Sex Offender News: Pedophile Attempts Self-Castration To Keep Himsef From Offending Again;
Rudy Unapologetically Employs Priest Defrocked For Molestation

Snip.

A convicted sex offender tried to castrate himself with a knife after apparently having an urge to offend again.

After the 59-year-old Springfield man severed one of his testicles and flushed it down a toilet, he called a friend for help. Paramedics arrived and treated him for his injuries, and he was rushed to the hospital, the Springfield State Journal-Register reported. Police would not identify the man, but say he is expected to survive.

The Journal-Register reports that the man told police he was feared that he was going to harm children.

His heart's in the right place, I guess. And now, thankfully, so is one of his testicles.

Rudy Giuliani, meanwhile, has decided to stop running for President of the United States and instead seems to be running for Mayor of Bizzarro-Ville.

Presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani hired a Catholic priest to work in his consulting firm months after the priest was accused of sexually molesting two former students and an altar boy and told by the church to stop performing his priestly duties.

The priest, Monsignor Alan Placa, a longtime friend of Giuliani and the priest who officiated at his second wedding to Donna Hanover, continues to work at Giuliani Partners in New York, to the outrage of some of his accusers and victims' groups, which have begun to protest at Giuliani campaign events.

"This man did unjust things, and he's being protected and employed and taken care of. It's not a good thing," said one of the accusers, Richard Tollner, who says Placa molested him repeatedly when he was a student at a Long Island, N.Y. Catholic boys high school in 1975.

At a campaign appearance in Milwaukee last week, Giuliani continued to defend Placa, who he described to reporters as a close friend for 39 years.

"I know the man; I know who he is, so I support him," Giuliani said. "We give some of the worst people in our society the presumption of innocence and benefit of the doubt," he said. "And, of course, I'm going to give that to one of my closest friends."

Jim Geraghty has analysis. It should be noted the priest was defrocked but never convicted (the statute of limitation expired before the allegations were made -- he is, legally, innocent).

I could look past this were it not for Giuliani's Death Wish style of politicking, gunning down one supporter after another as if we had all raped his daughter.

A stubborn insistence on consistency, an unwillingness to pander, loyalty to a long-time friend in a bad jam... these are precisely the attributes that will make Giuliani one of the best Bill O'Reilly guest-hosts beginning in January 2009.

I wish him luck in his new career.

I'm a bit bitter over this, the whole sad what might have been. But in the end political instincts are rather important in a politician, and it seems Giuliani doesn't have particularly good ones.

A blogger (I forget who; apologies!) had a bon mot today that I had thought of yesterday, as it turns out. Giuliani seems to believe that not pandering to his would-be voters is a reason for them to vote for him. In that case, Geraghty observes, Hillary! Clinton should be our dream candidate, as she's never pandered to us once.

Thompson, huh? Or Romney? They're not rocking my world but fine, they'll do.

Giuliani's got about two weeks to contrive a reason why he's reversed himself on abortion (at least on Roe v. Wade, which even liberal scholars admit is a horribly reasoned opinion) and immigration, or his star is about to fall from the sky. Hard. Leadership matters, yes. So does his managerial experience. So does his laudable record on taxes, crime, taking the Islamofascist threat seriously, and telling the NYT to go fuck itself.

But God, gays, guns and now immigration are serious hot-button issues, and he just will not be nominated if he continues to be defiant in the face of orthodox Republican policy preferences.

On the first three of those issues I'm a squish to one degree or another, and so, honestly, Giuliani's liberal positions are actually closer to my preferences than a social cons would be. Except for one little thing: I happen to know as a fact that he cannot actually be elected being so defiantly liberal on those issues, and so I'm a bit pissed off a potentially great candidate is making himself into a very weak one.

The conventional wisdom has long held that Giuliani could not win, not still holding his old liberal beliefs so strongly, at least. That conventional wisdom is correct.

Anyone have any suggestions, here? If Rudy spoke to a Christian leadere and suddenly accepted Jesus into his life, and therefore reversed a lot of old positions, how many of you would be willing to pretend to believe him for the good of the party?

And if not... well, DeNiro says it best.

Thanks to Alice H. and Hot Air's headlines.

posted by Ace at 08:40 PM

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