Dontcha Just Loooooove The Smell of Jiffy Pop In the Morning?
Here at The Group News Blog, I do freely admit to taking exceptional interest in the Presidential campaign of one Rudolph W. (And the “W” stands for “Would you wear these pearls with this dress?”) Giuliani. As a lifetime New Yorker who lived under the lead thumb of his mayoralty, and saw close-up as many New Yorkers did, just how effortlessly Damien/The Omen-level evil the man could be towards people of color, political opponents, or damn near anyone who dared disagree with him, I have given him and his blitzkrieg campaign a special level of interest.
He is an exceptionally venal being, who when he wasn't surrounding himself with fearful supplicants, filled his comrade gaps with nearly equally shady bottom-feeders, just as power-mad as he, and as willing as he was to subvert any rules that limited that power and access to the perks of power.
Just last Friday his fellow grab-assing Lothario Bernard Kerik was indicted on sixteen counts in Federal Court—including mail fraud, wire fraud, tax fraud and conspiracy. Everything except for shooting a man in Reno just to watch him die...but hey, the investigation continues apace. We took Rudy to task on that here on Monday.
But it was the first post here on Rudy that set the hook in him, and ever since we have not let him shake the barb. That first post, “Take A Number Ya'll—All 54,337 Of You dealt with the numerous people ducked in the bushes with blowguns trained on Rudy and how they could in a slow, methodical way take him down. We've already seen New York's firefighters and Rudy's kids fire warning shots into the air on him, but it was a comment here by the on-the-case Julia over at Sisyphus Shrugged that stands out now—a warning about someone else who could make Giuliani's life difficult. The prediction now sits there, big and bold and as obvious as a a Broom-Hilda zit on a supermodel's face.
You forgot Judith Regan. Judith Regan got kicked to the kerb, and she's Pissed.
julia / Homepage / 07.05.07 - 1:53 pm
To which I replied:
julia:
You know...I seriously considered Regan for the list, but part of me said she's such “damaged goods” and straight-up batshit, that it could be a wash.
But your comment got me to thinking again...She's so slimy, so venal, and plugged into so much that is slimy and venal, that she could have at her fingertips/rolodex some really damaging stuff on him. Who knows what crazy shit Bernie could have blurted out while getting...um...you know...
The lady followed up with this bon mot:
(From Think Progress: [A]ccording to Kerik’s former girlfriend, the book publisher Judith Regan, this friendship could come back to haunt Giuliani’s campaign. She told one of my tnr colleagues that Kerik and Giuliani would frequently discuss “sketchy” activities in her presence “as if I weren’t there.” Regan told my colleague that she would reveal the contents of the conversations in the event that Giuliani’s presidential campaign took off. (Of course, Regan has her own scandal-ridden past. But she also has enough p.r. acumen and notoriety to win an...
I've always suspected that most of the scorpion tail action of karma operates by letting you live smack in the center of the life you've built for yourself.
julia / Homepage / 07.05.07 - 5:15 pm
Cue the news breaking late last night—transcribed from Countdown with Keith Olbermann;
KEITH OLBERMANN: Judith Regan, the high-profile book publisher and editor, suing Rupert Murdoch's News-Corp, and claiming one of NewsCorp's executives wanted her to lie about her affair with Bernard Kerik, to federal investigators who were vetting Kerik, in order to protect the presidential aspirations of Kerik's benefactor, Rudy Giuliani. An allegation that News-Corp tried to suborn perjury to benefit Giuliani... and that there is evidence to prove that. There are few details... but we'll bring you more of them, and some reaction, in a moment.
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...Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. where she worked, asked her to lie about her affair with Bernard Kerik while Kerik was being vetted as the nominee to head Homeland Security, in order to protect Rudolph Giuliani's Presidential aspirations—and oh, by the way, her lawyers tells The Times she can prove this.
And as noted above, from The New York Times today:
“Defendants were well aware that Regan had a personal relationship with Kerik,” the complaint says. “In fact, a senior executive in the News Corporation organization told Regan that he believed she had information about Kerik that, if disclosed, would harm Giuliani’s presidential campaign. This executive advised Regan to lie to, and to withhold information from, investigators concerning Kerik.”
One of Ms. Regan’s lawyers, Brian C. Kerr of the firm of Dreier L.L.P., said she had evidence to support her claim that she had been advised to lie to federal investigators who were vetting Mr. Kerik and who might have sought to question her about their romantic involvement. But Mr. Kerr declined to discuss the nature of the evidence.
And finally from NY's Channel 7 11 O'Clock Eyewitness News:
LIZ CHO (REPORTER): Claims of a cover-up tonight against one of the biggest and most conservative media empires in the world, to protect the Presidential ambitions of Rudy Giuliani. Judith Regan, a celebrity book publisher claims in a 100 million dollar lawsuit that News Corp. encouraged her to lie to Federal investigators about her intimate relationship with Bernard Kerik when he was up for Homeland Security Chief. She claims it was it was an attempt to protect the political aspirations of Giuliani who appointed Kerik Police Commissioner.
Of course a month after her first prescient comment, and three months before this broke last night, Julia peered into the crystal ball again and hit paydirt:
“...As you may recall from the unpleasantness surrounding Mr. Kerik's* ladyfriend Judith Regan (the woman with the OJ book), HarperCollins is owned by Rupert Murdoch. Mr. Murdoch also owns conservative id machine Fox News, activist right wing advocacy organ the New York Post, and now long-time Giuliani supporter the Wall Street Journal.”
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“Mr. Murdoch is known to be very involved in setting the political direction of news coverage by his properties.
This is increasingly not looking like a good thing for Mr. Giuliani.”
Oh, my. It would appear that the other crazy Judith in Rudy's life, this one being Ms. Regan, could indeed play her “woman scorned”/“abandoned-by-all her-friends-who-are-tight-with-Rupert” card right into total “I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down” mode.
This one...could get verrrrrry ugly, as I imagine she does indeed have some seriously damaging shit on our “Three Amigos”—Rudy, Bernie, and Rupert. She's as crazy as a bat on meth, but she's an ace at plying her trade—which is obtaining, handling, and deftly deploying information. Rupe and the suits had better pony up the dough...some serious dough to this woman, because she ain't no Goddamn piker—she's a cornered, feral wildcat...with rabies. You might manage to net her, but you could lose an eye, a lot of blood, and need 16 rabies shots in your gut when it's all said and done.
If that is, she's in the mood to settle. Can you imagine the money she'd get for a book where she drops dimes, quarters and big, fat Sacajawea dollars all over those three? Fuck Kerik—he's penny-ante in this. She could wreck a Presidential campaign, (“Dont worry about me Regan! Don't worry about me! I'm Rudolph William Louis Giuliani! I'm no cheap crooked politician!”) and if you'll pardon my saying so,“ratfuck a network like it's never been fucked before”. The hell with “RatherGate”—we're talking about network honchos pressing her to lie to the Feds. Yikes!
Thus the popcorn graphic, Ladies and Gents. Sit back and watch this one play out. It could be lots of cheap, but entertaining, WGA-free (and Fred Thompson-free) courtroom procedural fun. Extra buttah, please!
Oh, and not like I'm pushing Ms. Regan one way or another, but I think she would just loooooove this wonderful rendition below of a song that I think resonates for her...perfectly.
“Jiffy Pop, bitches!”
UPDATE:
In a phone conversation with a lawyer friend this morning (who's had some dealings with the NBA), he said the following:
Fox HAS to settle this. THEY HAVE TO! You don't mess around with someone like this who's...
a.) got it in for you, and
b.) has even the remotest bit of evidence to support her claims.
This is the same situation Marv Albert was in during his trial for sexual assault against Perhach (Vanessa). Bad enough she laid it out there about him biting her all over the place, and the rough sex too—which kind of got lost in the shuffle of their having a 10-year long tryst-thing, but what really killed him was her getting pissed thathe was gonna marry someone else, and then out of spite she revealed during discovery about Marv's odd predilection for “drag” during sex. Discovery's where all the bad hearsay and tangential shit comes out. He settled up right quick after the “garter belt and panty” thing got out.
The same thing happened in the (NY Knicks Coach) Isiah Thomas/Cablevision sexual harassment trial where Anucha Brown (the plaintiff) wrecked Cablevision, Thomas, (and star point guard) Stephon Marbury with that nasty stuff found out in discovery. Again. The company loaning out interns as sex toys to players? Zeke's (Isiah's) fucked-up statements about Black women? And then Cablevision got exposed as covering their asses when it got hot, by firing the woman. And then they lost the fucking case! 10 million dollars—cut a check!
Team signs a guy to the worst NBA contract ever—a scrub (Allan Houston) for 100 million dollars and justifies it, but they couldn't settle with Anucha Brown for 4 million? Lost the case, damaged the Cablevision brand—further, coach is on the hot seat with protesters threatening to picket the Garden...and now Marbury's bolted the team and is probably gonna be traded for a bag of balls and a Kurt Rambis throwback jersey.
They need to NOT fuck with Regan. She knows too many people. She's not some middle management exec like Brown, or a jilted nobody like Albert's woman. She's a major media player. She cut book deals with superstars and knows everybody THEY know. The names in her Blackberry contact list should make these people pee in their pants. This can't go to trial. It just can't. They need to settle up, apologize and let her walk away like at the end of Chapple's Show goin' “I'm rich, bitch!”
He's right. I doubt they (FOX) can do too much to damage her without her nailing them on all manner of shit should she opt to play batshit-league hardball. And they'd better pray that money and an apology matters to her, and that she's not on some scorched-earth Abigail Williams/Crucible campaign. 'Cause if she is...
P.S. Speaking of Hardball, I imagine Chris Matthews will find some way to spin this as “Good for Rudy” in between teeth-grinding and quiet Depends™ filling sometime today. Bank on it.
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