Rudy Giuliani: Wall Street Vulture

Former New York mayor and full-time opportunist Rudy Giuliani is rubbing his hands with glee over the financial meltdown on Wall Street.

Rudy Giuliani is positioning his law firm to cash in on Wall Street's train wreck - a move that has become a gift to political enemies of his pal John McCain. Even as the nation's $700 billion, taxpayer-funded Wall Street bailout was still being hashed out, the former mayor announced Thursday his high-powered law firm has set up a task force.

Its mission: to help corporate clients get a piece of the action - or keep the federal wolves from the door. "Our team of former government officials and experienced attorneys in the fields of legislation, enforcement and finance are equipped to guide institutions in this quickly evolving and complex environment," Giuliani noted in a press release from his law firm, Bracewell & Giuliani.

Giuliani is not the only one poised to profit from opportunities created by the mega-meltdown, but he is the most politically famous. Giuliani is a prime surrogate for Republican McCain, who has called the economic meltdown "the greatest crisis since the end of World War II" and has assailed Wall Street for "unbridled greed."

Democrats argued that Giuliani's latest business pitch reflected poorly on the Arizona senator, a longtime friend who chose the former mayor to give the keynote speech at the GOP convention. "Bracewell & Giuliani's crass opportunism raises serious questions about whether John McCain is comfortable with one of his most visible campaign surrogates trying to cash in on what Alan Greenspan called a once-in-a-century economic crisis," Democratic National Committee spokesman Damien LaVera told the Daily News. McCain campaign officials declined to comment.

Says the Daily News: "Top-shelf firms like Bracewell & Giuliani routinely charge corporate clients fees topping $800 an hour for every senior lawyer's time - or a commission based on the value of transactions that could reach billions of dollars."