Giuliani's Glass House

As he hears Fred Thompson’s footsteps in the Republican race, America’s Mayor has gone from polishing his 9/11 halo to photo-shopping it out of all recognition, the Washington Post reports today.

At the same time, Rudy Giuliani has reverted to his prosecutorial roots by impugning the judgment and motives of every Democrat in sight from MoveOn.org back to Bill Clinton.

On terrorism, he charges, Democrats have "the same bad judgment they had in the 1990s. They don't see the threat. They don't accept the threat."

But, the Post reports, the attacks are “undercut by Giuliani's record as mayor and by his public statements about terrorism since the 1990s, which document an evolution in thinking that began with a mind-set similar to the one he criticizes today.”

Before 9/11 and even in the aftermath, Giuliani treated terrorism more as crime, akin to his Mafia experience, rather than an ongoing political crisis, reflected in his decision to locate a command center for the Office of Emergency Management across from the twin towers, which had been attacked in 1993.

John McCain has politely questioned whether Giuliani’s performance after 9/11 "translates, necessarily, into foreign policy or national security expertise. I know of nothing in his background that indicates that he has any experience in it."

The Mayor’s level of interest in international affairs was reflected by his failure to attend meetings of the Iraq Study Group in 2006 that would have interfered with his schedule of collecting $1.4 million in speaking fees, which led to his ultimate resignation from the commission.

Now Giuliani is not only touting his toughness on terrorism and the world it has created but the softness of everybody else. John McCain may be wrong about Iraq and its context, but he knows what he’s talking about, talks straight and doesn’t demean those who disagree with him.

Giuliani is his polar opposite.