Former Christie, Palin, Giuliani mouthpiece finds religion

By Maria Boroaroma
New York Bureau Chief

You know the feeling when you started with a dozen buffalo chicken wings and Margaritas and you feel fine?  Then you go on to extra-spicy nachos and beer and feel pretty good?  Then it's fried mozzarella sticks and Jello shots and you feel OK?  But after Taco Bell and Jager bombs, the next thing you know you're on your hands and knees at the curb, returning it all to the storm drain?

Now you know how former Christie functionary Maria Comella feels.  After years of faithful service to Rudy Giuliani (the wings and Margaritas), Sarah Palin (nachos and beer), Chris Christie (the stuffed gordita and Jello shots), she's gagged on the fourth course of the Republican garbage buffet – the tangerine-faced grifter whom Republicans have chosen to represent them in the Presidential election.

According to CNN, Ms. Comella has decided that “Donald Trump has been a demagogue this whole time, preying on people's anxieties with loose information and salacious rhetoric, drumming up fear and hatred of the 'other,' . . .”

Hard to argue with her decision, although we'd have to admit that her tummy seems a little more sensitive today than it did in the service of other notable Republican assholes.

Truth be told, she survived Christie's coverup of his administration's closure of lanes on the George Washington Bridge as political payback, at least according to ABC News:

She's known for devising a plan to put the New Jersey governor's most video-worthy moments on YouTube for the entire country to see. She focuses on both the state and national communications with an eye on how a positive local story can get national play, even if it is a small moment.

When you think about all the positive New Jersey stories featuring Donald Trump's butler you read over the past few years, well, you can thank Maria.  Frankly if we were were flacking for that guy, we'd be thinking more like podcasting.

She didn't look too nauseous then.

And she certainly burnished the image of batshit-crazy homewrecker Rudy Giuliani in his hilarious run for the White House in 2008.  According to one highly-reliable blog we never heard of:

Yes, she wrote the popular “Hizzoners Highlights” daily e-mail which always brought a human, comedic touch to the campaign trail.

So it was Maria who made us think human comedy whenever we saw her creepy boss's scowling visage or his mobbed-up coatholder Bernie Kerik.

Giuliani's various fact-free rantings are too numerous to list in extenso here so we'll have to content ourselves with one item we had forgotten about, from the Oct. 31, 2007 New York Times:

“I had prostate cancer five, six years ago,” Mr. Giuliani, a Republican presidential candidate, said in a speech that has been turned into the radio commercial. “My chance of surviving prostate cancer — and, thank God, I was cured of it — in the United States? Eighty-two percent. My chance of surviving prostate cancer in England? Only 44 percent under socialized medicine.” . . .

The Office for National Statistics in Britain says the five-year survival rate from prostate cancer there is 74.4 percent. And doctors also say it is unfair to compare prostate cancer statistics in Britain with those in the United States because in the United States the cancer is more likely to be diagnosed in its early stages. . . .

Maria Comella, a spokeswoman for Mr. Giuliani, said yesterday that the 44 percent figure came from an article in City Journal, a publication of the Manhattan Institute, a conservative research organization.

“The citation is an article in a highly respected intellectual journal written by an expert at a highly respected think tank which the mayor read because he is an intellectually engaged human being,” Ms. Comella said in an e-mail message.  [Fact check: each of her last four words is false – Ed.]

That article, titled “The Ugly Truth About Canadian Health Care,” was written by Dr. David Gratzer,  . . . But the Commonwealth Fund said yesterday that Dr. Gratzer had misused its research by calculating a five-year survival rate based on data on prostate cancer incidence and mortality rates in the United States and Britain.

“Five-year survival rates cannot be calculated from incidence and mortality rates, as any good epidemiologist knows,” the group said in a statement. . . .

Asked if Mr. Giuliani would continue to repeat the statistic, and if the advertisement would continue to run, Ms. Comella responded by e-mail: “Yes. We will.”

She seemed positively radiant in her incarnation as mouthpiece for Sarah Palin.  Here in a now- forgotten moment of Palin insanity, Ms. Comella attempted to cover up Palin's effort to use her as powers as Governor to punish Alaska State Trooper Mike Wooten for divorcing one of her redneck relatives:

Asked about the e-mails, Palin's campaign spokeswoman, Maria Comella, said that Palin was merely alerting officials to potential threats to her family and that there is no evidence that Palin ever ordered Wooten to be fired.

"Let's be clear, Governor Palin has done nothing wrong and is an open book in this process. Mr. Monegan even stated himself that no one ever told him to fire anyone, period," Comella said later in a statement. "The Governor was rightly expressing concern about Mr. Wooten."

The Washington Post, Sept. 4, 2008.

We conclude with Ms. Comella's effort to summarize Governor Palin's position on climate change for The New York Times (Aug. 29, 2008):

A spokeswoman for Ms. Palin, Maria Comella, said, “Governor Palin not only stands with John McCain in his belief that global warming is a critical issue that must be addressed, but she has been a leader in addressing climate change.”

If you can swallow that, you, unlike Maria Comella, can swallow anything.