Sanctuary From the Facts?

At the New Republic, Noam Scheiber gives Romney and Rudy mixed grades:

"I thought Romney hit the right note on immigration, at least from the perspective of GOP voters. His response to Giuliani's accusation that he operated a 'sanctuary mansion'--a reference to having illegal aliens do some work around his house--was persuasive. It does seem a bit much to suggest, as Rudy did, that you should be responsible for whether or not a contractor you hire might be employing illegal aliens--or, as Romney put it, that you should demand papers from anyone who looks a little different or speaks with an accent.

"Romney also seemed to get the better of the exchange with Mike Huckabee over making (non-citizen) children of illegal immigrants eligible for state-funded college scholarships. Huckabee offered what I thought was a wonderful, humane defense of the program--about not punishing kids for their parents' crimes, about how you'd rather have people get educations than not, etc.--but I suspect that's a step too far for most GOP primary voters. Romney's point about how Huckabee might have had great intentions, but that doesn't make it right, will probably resonate . . .

"Romney's weakest moment by far was his attempt to square his previous comments on gays in the military--that he looks forward to a day when they can serve openly--with his rightward turn on social issues. He seemed caught off guard by the question, and his response--that this is not the time to consider it--sounded like the worst of both worlds . . .

"Giuliani, as I mentioned, seemed a little over the top during the 'sanctuary mansion' attack. He also did a lousy job fielding a question about gun control--leading with the point that local governments should be able to impose some common-sense restrictions, which the gun crowd hears as code for taking their firearms away."

A new wrinkle in the Rudy/Judi story, from ABC:

"Well before it was publicly known he was seeing her, then-married New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani provided a police driver and city car for his mistress Judith Nathan, former senior city officials tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com. 'She used the PD as her personal taxi service,' said one former city official who worked for Giuliani."

Dick Polman isn't buying Rudy's attempt to explain away the original Politico story on the allocation of security costs for the mayor and his gal pal (what the New York Post dubs his "TRYST FUND"):

"What the documented evidence strongly suggests is that Rudy was tomcatting with his extramarital lover on the taxpayer's dime, and trying to cover his tracks. He and his security team repeatedly took summer visits to Southampton, the Long Island town where future third wife Judith Nathan had an apartment - there are few indications in the records that he was visiting Southampton on official business - and all the security costs were subsequently squirreled away in the budgets of obscure city offices.

"Anyway, [Anderson] Cooper asked if the squirreling was true. Rudy replied: 'First of all, it's not true. I had 24-hour security for the eight years that I was mayor. They followed me everyplace I went.' . . .

"His first sentence was a lie. The squirreling was true - because, as the Politico story made clear, the fiscal watchdogs in the city comptroller's office discovered the squirreling and tried to get some answers from the mayor. But the watchdogs were repeatedly stonewalled . . .

"The Huck got off easy . . . Perhaps Mitt and Rudy were concerned that, by assailing him, they would risk ticking off Huckabee's growing corps of religious conservative supporters. The result was that Huckabee was able to praise his own record as an Arkansas governor ('I have a great record on fiscal conservatism'), without being challenged on the facts. Huckabee bragged last night, for instance, that 'I cut 90 taxes' as governor, leaving out the fact that he also raised 21 taxes during his tenure, and presided over a net tax hike at the end of his tenure. But nobody on stage bothered to point this out."