The legal case that you refer to is entitled The City of New York v, The United States of America, 179 F.3d 29 (2nd Cir. 1999). While the case did involve an long standing NYC policy regarding the disclosure of immigrant status, in its generic form, the case addressed a constituional issue that is very dear to the heart of many conservatives, and that is the 10th Amendment of the Constitution and the power of the Federal Government to regulate state and local concerns.
But even if Giuliani does support illegal immigration as you contend, then how does that make him any different than Presidient Bush and the significant plurality if not majority of Republicans in Congress who are willing to give legal status to illegal aliens. Indeed, if one sets aside President Bush's war on terror (for which he earns an A+) and his judical appointments (also an A+), he earns an F- in areas like fiscal restraint and shrinking the size of the Federal Government, as well as domestic leadership in the area of energy independence, tax reform, and social security reform.
My big beef with Rudy is with his abortion position, but that is only one of many issues that we have to weigh in deciding to elect a candidate. His position on homosexuality is in nothing more than political posturing to get elected mayor of a city full of democrates and homos. He is certainly not the first person to pander for votes, and there is not a candidate on the national sceen who hasn't done the same thing. I do know that the extremely liberal NYC press hated him (that's a good sign); Rudy thinks Pataki is an idiot and didn't endorse him for govenor (that's another good sign); under his stewardship, crime in NYC plunged to near record lows (another good sign), the welfare roles were purged of hundreds of thousands of deadbeats (another good sign); and NYC regained fiscal integrity (another good sign). Giuliani's divorce from psycholady, Donna Hanover is nor more relevant than Ronald Regan's divorce or Rush's two (or is it three) divorces. And while Rudy's relationship with Bernard Kerick is troublesome, there is not a politician in the world who doesn't wish they had a mulligan or two.
He doesn't support Illegal Immigration - Read my post #70. He also has said the same thing just recently.
Baloney. That may be the rationale that "conservatives" used to justify the lawsuit, but if the Giuliani administration really gave a damn about the 10th Amendment it never would have lawsuits and/or Federal legislation in any number of other areas, like: 1) Federal gun control legislation, or 2) NYC's legal challenge to the Federal welfare reform law of 1996.
And even if the City had valid 10th Amendment concerns over that immigration law, how can a former Federal prosecutor keep a straight face while he stands up and publicly announces -- after he has exhausted all legal challenges in the Federal courts -- that he's simply going to ignore the law in question?
Imagine the bizarre world in which might very well find ourselves in 2008 -- when a Democrat like Mark Warner wins a historic landslide against Republican Rudy Giuliani by running a very credible national campaign as the more conservative candidate.
My biggest problem with Rudy Giuliani is that he's an opportunistic fraud whose public record makes him one of the least appealing GOP candidates we've seen in decades, whose political background is something I would expect to find in a radical Marxist and not a so-called "conservative," and whose superficial (but important) attributes make him absolutely unelectable on a national level.
None of this is all that important in the context of this discussion, mind you -- because he ain't running in 2008.