The OTHER Other Woman

Finally, someone other than Wayne Barrett (and New Yorkers) is talking about Rudy Bada Bing! and Christyne Lategano.

Christyne Who?

If you don't know who Cristyne Lategano is, take a gander at any one of these NY Magazine articles or this more succinct sum-up of the whole sordid affair from a TPM reader:

...the Lategano affair embodies the very worst of Rudy -his penchant for mixing private relationships with public business, his duplicity, and his cronyism. Giuliani had an affair with a (much younger) subordinate, and then pensioned her off on the public dime....At least Lewinsky was an *unpaid* intern.

Remember the howling because Vernon Jordan tried to get Monica a crummy little job at Revlon? Rudy got Lategano a gig running NYC & Company, the city's powerful convention and visitors bureau. As far as I knew, she was still running the place, but she moved on in 2006.

By the way, the reason Lexis searches turn up little on Lategano is that she appears to have dropped "Lategano." She was Christyne Ford Lategano until she married and became Christyne Lategano-Nicholas. Lately, though, she's Christyne L. Nicholas.

I can't imagine why.

I remember a New York Magazine article about Lategano from way back when she was Rudy's communications director. I can't find it online, but the gist of it was that the entire NY press pack hated her because she was so aggressive and nasty while running interference for Rudy.

But Lategano's bitchery isn't the relevant part of the story. Neither is Rudy's philandering. What's relevant is that Rudy set Lategano up with a sweetheart gig for which millions of NY taxpayers were stuck with her $150,000 per year (at the outset) salary.

Sound familiar? Yeah, yet another example of how Rudy was Bush before Bush was Bush. It's about time America understands that.