Rudy Goes Off the Script (or Does He?)

Rudy Giuliani has lost his ‘08 presidential battle plan. Literally. He — or one of his aides — left the damn thing in a hotel, all 140 pages of it. It’s the front page of today’s Daily News, and the way the News presents it, there’s actually little more to be gleaned from the text than from, say, a cursory examination of public documents. We learn that Bernie Kerik, Judith Nathan, and Donna Hanover are “liabilities,” that Giuliani is losing influential money guys to McCain, and that fund-raisers will be cutely divided into “Team Captains,” “All-Stars,” and “Sluggers.”

Of course, any time something this farcical happens to a major figure, it’s a good time to dust off the old who-benefits-most meter. (Doesn’t U2 lose, and then find, the master tape every time the band has an album coming out?) But this time there appears to be no gain in it whatsoever for Giuliani’s camp, which comes across as rather hapless. Unless! Unless we put on our tinfoil hats and assume that the entire point of the largely non-damaging disclosure is this: “The document was obtained by the Daily News from a source sympathetic to one of Giuliani’s rivals for the White House.” How dare you, Giuliani’s Rival, engage in such dirty, unprincipled … oh, wait. We see.

Revealed: Rudy’s ‘08 Battle Plans [NYDN]