The first-ever racketeering case against a securities firm also took place in 1987, when Giuliani directed a showy raid on a small investment company called Princeton/Newport. Fifty federal marshals, armed and clad in bulletproof vests, swooped down on the firm’s offices, above an ice-cream store in Princeton, New Jersey, and seized several hundred boxes of documents and tapes—evidence, Giuliani’s team of prosecutors claimed, of the firm’s conspiracy to evade taxes.

The five executives of the firm who were eventually indicted protested that the charges were really a squeeze by Giuliani. One of the defense lawyers claimed that the prosecutor’s interest was in Milken and his firm, and that he threatened, “Either you cooperate or we’re going to roll right over you.” The executives refused to help—they said they had nothing to give—and they were convicted.

The convictions were overturned three years later by an appellate judge who cast doubt on the legitimacy of the racketeering prosecution. Meanwhile, Princeton/Newport had ceased operations. “The U.S. Attorney’s Office closed down a business without really doing its homework first,” one former prosecutor in Giuliani’s office says now.

After 8 years as Mayor, the author acknowledges New Yorkers weren't sorry to see Rudy go. And that they are surprised the rest of the country hasn't seen through him.

When Giuliani’s tenure as mayor ended, in 2002, he left behind a city that was grateful, and more than a little relieved to see him go. He had achieved much of his program of radical reform, and he performed well on September 11th, but it had felt like an eight-year fistfight.

Giuliani had fought with teachers and with Yasir Arafat, with the Brooklyn Museum and with Fidel Castro, with squeegee men, tennis fans, street venders, taxi-drivers, his own police chief, and, of course, his wife. He had repeatedly chastised New Yorkers for their incorrigible jaywalking and careless bicycling. (“All of these things are part of making the city safer. There’s been a lot of ridicule about it, which is unfortunate.”) Many Manhattanites felt that when the rest of the country experienced the Rudy Giuliani they knew—the flashes of pique, the slashing remark—the celebrity glow would quickly fade.

It will happen. Like all the progressive blogs, we'll continue to follow and report on his every mis-step. Leopards don't change their spots.