You Did Not Deserve Rudy (A Requiem): You bastards. Here we are, well into the 21st century, six or so years into what Patrick Ruffini, on the blog of Hugh Hewitt, a man whose smile rests in some discomfiting netherworld between guy-who-masturbates-under-his-desk and child molester, calls "the transcendent issue of our time," which, one presumes is eternal war, motherfuckers, with the brown people. Hewitt and Ruffini and Fox "news" and Chris Matthews and so, so many other wannabe tough guys and gals swooned over Rudy Giuliani because Rudy, alas, sweet Rudy, he stood tall as the Twin Towers fell. And somehow, despite the fact that he had no actual experience in actually fighting any enemy more powerful than a capicola-stuffed Mob enforcer and a homeless car window washer, he made all of them believe that because he was too stupid and arrogant to wear a mask at Ground Zero, he would be a great warrior. Goddamn, how cheap our heroes come in these Bush-befouled times. Oh, poor America, how bereft we are this morning, how we have abandoned our Rudy, the man we have been told again and again is mayor to all of us, an appellation shoved down our throats like so many other lies, like WMDs and yellowcake uranium and "Dead or Alive" threats. Rudy, our shiny-domed savior, yes, deigned to lower himself from his six-figure speaking gigs and at least distance himself from the security consulting firm that bears his name in order to run for President, not for Rudy, no, but for you because, obviously, the nation was clamoring for a man who believes so much in marriage he's done it three times, a man who was brave enough to observe homosexuals in their dens of sodomy, a man who understood women because he put on lipstick and gold lame' and let a rich dude rub his fake tits, a man who was so tough on crime and so in touch with the zeitgeist on enhanced interrogation techniques that he could dismiss the wooden stick rape of a prisoner by New York cops, a man who prized loyalty above competence because independent thinking and accountability merely get in the way of one's goals, a man who understood how the economy works by making multi-million dollar lemonade out of the 9/11 lemons, a man who...god, one could go on. Well, apparently not. Apparently, once people realized that Rudy Giuliani was a creepy, conniving, vindictive, incompetent, profiteering, self-aggrandizing, fearmongering motherfucker, a cocksucker of epic proportions whose gum-curling, face-eating grin made old people have heart attacks and babies cry, a tiny, scared lizard who swelled his cheeks to make himself look bigger than he was, well, they decided that, even though Rudy was walking on the earth, even though Sean Hannity and the rest of the Fox "news" cult were turning tricks for their Rudy pimp, America should not put its tenuous fate in the gnarled claws of the guy whose actual record on preventing terrorist attacks is somewhere between benign neglect and active harm. At least in this instance, God, Allah, Buddha, whoever or no one blessed us. No, no, you did not deserve him. However awful we may have behaved in this America, we did not deserve Rudy as our fate. Now Rudy can slink back to his cushy life with his codependent wife, get ready to be called to account when Kerik's on trial, and go fuck himself with his World Trade Center models. Rudy has lost in a hand of Florida Hold 'Em, the all-in bet where he was dealt a pair of aces and the flop, the turn, and the river were all fives, sevens, and jacks. Watching Rudy's stunning swan dive turn into one of the worst belly flops in recent political history has been marvelous. Dancing on his grave? Ask the firefighters, the cops, and the 9/11 families. That shit's fuckin' priceless.