YOU cannot libel a dead person. That was New York mayor Rudy Giuliani's hard-ball response to howls of criticism after he revealed the criminal record of a man shot dead by police in a brazen bid to divert criticism from his administration.
This week, Mr Giuliani found himself bludgeoned by his own sound-bite. Leaks from a new 'investigative biography' of his life revealed that his late father - previously described by the mayor in the most comforting of terms - in fact had worked as a thug for Brooklyn mafia figures as one of several of his family members with clear mob ties.
Mr Giuliani reached for a glib comeback once again but this time virtually conceded defeat. 'The details of his life died with him,' he said, as he sought to play down the revelations and highlight his record as one of the most successful anti-mafia prosecutors in United States criminal history. We are, of course, dealing with a new Giuliani, a formerly pugnacious Republican recently humbled by prostate cancer and an ugly public separation from his wife - troubles that forced him to pull out of his race against First Lady Hillary Clinton for the US Senate.
In this light, the latest episode is being handled by the media with a mix of disbelief and almost sympathy. 'It's Shakespeare meets Freud rendered by Mario Puzo,' one commentator said, summing up the bizarre turn of events that have crippled Mr Giuliani politically - and with considerable speed.
When Mr Giuliani used to speak about his old man, he did so with reverence, describing him as a warm guy whose honest toils as a janitor and Brooklyn barkeeper taught him the values of hard work and honesty - a 'complete man', he said on one occasion. Village Voice investigative reporter Wayne Barrett paints a different image, backing up his claims with documentation.
Harold Giuliani 'shoved people against walls, broke legs, smashed kneecaps, crunched noses', said a frequent customer at Vincent's, the Giuliani bar. 'He gave nearby Kings County Hospital a lot of business. People in the neighbourhood were terrified of him.' With a solid frame and big knuckles, Giuliani senior was sought after by street goons as hired 'muscle' for a street-level loan-sharking operation run by his brother-in-law Leo D'Avanzo. His exploits saw him sentenced in 1934 to five years' jail in the notorious Sing Sing prison in upstate New York - an incident successfully obscured until now by false names, ages and addresses.