Rudy! AWOL

I have no idea why they'd want Giuliani to be a part of the Iraq Study Group, but given a chance to serve his country, help the Republican administration extricate themselves from Iraq, and burnish his own foreign policy credentials he simply didn't show up.

WASHINGTON -- Rudolph Giuliani's membership on an elite Iraq study panel came to an abrupt end last spring after he failed to show up for a single official meeting of the group, causing the panel's top Republican to give him a stark choice: either attend the meetings or quit, several sources said.

Giuliani left the Iraq Study Group last May after just two months, walking away from a chance to make up for his lack of foreign policy credentials on the top issue in the 2008 race, the Iraq war.

He cited "previous time commitments" in a letter explaining his decision to quit, and a look at his schedule suggests why -- the sessions at times conflicted with Giuliani's lucrative speaking tour that garnered him $11.4 million in 14 months.

Giuliani failed to show up for a pair of two-day sessions that occurred during his tenure, the sources said -- and both times, they conflicted with paid public appearances shown on his recent financial disclosure. Giuliani quit the group during his busiest stretch in 2006, when he gave 20 speeches in a single month that brought in $1.7 million.

Priorities. Meanwhile his BFF continues to suffer in silence.

June 19, 2007 -- Disgraced ex-NYPD Commissioner Bernie Kerik can't stop crying over his fizzled friendship with former BFF Rudy Giuliani.

"I accept the distance created by Giuliani. I understand it, but inside, it's killing me," Kerik said.

"It's like dying a slow death, watching him have to answer for my mistakes," the former top cop said of the ex-New York mayor-turned-presidential-candidate.

Kerik dished up the surprisingly frank comments in a dark, F-bomb-infused interview in the August edition of Best Life magazine.

In the bizarre chat, he said he is now working for the Jordanian government overseeing its construction of "an underground, seismic-shock proof, oxygen-stowing compound that could withstand a nuclear attack.

"At least here in Jordan, I stand half a chance," Kerik whined.

I guess 9-11 did change everything. It sure elevated to national prominence these two self-absorbed jerks and their delusions of grandeur.