Guliani

Is apparently the 'guy to beat' right now in the absurdly early starting horse race for 2008, with a 20 some point lead over McCain.

One question: how does being Mayor during 9-11 give him national security credentials? Yes, he gave some nice speeches, and looked resolute and tough, and I'm sure he would do the same if America were attacked again, and that would be good. But those aren't national security credentials. What does Rudy know about intelligence? What does Rudy know about Foreign Policy? Matthew Yglesias has been writing about this extensively, also observing that Rudy is kind of crazy.

And it's not just liberals who think he's a tad authoritarian and petty.

My girlfriend thinks that "Guliani" sounds too ethnic to connect with red-state Americans, but when was the last time you heard about anti-Italian sentiments? I would be surprised if even half of Americans could identify the currect slur for Italians (in case you can't, it's wop).