Giuliani's Family Affair

I read John's take on Rudy Giuliani's plea to leave his family alone. I agree with that wholeheartedly. If Rudy wants to make judgments on other families, then he's going to have to deal with people judging his own family.

But there is a question - when is it appropriate to talk about a candidate's family? I think candidates do have the right to some privacy for their families, if they try to keep their family out of the limelight. But the problem for Rudy is, he put his family at the center of his campaigns and his mayoralty. The Mayor's son was out front at many of his events (Saturday Night Live did a skit mocking the Mayor and his son). He also made his divorce a very public affair. It's ridiculous now for the Mayor to ask people to respect his family's privacy, when he did no such thing during his career.