I've been watching Rudy Giuliani since long before 9/11, so the right wing media-enabled resurrection of Herr Rudi came as no real surprise. I believe the Republicans are willing to kill, and I believe Rudi is willing to kill, so I think he is a star there.
There remains one big problem for Rudi, though, as he ascends to the top of the national stage: his tax returns. Rudi is a brazen character assassin, as with Michael Moore, but it was Rudi who reached down into the rubble of 9/11 and pulled out green. Lots of green.
I'm going to do a "back of the envelope" calculation and pull a number out of my butt: $100 million. I believe Rudi has made that much money, or more, "consulting" since 9/11. I believe we could estimate how many hours he might have spent actually working on projects, and come up with an hourly rate of compensation of around $50,000. Or more.
And a large part of that was from taxpayers, here and abroad.
I think Republican elites have been aware of this issue for some time. In fact, I think the response of the WSJ editorial page to the Bernard Grasso-NYSE situation, supporting a man making as much money as he can despite working for a de facto public entity, was laying the groundwork for later arguing the same privilege for Giuliani.
If Rudi goes thru channels, he will have to disclose his tax returns, and I believe this is a problem for him, much as disclosure was a problem for Bernard Kerik, who, like Rudi, ruthlessly clawed his way to the top then sucked the public till as dry as he could.
So, here is my conspiracy theory: Dick Cheney will resign within one year, for health reasons, and Giuliani will be appointed Vice President. The Senate will amend the disclosure rules, claiming an emergency "wartime appointment" and appoint a "select" committee to peruse Giuliani's tax returns in private and to pronounce them satisfactory. The right-wing media will itself pronounce this issue as "already vetted" during the 2008 Presidential campaign.
We'll likely never fully understand just how good "Big Government" was to yet another Republican.