If Rudy Giuliani can be half as criminal and corrupt while president as his tax-evading public fraud-committing police commissioner Bernie Kerik was back in the day, American will finally be safe. Or so he said to the AP, in yet another installment of our favorite series, "Rudy Giuliani defends his indefensible friends with vague platitudes about about mistakes and forgiveness."

But Kerik is somehow even more radioactive than the boy-fondling priest, so Rudy just sticks with the "rogue cop who played by his own rules" defense. Sure, he's under investigation for multiple felonies, but he personally locked up all the black people in the jail he named after himself, leading to an historic drop in crime that has nothing to do with any other factors.

''Sure, there were issues, but if I have the same degree of success and failure as president of the United States, this country will be in great shape,'' Giuliani said, threateningly.

Then he said, "'When you do a lot of things, there are more things where you've made mistakes."

Giuliani Praises Kerik's Crime Results [NYT]