AND I HEAR THE PERSON WHO MADE RUDY'S ROCKETTE COSTUME SENT HIS DAUGHTER A VERY NICE GINGHAM DRESS

I missed Liz Smith's decision to publish utterly implausible propaganda in her New York Post gossip column last Thursday:

JUDI GIULIANI GIVES

... Here's the rumor du jour on Rudy Giuliani and his snappy and with-it wife Judi. 'Tis said that Mrs. Giuliani has on several occasions sent Rudy's estranged two (almost grown) children Bibles as gifts. The other part of the story? That the children have always sent them back.

Wow. What red-state-bred campaign operative wrote that and spoon-fed it to Liz? City-slicker Judi given Bibles as gifts -- cue the Carter Family tunes! And those kids Rudy doesn't speak to? They're ungrateful Bible-haters in the grip of Satan!

(Both Judi and Rudy were raised Catholic well above the Mason-Dixon line. So was I. Northern Catholics own Bibles, but I've never known one to give a Bible as a gift. And I'm thinking of working-class Catholics who've mostly been married once at most.)

This item didn't get a whole lot of notice, though, per the item's sidebar, it's reportedly the most e-mailed Liz Smith story right now. Successful propaganda or not, it's incredibly cynical. Hey, Liz, I hope the check cleared.