The gameplan of Rudy Giuliani

Is to declare the Democrats are too afraid of terrorists to stand up to them.

I am tough on terror! I am! I am! I am!



Greg Sargent of TPM Cafe: (my bold)

The Rudy game plan here, we think, is to refight the war with liberalism he fought over crime in New York City in the 1990s.

Back then Rudy argued that poverty wasn't the root cause of crime, casting his foes as pansies who cared about the welfare of criminals and thugs and didn't have what it takes to deal with them. Now he's merely parroting the same points that worked for him last time, replacing the word "crime" with the word "terrorism." Indeed, he actually used the word crime in the above excerpt.

Rudy's broadside today was the same stuff: He knows what it takes to deal with them and understands that the only thing they understand is a kick in the teeth. Dems are wussies who don't get this.

This is clearly Rudy's emerging strategy. Despite having exactly zero national security experience, he's audaciously positioning himself as the most trustworthy and credible voice on terror and what to do about it. And incidentally, the political media is already signaling that it may let him get away with this monumental ruse. The media appears willing to cede Rudy an aura of national security experience based on nothing more than the fact that he held a bunch of press conferences in the aftermath of 9/11.

Rudy's argument may be absurd and simplistic and reveal that he has, well, no idea what the heck he's talking about. But it's an argument all the same. We'll be hearing a lot of it. And if Dems don't rebut it, no one will.

Well, if all it takes to be tough on terrorists is to hold press conferences, Bush must really be doing well....

Right?