270224539_23459691fe_m.jpg(Picture taken by suneko and posted under a Creative Commons license in Flickr. Don’t know if these little foxes are really vixens, but searching specifically for ‘vixens’ only seems to turn up the two-legged kind.)

Good morning, everyone! How’s your Saturday going so far?

While readiing a Village Voice article on the nonexistent fuse of America’s MayorTM, Rudy “If It’s Tuesday, I’m Married To Judi” Giuliani, I ran across this ad for “the Kingdom of Vixens” next to it in the sidebar:

kingdom-vixens.JPG

Well, you know what happens when you put vixens near Rudy. Which, of course, gets me thinking about Rudy’s checked marital history.  You know, the subject that David Broder won’t touch even as he obsessively harps on the marriage of Bill and Hillary Clinton?

Say what you will about the idea of staying together for the kids, but it sure looks like it worked for Chelsea: She gets along just fine with both her mom and dad.

Contrast that with Rudy’s kids by his second wife, Donna Hanover, who Rudy apparently forgot all about in his desperate testosterone-fueled midlife crisis lunge at Judi Nathan:

In a telephone interview yesterday, Andrew, a sophomore and member of the golf team at Duke University, acknowledged having had difficulties with Ms. Nathan, and said that he and his father had recently tried to reconcile after not speaking “for a decent amount of time.”

“There’s obviously a little problem that exists between me and his wife,” the younger Mr. Giuliani said. “And we’re trying to figure that out. But as of right now it’s not working as well as we would like.”

Andrew Giuliani said he would not participate in his father’s campaign, saying his devotion to becoming a professional golfer within three years allows no time for distraction.

Uh-huh. Yeah, right, Andrew.

While he would not say how long he had been estranged from his father, others close to the family said it appeared to have been for at least a year.

…Similarly, a distance appears to have developed between Mr. Giuliani and his daughter, now a high school senior who is to attend Harvard University in September.

[...]

Some campaign Web sites highlight pictures of candidates with family members, but Mr. Giuliani’s does not mention his children, though it includes photographs and mentions of Ms. Nathan.

This distancing is rather odd, considering that the kids used to be two of Rudy’s favorite props to show everyone what a kind and caring family man he was:

Mr. Giuliani once prided himself on attending all his children’s events and went to Andrew’s high school football games and Caroline’s plays. But he stopped at some point after his marriage to Ms. Nathan in 2003. He missed his son’s graduation, in 2005, and his daughter’s plays in the last 18 months, said people who attended those events.

[...]

In 1989, Ms. Hanover and Andrew, then 3, were at Mr. Giuliani’s side when he declared his mayoral candidacy. Caroline appeared with the family in campaign commercials after her birth in August that year.

When Mr. Giuliani ran in 1993, he and Andrew were featured playing baseball; Caroline appeared in a commercial blowing soap bubbles.

Then again, it’s been pretty apparent to those who’ve paid attention that Rudy, like so many other prominent Republicans, has always put his own gratification above all else, even (if not especially) his family. This 2000 CBS profile gives a quick rundown of some of the women in his life up to that time, but amazingly enough neglects to mention his first wife and second cousin, Regina Peruggi. (But of course, that only goes up to 2000. There’s been some alleged, erm, movement since then.)

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