Rudy Giuliani needs some help from a qualified attorney and a therapist. On Sunday, Giuliani made an appearance on Howard Kurtz' show to spin Trump's admissions of guilt and try to normalize that which should never, ever be normalized.
But the most remarkable moments in this interview concern Giuliani's introduction of printouts from a site called "HopelesslyPartisan," run by marketing researcher Ken Berwitz. Berwitz' claim to fame in the political sphere is co-authoring a book called "The Hopelessly Partisan Guide to American Politics: An Irreverent Look at the Private Lives of Republicans And Democrats" in 2006. His partner on that project has written on deep topics like "The Baby Name Survey Book," "Do You Treat Your Pet like It Was Your Child?" and "Do You Admit Not Making Love on Your Wedding Night?"
True masterpieces of marketing research, but a little light on political analysis. Still, that hasn't stopped Berwick from grabbing some People Magazine dirt on Hunter Biden and quoting it on his website, imagining that Hillary will leap into the 2020 fray, and slapping Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff around. It's really just a factless blog with lots of opinion and little else. Typical winger production, honestly.
But watch Rudy start reading these blog posts like they're sworn affidavits. It's actually disturbing. Howie Kurtz is a hack, but even he should know better. Alas, no.
Howie did try to ask some questions, like whether Rudy realized that his involvement in things the government should have been doing made it seem "more political." Giant Ego Giuliani had to, he says, because no one else was doing it. Jeebus, man.
He then tried to tell Kurtz that the whole Biden affair was "covered up."
"CNN put out a report that said the allegations against Biden are not supported by anything," Rudy rambled. "Yes, they are."
"They're supported by three affidavits," he continued, holding up the pages from the Hopelessly Partisan website. "That's a lot better than whistleblowers. Three affidavits from Ukrainian prosecutors who say Joe Biden bribed the president of the Ukraine [sic]."
I mean, are we stupid???? Waving around pages from a winger website and calling them affidavits does not make them affidavits. Also, here are the facts on the so-called "bribe" via The Washington Post:
In a 2018 appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations, Biden bragged about his role in Shokin’s removal, saying he had withheld $1 billion in loan guarantees as leverage to force action. But Biden was carrying out a policy developed at the State Department and coordinated with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.
The Ukrainian prosecutor was regarded as a failure, and “Joe Biden’s efforts to oust Shokin were universally praised,” said Anders Aslund, a Swedish economist heavily involved in Eastern European market reforms. Getting rid of Shokin was considered the linchpin of reform efforts, but U.S. officials had a list of changes the government needed to make before it could obtain another loan guarantee.
Loan guarantees are not military aid. And Biden was acting in accordance with international partners.
It's clear from these bonkers interviews that Rudy is supposed to be Trump's fixer. But he's not fixing anything, he's just making everything worse. If he thinks the viewing audience is so stupid that he can wave around printouts from a third-rate winger blog and magically turn them into affidavits, he needs a mental health evaluation, too.
