Come the first few months of 2008, if you're an old-fashioned American progressive in need of entertainment, you won't be able to beat listening all over the country for heads exploding across the aisle any time Rudy Giuliani wins a Republican primary.

Not to distract from the Democrats, but for a change, nearly all the people on our side seem relatively sane, informed, and intelligent. Meanwhile, on the GOP side, they have choices ranging from a raging martinet and Gumby the Rubber-Principled Man to Frederick of Hollywood and a victim of actual torture who gets booed out of his own party's debates when he suggests it might not be such a good tactic in the supposed global war on terror.

And the man who leads the pack is Giuliani, whose entire platform for the presidency consists of "OHMYGODTHEYWANTTOKILLUS!" If the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, then the former Mayor Giuliani will be running his command center from underneath his bed.

If you've had a chance to look back at the good old, bad old days of Giuliani's years as mayor of New York, you might have been swayed by the fact that, yes, New York became a much safer, much more livable place. On the other hand, if your name was Amadou Diallo or Abner Louima, perhaps not so much. Especially with the toilet plunger sodomy part. (Don't ask me to explain-that's what Wikipedia is for.)

If you like George W. Bush-and it's hard to find anyone outside of the Malkinite loons and Weekly Standard editor Fred Barnes who does-you'll go moist over Giuliani. Arrogant? Check. Dismissive of opinions other than his own? Check. A firm believer in the use of unilateral power? Check, check, and check.

Read this excerpt from Rachel Morris' Washington Monthly article about the start of the Giuliani regime in New York:

Bush has spent his entire presidency surrounded by people selected solely on the basis of the fact that they agree with him. Giuliani's sycophants already come with a nickname: the "Yesrudys," who exist to tell him that everything he's doing is right. And with Giuliani, who will tell him that torture is wrong, that Iran is not the global nuclear threat that his crazed advisers tell him it is, that putting a "missile defense shield" in Europe right next to an increasingly antsy Russia isn't the best method of diplomacy?

But the reason you'll hear heads exploding all over the country should Giuliani start winning primaries is on the domestic front. This will revolve around the question: Do politicians really change their spots?

The gun lobby, after eight years of working right out of Bush's office, will have to get their heads around the idea that all the "gun-grabbing liberals" that they've been warning us about for the last 20 years pale in comparison to the intrusive, big government Peeping Tom that government would become under Giuliani.

As for the fundamentalist Christian right, they're already making noises about breaking off and supporting a third-party candidate if Giuliani is the nominee. The thrice-married man who appeared in drag and moved in with a gay couple when he separated from his wife will make Fred Phelps and his Ã¼ber-wackjobs at Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas declare that the end is here, and their god hates fags signs will line Pennsylvania Avenue for a Giuliani inauguration.

And think of how the supposed pro-choice Giuliani, now making sounds about how he'd nominate more Scalias and Alitos to the Supreme Court, makes the Operation Rescue crowd wonder if they should be flipping a coin on whether or not to trust him. Abortion isn't an issue you can explain away by saying "9/11" over and over again.

Giuliani might be the best entertainment we've seen in years. Me, I can hardly wait-pass the popcorn!

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About author Brian Morton is a columnist for the Brian Morton is a columnist for the Baltimore City Paper