I argued last week that Al la Pundit at Hot Air had it in for Rudy Giuliani.  Now he’s responding to the charge that Hot Air is taking pot-shots at Fred Thompson, too, “just to prove he can.”

That certainly earns my “strange new respect.”  My impression had been that, like much of the rightosphere, he was in the tank for Fred and found Rudy unacceptable for his softness on social issues. But Allah says he’s an equal-opportunity slammer; as I said in my previous post, he’s sure no partisan hack.  He’ll slime whichever Republican sticks his neck out (even if he only sticks it out a little, as Fred is doing) for whatever he deems appropriate, writing:

[O]f course we’re not trying to Kos-ify him, not only because we don’t have anything remotely near the power needed to sink any major candidate (and neither does Kos, as Joe Lieberman could tell you) but no one has any reason to want to sink him. He may well be our best shot at winning. But if he’s done something wrong, we’re going to call him on it.

Okay, so as I said, I kind of get this.  He’s being a fair broker, calling them as he sees them, and perhaps even providing a service by defusing anticipated slams from less friendly correspondents — the way lawyers use their own witnesses to testify about their own prior weakness or inconsistency and thereby soften the anticipated blow from an adversary.

But, of course, the “jury” here is mostly on one or the other side of the wall of Good and Evil, unfortunately.  Allah will get no credit whatsoever for his evenhandedness; he works for Michelle Malkin, for heaven’s sake.  (She’s even-handed too.)  So what is he accomplishing?  I’m not sure.  Certainly it’s not his, or Michelle’s, job to parrot anyone’s party line or to be a hack.  On the other hand, there are ways to acknowledge the faults of candidates that are generally acceptable to you — and who you are likely to support in the general election if they are nominated regardless of your qualms — short of calling then demagogues (as Allah did with Rudy last week).

Or is just Hot Air’s policy to be all-belligerent, all the time?  That is, after all, the mode in political blogging, by and large.  But if that’s the game plan, denying that Hot Air is just another Daily Kos (which some conservatives already have, anyway) rings pretty hollow.  Almost, like, demagogic.

I’m not sure what it is about Rudy Giuliani — his relative weakness on social conservative issues?; his personal peccadilloes?; the old comb-over? — that drives my friend Al the Pundit so bananas.  Maybe, like a lot of people, Allah has had a bad experience with a prosecutor.   But Allah just plain has it in for Rudy Giuliani, the official candidate of (social conservative) Likelihood of Success. and the candidate most likely to succeed — Fred Thompson fantasies notwithstanding — against whomever the Democrats cough up in November.

Allah goes with a fine-toothed comb through some fairly generic remarks by Giuliani about the opposition, and calls Rudy out as a “demagogue.”  But you can do this with any politician’s speeches.  I am not conceding the facts; I imagine Rudy could defend himself quite well, as some have done in the comments to the Hot Air post. But these are broad, puffy statements about the other side. To call this “demagoguery” is bordering on the ironic. What gives?

I wonder if Allah will apply the same standard to the GOP’s own candidate in the general election. He’s entitled to, and we all like a square dealer (I like Allah in general, in fact) who isn’t just a party chump. But I can’t say Allah has been all that square on the topic of Rudy Giuliani, because he hasn’t. He can’t stand the guy, and at this point, I’m not so sure he’s got anything particularly useful to add on the topic.  And that’s a shame, considering how good a blogger he is.  It’s a shame for Rudy, that’s for sure, but will others among us also regret it?

UPDATE: Are you “all the way” conservatives quite so sure Fred is the All Being you think he is? Because he’s not.