With some politicians, there's not a question what they are; it's just a matter of negotiating the price. In accepting Pat Robertson's endorsement this week, Rudy Giuliani would have been advised by one the wisest and wittiest of my college professors, the late Bob Rothstein, to apply what he called "the hooker principle": first, get paid.
Even John McCain, who was at the exact same moment assuming the position in order to snag the endorsement of the more dangerous but less flamboyant Sen. Sam Brownback and establish his own creds with the hard right-wing, extreme anti-choice, anti-gay Republican base, was rendered speechless at the news about the unholy alliance between Robertson and Giuliani. For bald face political two-step, Giuliani has out danced them all.
One surely hopes that Pat paid Rudy well up front in whatever value he thinks he can deliver, because Robertson's past disreputable actions certainly bring clear losses on the other side of this endorsement, as reported by The American Prospect Senior Editor, Garance Franke-Ruta.
Marc Ambinder reported this morning that Iowa Christian Alliance president Steve Scheffler is not going to follow Christian Coalition co-founder Pat Robertson's lead and support Rudy Giuliani. That's not too much of a surprise, as the Iowa branch of once-vigorous Christian Coalition was so disgusted by the scandals of the national group that it broke with the Coalition and changed its name to the Christian Alliance in March 2006, saying "the Board... would rather function as an independent organization than as an organization shrouded with perceptions contrary to its Christian commitments."
Both men would have been well served to heed Proverbs 13:20: "He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm." Certainly Pat Robertson has shown himself to be a fool many times over. Besides blaming the evils of a secular nation -- epitomized always by Rudy's New York -- for the 9/11 attacks, he famously said that the feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women, but rather about a "socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians."
But Rudy's acceptance of Pat Robertson's endorsement is equally foolish. Not only has it made utterly transparent that Giuliani isn't just a cross dresser but also a man capable of practicing the oldest profession as well as any Jezebel, it makes the press (yes, the same press that spent all last week creaming Hillary for acknowledging there was more than one way to look at a question) look foolish for trumpeting this hypocritical endorsement with too-little criticism of Giuliani's blatant doublespeak on the social issues.