Today's Village Voice featuresa huge Giuliani story by Rudy's own personal nemesis, Wayne Barrett. According to Barrett, Giuliani's consulting contracts in the Middle East have him doing business with some close friends of Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, one of the masterminds of 9/11. Not exactly the kind of association America's Mayor wants made public five weeks before the Iowa caucuses! But the Voice isn't the only media outlet turning up the heat on Giuliani in time for primary season.

In both June and September, Vanity Fair ran pieces detailing, respectively, Rudy's nutty nature and how everyone hates his wife. VF is set to roll out another story on the Republican frontrunner in January (In the interest of full disclosure, said piece was written by my brother, Michael Shnayerson. Who also has a book coming out in January!)

Back in May, when Barrett wrote a story about some murkiness surrounding Giuliani's acceptance of four diamond World Series Yankees rings, Giuliani flipped his shit just a little. "I really would caution you that in the case of that particular reporter, he's got such an obsession that he just about never gets his facts right," Giuliani said of Barrett in response to campaign trail questions about the story. "This reporter sticks pins in a doll of me every night."

Well probably not actually, but Barrett definitely does have a hard-on for the man; the Voice's veteran staff reporter has devoted two books and 22 less-than-admiring stories on Giuliani since 9/11. No word yet as to whether The Weekly Standard or The American Spectator have any comeback pieces up their sleeves.