A Night of Touch Football

Yesterday it was 17-year-old Caroline Giuliani proclaiming her allegiance to Obama on Facebook. Now comes 21-year-old Andrew Giuliani, talking to ABC's Jake Tapper:

" 'I love my sister very much and I respect her opinions,' Andrew Giuliani told ABC News. 'One of the great things about our parents is they've always encouraged us to see the world for ourselves.'

"If the kind words about his father are surprising after news in March that the former New York mayor was estranged from his children -- following a very public divorce from their mother, Donna Hanover -- aspiring golf pro and Duke University junior Andrew says they shouldn't be.

"He says he's spoken to his father since media reports about tensions between the two of them and says that relations were never all that bad. 'That story was overdone,' he says. 'It was nowhere near as bad as the story made it sound.'

"Andrew . . . says his dad would be a 'great president. He's my father. He's my blood. Whatever differences we might go through -- that any family might go through -- I still support him and want him to be the best he can be. Just as I want my sister to be the best she can be, and just as I want my mother to be the best she can be.' "

For the record, it was Andrew himself who told the New York Times in March that he and his father had recently tried to reconcile after not speaking "for a decent amount of time. There's obviously a little problem that exists between me and his wife. And we're trying to figure that out. But as of right now it's not working as well as we would like.''

Also, Joannie C. Danielides, a spokeswoman for Caroline, said: "Before the presidential campaign got under way, Caroline added herself to a list on Facebook as an expression of interest in certain principles. It was not intended as an indication of support in a presidential campaign and she has removed it."

"Certain principles"? As opposed to the principles espoused by her dad?

Caroline isn't the only disaffected person in Rudy's orbit. London's Sunday Telegraph has an interview with Jerome Hauer, New York's former emergency services chief:

"Mr Hauer, who now runs a consultancy firm, said that the former mayor vetoed his proposal to site the emergency command centre in Brooklyn as he wanted it to be within walking distance of his City Hall offices in Manhattan.

" 'Rudy would make a terrible president and that is why I am speaking now,' Mr Hauer told The Sunday Telegraph. 'He's a control freak who micro-manages decision, he has a confrontational character trait and picks fights just to score points. He is the last thing this country needs as president right now.' "

And the inevitable third-wife question: "Rudy told me to find a role for Judy. She came along to some meetings and her heart was in the right place, but it's baloney to suggest she ran the centre. And now he says he would take her advice on chemical and biological terrorism? Give me a break."