As expected, Giuliani's best bud and his pick to head the Department of Homeland Security, Bernie Kerik, has been indicted.

A federal grand jury has voted to indict former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik on charges stemming from the acceptance of free rent and apartment renovations, tax evasion and lying on his application for the job as head of the Department of Homeland Security.

Giuliani has been thrown on the defensive over Kerik and rightfully so. Giuliani is running on his self-proclaimed competence governing New York City and his association with Kerik calls into question something that is at the heart of his competence: his judgment.

Remember, Giuliani and Kerik aren't merely buddies or former colleagues, Giuliani actually appointed Kerik to Department of Corrections commissioner in 1998 and police commissioner in 2000 before recommending him to head DHS. If a subtext to his candidacy is that he will be Bush except competent, then the compromised ethics of one of Giuliani's appointees creates an immediate psychic link with Bush, who's had so many questionable appointees himself, Kerik, briefly, among them.

Another reason the Kerik situation is difficult for Giuliani is that he can't fully throw Kerik under the bus since a reduction in crime, something the police commissioner would presumably be involved in, is one of the things Giuliani touts as a rationale for his candidacy. Post-indictment, it's clear that Giuliani is playing it as a mistake that he regrets and promises...really...won't happen again.

"You have to judge that in the overall context in everything that I did, and how many right decisions did I make and how many wrong decisions did I make," he said. "And the balance is very much in favor of -- I must have been making the right decisions if the city of New York turned around. If crime went down by 60 percent, if homicide went down by 70 percent."

"I made mistakes when I was the mayor, and I make mistakes as a candidate, I will make mistakes as a president," Giuliani said.

"The question is do I make a lot more correct decisions than I make wrong ones?

You don't really want us to answer that, do you, Rudy?

The larger problem for Giuliani is that the high-profile nature of the Kerik case is giving the media an excuse to finally start investigating Giuliani's actual record (he'll be addressing the Kerik situation on both ABC News and Nightline tonight.) This media scrutiny should make it all the more difficult for Giuliani to keep up the "America's Mayor" charade since, as we've seen in polling throughout the year, the more people get to know Rudy, the less they seem to like him.