The bad news for Rudy Giuliani is that he's under attack from both the left and the right of the political spectrum.

The good news: So far, the criticism has been surprisingly weak.

Let's start with Kate O'Beirne, who has provided a conservative hit piece on the former New York City mayor in National Review. Not only is the piece light on perspective, it's patently unfair.

Here's why it's unfair: The magazine touted its cover picture of Rudy Giuliani in drag (from a comic sketch he did a few years ago in connection with a charity benefit with the New York City press core.) Online, it also provides the first few paragraphs of O'Beirne's piece, which seem like the piece could be reasonable; it points out that despite his demonstration of calm, resolution and courage during the 9/11 attacks, Giuliani is so left-wing that Republican support for president in 2008 is a ludicrous idea.

That's all most people will see: the outrageous photo and seemingly even-tempered prose.

But once you plunk down the $3.95 for the print issue, to read O'Beirne's piece in its entirety, you see why NR editors may not have wanted a broader audience to take a look at her arguments.

Among them:

One conservative strategist predicts that when Giuliani's positions and record are better known, conservative primary voters will not only back other candidates but mobilize against him. Republican voters who currently prefer Rudy Giuliani to John McCain because of the latter's well-known maverick streak may not know that Mayor Giuliani endorsed Mario Cuomo for governor in 1994.

They may also have been unaware that Ronald Reagan supported FDR and The New Deal, and that Reagan was a one-time high-ranking member of an organized labor union. Or they may have been aware of it. When Reagan ran for president in 1980, it didn't matter.

O'Beirne also writes about Giuliani's two divorces. But she doesn't note that John McCain has also gone through a divorce, as did Reagan.

She makes note that Giuliani has favored "gay rights" (during an era when same-sex marriage wasn't part of the discussion.) But she fails to note that McCain this year voted against against a constitutional amendment to define marriage as being between a man and a woman. (McCain even called a gay-marriage ban "un-Republican.") And she also fails to note that America's most powerful gay-rights supporter, Vice President Dick Cheney, not only won the GOP nomination in 2000 and 2004, but won 60 million votes two years ago.

In fact, to compare the two apparent frontrunners for the GOP presidential nod in 2008, Giuliani and McCain: Both have opposed restrictions on gays, both have been divorced. McCain has voted for federal funding of stem-cell research. Both have compelling resumes.

But, she writes, there are "widespread Republican reservations about Giuliani." (Emphasis added.) Evidently, not so widespread to stop Giuliani from becoming the hottest name on the campaign fundraising circuit for Republicans across the country, including Rick Santorum and Ralph Reed.

(Feel free to post below the national Republican fundraising schedules of Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney or Sen. George Allen.)

So the issue, it seems, comes down to the fact that Giuliani supports abortion rights, while McCain and others - including Romney and Allen - do not. So does this disqualify Giuliani from the nomination?

Here's what Bob Dole said, when he ran successfully for the Republican nomination for president in 1996:

My view is that I want to bring people into the party, not keep people out of the party. I don't want to build a fence around our party and say everybody has to agree with me on this issue. I happen to be pro-life. And I've tried to explain to some of the pro-life people if we're going to win elections and build our party, we can have different views on this issue. And that'll be my hope when I determine precisely what that plank should be.

But a story on whether the abortion issue would prevent Giuliani from becoming president would put a great cover photo - and some potentially useful innuendo - to waste.

On the other side of the political spectrum, liberal muckraker Wayne Barrett has co-authored a book with Dan Collins, Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11 , which attempts to debunk Giulani's reputation from 9/11. In the book, which is due out later this month, one of the biggest critics of Giuliani's pre-9/11, emergency-preparedness record is New York Police Commission Ray Kelly. (Who is now backtracking.)

More on that, and Kelly's own record in New York and in the Clinton Administration, when the book is out.

For now, war hawk/social liberal Roger Simon is taking on some of the anti-Giuliani crowd, and a poll by war hawk/social liberal Glenn Reynolds shows a favorable trend for a Giuliani-Romney ticket against a McCain-Lieberman ticket. While support in those venues for war hawk/social liberal Giuliani might not be so surprising, O'Beirne may want to look over some photos from the 2006 campaign.

There may be some photos of Giuliani with Rick Santorum or Ralph Reed National Review might want for its next cover.