Poor Rudy just can’t catch a break this week.

This morning’s New York Times basically calls him a liar.

In almost every appearance as he campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination, Rudolph W. Giuliani cites a fusillade of statistics and facts to make his arguments about his successes in running New York City and the merits of his views.

Discussing his crime-fighting success as mayor, Mr. Giuliani told a television interviewer that New York was “the only city in America that has reduced crime every single year since 1994.” In New Hampshire this week, he told a public forum that when he became mayor in 1994, New York “had been averaging like 1,800, 1,900 murders for almost 30 years.” When a recent Republican debate turned to the question of fiscal responsibility, he boasted that “under me, spending went down by 7 percent.”

All of these statements are incomplete, exaggerated or just plain wrong.

And then the Giuliani campaign’s spin on the unfolding “Shag Fund” scandal completely blew up in their faces (via TPM).

The uproar grew Thursday over expenses for Rudy Giuliani’s protection during his trysts with Judith Nathan as his campaign’s initial defense – that its accounting methods were the same as previous mayors’ – unraveled.

Joe Lhota, a deputy mayor in Giuliani’s City Hall, told the Daily News Wednesday night that the administration’s practice of allocating security expenses to small city offices that had nothing to do with mayoral protection has “gone on for years” and “predates Giuliani.”

When told budget officials from the administrations of Ed Koch and David Dinkins said they did no such thing, Lhota caved Thursday, “I’m going to reverse myself on that. I’m just going to talk about the Giuliani era,” Lhota said. “I should only talk about what I know about.”

And all this hits after it came out that Rudy had used the NYPD as a bootie call shuttle, possibly in violation of, you know, actual laws and stuff.

It’s unclear how this will affect the race, but I’m sure it’ll be good for the Republicans.