The great tragedy of Rudy Giuliani's precipitous decline is that The New York Times will at some point be forced to stop writing the exact same story about his campaign. In the last 5 days alone, we have read, courtesy of the Times:
--Giuliani Finds Snowbird Friends in Florida, But Is He Winning Over Voters?
None of these pieces, though admittedly fun, were as amusing as Dana Milbank's pre-mortem in The Washington Post today. As a lot of stories have noted, Jon Voight has been hanging around with the campaign, and Milbank has this priceless anecdote:
The circuits recovered in time for Giuliani to take the stage and deliver his now-familiar appeal to Florida spirit: "Let's make Florida count." Three hours later, he raised the ante in Fort Myers. Of a Giuliani presidency, he said: "It's going to be almost like having a Floridian in the White House."
If that seemed fanciful, Giuliani had the benefit of having a professional actor in his entourage. "This is great!" Voight said, after taking the stage in St. Petersburg and finding a crowd that would fit in a living room. When an even smaller audience greeted Giuliani in Fort Myers, Voight pronounced: "This is like the Beatles or something."
A tad embarrassing, to be sure, but from those who remember Voight's brilliant cameo on Seinfeld, all is forgiven.
--Isaac Chotiner