GITMO ON THE HUDSON?

A couple of months ago I told you about Joe Lhota, a former Rudy Giuliani aide who's now running for mayor himself, as Giuliani's handpicked heir.

Well, now I see from the New York Times editorial page that Giuliani is selling Lhota as a guy who should be mayor because he'll deprive terrorist suspects of civil liberties:

Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani went to a fund-raiser on Staten Island on Monday for Joseph Lhota, his former deputy who is running for Mr. Giuliani's old job. Thanks to a blogging reporter, Jacob Kornbluh, there is video of Mr. Giuliani reprising his role as the Mayor of 9/11.

"What you want to do with a terrorist? You don't want to prosecute him and put him in jail," he said. "You want to grab him, question him, and find out who else is involved. Find out what these networks are like. That's how we prevent further attacks. And we're going in exactly the opposite direction. We need a mayor who can speak up for that. We need a mayor who understands that, from having been at my side virtually every day for 40 days, from the moment the bombs hit until the moment we left office. Joe wasn't away from me for more than two minutes."

So vote Lhota because he -- as mayor -- will unilaterally make the decision as to whether terrorism suspects get Miranda rights, or trials, presumably ever. Even though terrorism is always treated as a federal crime.

Wait, there's more:

[Giuliani] said the police need to keep stopping-and-frisking because: bombers!

Yes, he did. Here's what Giuliani said about Lhota (at about 14:15 in the video below):

He's someone who will keep this city safe from Islamic extremist terrorists, and keep this city safe from criminals. To want to do away with Stop, Question, and Frisk, at a time in which this city is being targeted by people who want to drop bombs here, makes no sense in the world.

Yup, we have to continue stopping and frisking every young black male standing on a street corner in the city because otherwise we might not spot white Chechens driving bombs into Times Square in a stolen car.

Lhota will win the GOP mayoral nomination, and I don't care who wins the Democratic nomination, because I'll vote for anyone to keep Rudy's boy out of office.