Get ready for Air Rudy.
Former mayor Rudy Giuliani is in negotiations to replace to Bill O'Reilly on the radio, Page Six reported today.
The failed republican presidential candidate who may be eying a gubernatorial run in 2010 is in talks with the Westwood One radio syndicate to replace O'Reilly, who is leaving radio to concentrate on his Fox News television show.
Giuliani's office did not return Page Six's calls for comments, but even the possibility of Rudy on the radio brings to mind some of his earlier air wave misadventures and colorful off-air quotes. He certainly can match O'Reilly when it comes to put-downs and all-around combativeness.
Who could forget the time when a caller on the mayor's old radio program called in with a question about ferrets, and the mayor mocked him as "deranged."
"There is something really really very sad about you," Rudy told the caller. "You need help. You need somebody to help you. The excessive concern with little weasels is a sickness."
When a man with Parkinson's disease called the Rudy's radio program to complain about losing benefits, the mayor called him crazy because of the way he spoke. In fairness to the mayor, the caller, John from Queens, did call him the "biggest criminal in the city."
"There's something really wrong with you, John—I mean, there really is," the mayor said. "I can hear it in your voice. Why don't you stay on the line, we'll take your name and your number, and get you psychiatric help, 'cause you seriously need it."
Or how about the tragic police shooting of Patrick Dorismond, who was unarmed and committed no crime? After unsealing his juvenile record, the mayor said Dorismond was no "altar boy." Dorismond was in fact an altar boy and the city ended up settling that case for $2.5 million.
Other questions come to mind. Will Giuliani prove Vice President-elect Joe Biden's devastating campaign trail quip to be true?
"Rudy Giuliani I mean think about it," Biden said during a Democratic primary debate. "Rudy Giuliani. There is only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun a verb and 9/11. There's nothing else."
And will he answer cell phone calls from his wife when he's on-air? He famously took Judy Nathan's call during a campaign trail speech before the National Rifle Association.
