On the matter of whether Rudy Giuliani appointed liberal judges because he had to, or not, see this March 3 post by Jim Rob and its links: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1794792/posts?page=7#7
What the article makes clear is that Rudy could have shaken up the system if he felt he had a need to. Did he have a need to?
Here, we need to look at the big picture. On occasion, the system may have forced Rudy into making unfortunate choices. He may even have made significant mistakes. (As Reagan did with O'Connor and Kennedy, or Bush did with Souter, or Nixon did with Stevens.) I think any conservative has to be amazed at how successfully Giuliani improved the circumstances of NYC, and I don't think the conservative movement is well served by fretting over whether Giuliani employed a given tactic in his efforts; the point is that his efforts were hugely successful.
It is certainly legitimate to question Rudy's adherence to conservative issues of jurisprudence. On the other hand, I doubt that mining his record on approving judges is going to prove useful. I dare say he has done a better job than his chief critic on this issue, Mitt Romney.