I really, really have to stop putting up posts about Bernie Kerik -- though, as James Wolcott put it a couple of days ago, "The juicy stories keep popping out of the NY tabloids and the blogs like clowns from a clown car."

Now we hear from Judith Regan, via the New York Post. She fell for the big lug, knowing he was married; when she broke it off, she says he stalked her:

"She did the math," said a pal. "She said she wanted to break it off, and Kerik did not want to and he got crazy.

"She didn't take his calls and he showed up at her apartment in person, ranting and raving. Coming home from a night out, he'd be there unexpectedly."

Worse, she said he threatened to poison her relationship with her two children, over whom Regan had waged, and won, an epic custody battle....

Sweet guy, if this is true. Just the guy you want in a sensitive government position.

Andrea Peyser, the writer of the Post story, assures us that he's made a nice recovery, however:

Lately, Kerik seemed to have rebounded. Earlier this year, I spotted him having dinner at Fresco's with another, fatter man and a pair of blond twentysomethings in skin-tight jeans and fur coats.

Two guys, two young broads. Family values! Ba-da-bing!

OK -- I'm just gossiping here.

You want policy implications? I really think there are policy implications (besides the fact that Giuliani's bid to become president in '08 is now on life support -- he's brought shame and dishonor on the GOP "family," as I'm sure Bush, his padrone, has told him in no uncertain terms).

You remember the New York Times story I talked about on Monday, the one that said Bush didn't understand how a guy like Giuliani could let his personal life become the stuff of tabloids? Well, now it's happening to Kerik. You want to know what Bush thinks the problem is?

I think Bush thinks the problem is us. I think he thinks the problem is coastal, blue-state culture. We carry on, then we prattle on about carrying on. We sin -- and, yeah, people sin in the red states, but nobody talks about it, so in effect it really doesn't happen.

I think, as a result of this Kerik mess, Bush is going to decide he was right all along -- that we're really screwed up in the blue states and we deserve the back of his hand. We don't deserve more homeland security money. We don't deserve to continue deducting state and local taxes on our federal tax forms, a deduction that we benefit from more than red-staters.

****

One last thought: Here are some details about Judith Regan, from the Post story:

Regan [is] as volatile, driven and foul-mouthed as any man....

The Kerik-Regan pairing may look unlikely — she's Vassar-bred, he's a high-school dropout. But two friends used almost identical terms to describe the duo. "They are male and female versions of the same people," they said of the "power-addicted" couple....

Oddly, she's also concerned about Kerik.

"I don't want to see him pulled apart," she said.

Her friend replied, "Why the hell is she protecting him after all this?"

Power-addicted? Tart-tongued? Well-educated? Concerned about the welfare of a man who betrayed her?

That's how the right-wingers describe Hillary. So why is the Hillary the Antichrist, but Judith Regan isn't? Why does she get to be a Murdoch-funded Clinton-basher?