America's Mayor Millionaire knows preciously little about foreign policy

I really got a kick out of this one last night - it's Rudy Giuliani showing the world that he knows next to nothing about foreign policy.

Rep. Ron Paul sounded as good as anyone on the stage when it came to the War in Iraq, terrorism and 9-11. There is a fundamental difference (and flaw) about what people like President Bush, Giuliani and John McCain think about Iraq and Al-Qaeda. They think we were attacked because "they hate our freedom; they hate our way of life." Certainly that no doubt plays a part in it, but the real decision to attack America came following Desert Storm. Remember that war? That was the war that was over in a few months, resulting in less than 400 American combat deaths. It was a war we had a lot more legitimate reason for fighting. (And even that could be argued, looking back on it.)

Osama bin Laden has said so - the reason to attack America was because American troops were based in Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden, right or wrong, considered this a violation of the Muslim holy land. (A footnote to that - in 2005, President Bush removed U.S. troops from Saudi soil. I wonder why?)

Anyway, what really surprised me, at least a little, was how quickly Rudy pounced on Paul's answer. Really, I shouldn't have been surprised - 9-11 is Rudy's sacred cow, his baby. No one could possibly know more about 9-11 and the reasons behind it than America's Mayor. He arrogantly intoned that "having lived through 9-11" he was offended at Paul's remarks.

Too bad Paul's points come directly from the bi-partisan (but flawed) 9-11 Commission Report.

Paul's campaign manager wasted no time jumping on the mayor.

"Rudy Giuliani has tip-toed around the issues of abortion, guns and marriage. The only issue he has left is security, and he doesn't even get that right," said campaign chairman Kent Snyder. "It is clear from his interruption that former Mayor Giuliani has not read the 9-11 Commission Report and has no clue on how to keep America safe."

I can guarantee you one thing - Giuliani was no more offended last night at Paul's remarks than I was when Rudy attempted to postpone the New York City mayoral election in 2001 so there could be a "transition period," to which all of the candidates for mayor suggested he was off his rocker. He was.

I don't question the fact that 9-11 is Giuliani's strength, and that he did a good job managing the crisis. But, there are a whole lot of warts concerning the mayor's behavior before, during and after 9-11 that had better come up during the campaign. Why? Because, just like when Kerry ran as a Vietnam Vet during '04, Giuliani is going to run on 9-11, 9-11, 9-11 and 9-11 with a little salad dressing of other issues to go with the appetizer, first course, second course, salad and dessert, which will all be 9-11. If Rudy chooses to do that, so be it, but he'd better be prepared to answer some questions about 9-11 then.

I'll go on record right now as saying I don't think the press will do it, though. Thus far, the press coverage of Giuliani has been identical to that of President Bush's in his first term: "He took us through 9-11, and he's doing a good job. Let's move on."

America ill-afford to suffer through such piss-poor press coverage. Stay tuned on that one, and we'll see how it plays out.

Rudy has historically told some whoppers since 9-11, and it gets virtually ignored in the "liberal" press. My favorite one was during his keynote speech at the 2004 Republican National Convention, when he was describing what he told then-NYPD Commissioner Bernie Kerik: "I said, 'thank God George Bush is our president.'" Too bad, as Al Franken points out, there's not one mention of it in his autobiography. In fairness, I'm yet to read that book (it's pretty far down on my reading list), but Franken's books are researched pretty thoroughly, and I've no reason to doubt him.

We'll see how far the Bush cheerleading goes into this campaign.

I for one won't let Rudy's already outrageous quotes be forgotten, most notably how if a Democrat is elected to the White House in 2008 we'll "be on defense" in the War on Terrorism, but if a Republican is elected, "We'll remain on offense." No word on what he calls invading Iraq in the wake of 9-11, a country that had nothing to do with the attacks.

We might as well have invaded Antarctica.