Rudy Giuliani is as mendaciously corrupt as a politician can get these days, which is to say, absolutely. With authoritarian tendencies bordering on the fascist, a hyper-inflated ego and a raging sense of entitlement, there’s just not much to like about him as a person or as a politician.

Except this: he knows how . . . → Read More: Will Giuliani’s lone endearing trait alienate Republicans?

Dean Barnett in the Weekly Standard continues the intellectual irreligious right’s jihad against Mike Huckabee today, following in the foosteps of his editor, Rich Lowry, and Ann Coulter at the malappropriately named Human Events.

For my money, Barnett is the clear winner in this kneecapping derby, with an entry aimed at Huckabee’s essay in . . . → Read More: Naddering nabobs, effete intellectual snobs trash Huckabee

Someone has to win the GOP presidential primaries, but it’s really tough to imagine who. My ongoing encounter with Ron Paul’s supporters tempts me to think that it might be him but I can’t, really; the numbers just aren’t there. Giuliani is tanking; McCain’s support is still limited to the press—now more enamored than ever following the Lieberman endorsement—and a smattering of aged war criminals; Tancredo is out; Alan Keyes is waaaaaay out; Fred Thompson has abandoned even the pretense of campaigning; and a couple of items we ran across today highlight the ongoing battles between Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney in their respective corners, and reality in a third.

First to Romney, and his regrettable, if understandable, tendency to regard history as a matter of convenience rather than record. In this instance, it’s a spurious reference to his father, former presidential candidate and Michigan governor George Romney, marching with Martin Luther King.

In the most-watched speech of his political career, speaking on “Faith in America” at College Station, Texas, earlier this month, Mitt Romney evoked the strongest of all symbolic claims to civil-rights credentials: “I saw my father march with Martin Luther King.”

He has repeated the claim several times recently, most prominently to Tim Russert on Meet the Press . But, while the late George W. Romney, a four-term governor of Michigan, can lay claim to a strong record on civil rights, the Phoenix can find no evidence that the senior Romney actually marched with King, nor anything in the public record suggesting that he ever claimed to do so.

Reporter David Bernstein says that the Romney campaign initially told him the event occurred in 1968 during a King visit to Grosse Pointe, Michigan, but his research shows that there was no march and that Romney did not appear with King. In an update, he adds that “[a] spokesperson for Mitt Romney now tells the Phoenix that George W. Romney and Martin Luther King Jr. marched together in June, 1963 — although possibly not on the same day or in the same city.”

Continue reading Angels drop a buck for Huck, plus: Romney redefines “with”