was interrupted by a cell phone call from his wife, Judith Nathan. An apparently surprised Rudy told the crowd, “it’s my wife,” spoke to her for a moment, and closed the call with a touching, I’m-happily-married moment, saying, “I love you” to her in front of a crowd of gun rights types.

Is it possible that the man forgot to turn off his cell — or at least stick the thing on vibrate — while giving a major speech that could be critical to the outcome of his candidacy? Or is it possible that Judi didn’t know about the speech?

It’s hard to know for sure, but I’m going to guess that the call was staged. It was a little p.r. stunt, and a cheap one at that, so everyone could see him telling his (third) wife, “I love you,” twice, the day after a Clinton surrogate brought up his scandalous personal life.

Indeed, a different Republican presidential campaign sent Greg Sargent a clip of the last time Giuliani got a “surprise” call from his current wife.

You’ll notice, of course, that he professed his love for his wife once the applause had died down and everyone could hear it.

One hates to be cynical, but given the circumstances, and Giuliani’s shamelessness, it seems like a stunt, doesn’t it?

Why does one hate to be cynical? There might not be a more cynical guy in the world than Rudito Mussoliani.

That Vanity Fair piece on Judith Giuliani awhile back, damning in so many ways, might have hit me hardest in how they asked a mutual friend to lie about how and when he introduced the happy couple. That and how they tried to pass off Judy as the press secretary’s friend who was always in town visiting.

As Sargent, Tomasky, Wayne Barrett and others have noted ad nauseum, Rudy’s the sort of sociopath who might not even notice his own lies; like Bush, he feels entitled to rewrite the truth so it better conforms with his own special destiny, and all others be damned.

  • Rudy’s current mistress called him several times during the speech. It was on his other cellphone – that one was in his pants pocket and set to “vibrate”.

  • Is it just me?

    If someone takes a phone call when I’m there with the person, I get pretty P.O.’d

    Double it if it’s someone who you could call back.

    Pretty ballsy to do that to me if I’m attending a firearms-rights group forum.
    A cell phone is about the same size as a paper cutout’s forehead.

  • What the heck was McCain babbling about? “We beat you yesterday?” As if everyone who protests a Republican hack is the same, and as if condemning a bunch of Americans’ exercise of their right to free speech with a non-binding Senate resolution (that also, apparently, led to a one-day record in fundraising for MoveOn) somehow counts as “beating” someone? What exactly were they “beat” at?

    I’ll say one thing – he certainly knows how to bring the pander.

  • “[W]e beat you yesterday, we’ll beat you today … And we’ll beat you tomorrow!”

    I love it.

    I’m starting to think Rudy is a little short on guile. It seems like if he’s president we’re going to get maneuvered by some foreign head of state into selling them the Lousiana Purchase or something.

  • “A cell phone is about the same size as a paper cutout’s forehead.”
    Rudy’s forehead is as big as a phone booth – and perhaps just as outdated on the avenues of NYC.

  • Next he’s going to do that HBC / Tavis Smiley event, have the cell phone ring, and say, “It’s my black friend, Snoop Dogg,” right?

  • It was obviously a deceptive stunt to show a loving, family man image. I suppose there’s nothing really wrong with that but after 6 1/2 years of having our intelligence insulted on a regular basis, the last thing we need is more of the same.

  • Rudolph, this is so pathetic – I’m not even sure you get elevated to the level of a wanker this week. Shrub had some real good stuff last night to make me cringe. You’ll never be El Presidente like this. I know you are trying but you have just got to try harder. Maybe next time at the NRA, do the same thing while wearing women’s clothing! You would get my vote then for sure!

  • Oh those poor, poor, poor Dems – they just can’t get Repugs to play ball.

    I smell a rat – not that I’m too up-set about it mind you. But you got to admit it – when Warner said -some troops must come home by Christmas – poor Reid’s heart must have skipped a beat.

    Dems want to focus on the WAR – and damn those Repugs are stupid enought to play it right down to the finish line. Whatever it takes – don’t let them cross the line.

    Everytime the vote is close – I can only imagine some Dem – in Repug drag – putting in the emergency call to Darth Vader- Cheney. “We need you – hurry”.

    People who sell garbage can always be peddled garbage too. Ever notice that?

  • It was obviously a deceptive stunt to show a loving, family man image. I suppose there’s nothing really wrong with that

    Nothing really wrong with someone running for public office pulling a deceptive stunt to try to get elected?

  • With every passing day the Republican Party and their enablers prove that the man they admire most in history is Adolf Hitler, and it is his style of rule they attempt to emulate.

    So far they seem to be doing a very good job of it and I’m sure Adolf is proud of his children in the Republican Party.

  • Guiliani is a slimeball and so’s his current wife. He thinks this stunt impresses people? This makes him a family man and not an adulterer? Hasn’t he ever told his Hester Prynne NOT to call him when he’s giving a speech? Actually, she reminds me of Katherine Harris… And why’d he have a turned-on cell phone on his person in the first place?

    Well, I guess you can’t expect more from two narcissists. Wasn’t that just so precious?

  • Hasn’t he ever told his Hester Prynne NOT to call him when he’s giving a speech? — anney, @18

    That was my thought too. If I were doing something important, in public, and my husband called me and it was *not* a life-and-death emergency… I’d have bawled him out to h..l and gone, public or no public. If she couldn’t wait for a later report of “how did things go, dear?” she should have been sitting there, beaming and watching the speech for herself.

    Actually, I even wonder whether she did call him. Did anyone hear the phone ring? He could have been talking to a “dead phone”.

    As for why he pulled the stunt… It was warmly received the first time around, at a rally (see the video of the two events). People laughed and cheered him on. So he figured to do it again. And perhaps he’s just stpid enough not to see the difference between that occasion and this one.

  • Even if this was not a stunt, why the hell is this guy taking a phone call in the middle of a speech, wtf?

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  • The Daily Show made a fool of Guiliani by putting a woman’s voice insulting him on the other end of his phone conversation. If this wasn’t just as staged, would he take a call during his swearing in?

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