GIULIANI'S FUNNY MEMORY

Giuliani's Funny Memory

When he was running for Mayor 14 years ago, Rudy Giuliani played himself in an episode of "Seinfeld" that dealt with truth in packaging. The subject matter then was the credibility of the manufacturers of a low-fat frozen yogurt.

The current front-runner for the Republican nomination for President last week ran into a credibility problem of his own related to his former pal and top-level aide, Bernie Kerik. The New York Times cited grand jury testimony Mr. Giuliani gave last year that in 2000 he had apparently been briefed by his Commissioner of Investigation, Ed Kuriansky, about Mr. Kerik's dealings with a couple of businessmen suspected of organized crime ties.

We say "apparently" because the Times story said Mr. Giuliani testified that he had no specific recollection of either the briefing or any of the details supplied by Mr. Kuriansky.

That represented a change of stance from the ex-Mayor's statements to the Times back in December 2004, when many of Mr. Kerik's questionable associations and financial transgressions began to bubble to the surface. Mr. Giuliani told the Times then that he had been unaware that Mr. Kerik had a friendship with one of the mob-linked businessmen. The ex-Mayor added, rather astonishingly, that this association would not have affected his decision to make Mr. Kerik Police Commissioner unless there was a sign of criminality.

It turns out that this was a truth wrapped in what may have been a lie about not knowing about Mr. Kerik's dealings with a suspected mob figure. (A major portion of the former Correction and Police Commissioner's guilty plea last year concerned his having had the man, Frank DiTommaso, and his brother pay for $165,000 in renovations on a Riverdale apartment that Mr. Kerik owned at the time that he was helping them to secure city business.) Because it now appears that Mr. Giuliani knew of the connection, if not the home renovation aspect of it, and it made no difference to him that his loyal aide had become friends with two men linked to the Gambino Crime Family. (The DiTommaso brothers have denied criminal ties, but they are under indictment for also denying that they paid for Mr. Kerik's apartment fix-up.)

Admittedly, Mr. Giuliani has been a busy man the past seven years. Somehow, though, it seems that getting information linking Mr. Kerik with suspected mob associates would not easily slip from his memory.

Maybe, our former Mayor has merely followed the advice of a Seinfeld character, George Costanza: "Remember, it's not a lie if you believe it's true."