Giuliani made 40 phone calls in middle of his speeches

Okay, this little Wall Street Journal story shows just how much of a two-bit political pander Rudy Giuliani is:

A lot is going well for Rudy Giuliani's campaign. His fund raising is strong. He outstrips his GOP rivals in national polls. His speeches on taxes and health care were solid. He picked up some foreign-policy gravitas with a successful trip to London.

But there is a fly in the ointment. Even members of Mr. Giuliani's own staff are appalled at how he handled the incident in which he answered a phone call from his wife, Judith, right in the middle of a nationally televised speech to the National Rifle Association.

What was that about? Columnist Robert Novak cites "supporters from outside the Giuliani staff" who claim that taking phone calls from his wife as been "part of his political bag of tricks all year." But Mr. Giuliani's deputy press secretary Jason Miller told me the NRA incident was definitely not a stunt. Instead it was a "candid and spontaneous moment" that would humanize the tough-guy former mayor with voters.

Nice try. Just in case this isn't obviously ridiculous, Fox News commissioned a poll on the subject. It found that only 9% of Americans think a candidate should ever interrupt a speech to accept a call from his spouse.

The fact is that people inside the Giuliani campaign are appalled at the number of times their candidate has felt compelled to interrupt public appearances to take calls from his wife. The estimate from those in a position to know is that he has taken such calls more than 40 times in the middle of speeches, conferences and presentations to large donors. "If it's a stunt, it's not one coming from him," says one Giuliani staffer. "It's an ongoing problem that he won't take advice on."

And in trying to explain his odd behavior, Mr. Giuliani has only dug himself in deeper. On Friday he told David Brody of CBN News that since 9/11, when he and Mrs. Giuliani get on a plane, "most of the time . . . we talk to each other and just reaffirm the fact that we love each other." He admitted he had taken calls from his wife "before in engagements, and I didn't realize it would create any kind of controversy." That's hardly possible. Giuliani staffers say he has been warned over and over again that the phone calls are rude and inappropriate and have alienated everyone from local officials to top donors to close friends.

This is becoming more than just a simple mistake, or even a bad habit between Giuliani and his wife. I'm beginning to think that this is a political stunt to show the conservative crowds that Giuliani is a family man who tells his wife that he loves her in the middle of a speech. Why else would Giuliani take 40 phone calls in the middle of his speeches? What bothers me here is that we have a Republican presidential candidate engaging in such politically juvenile behavior, and the GOP voters are either ignoring it, or they are just dumb enough to fall for this prank.