Giuliani again

I basically have to agree with Mark Kleiman here

Of course, I also don't believe that he selflessly decided to forgo the opportunity to burnish his national security cred in the run-up to the election lest his presence "politicize" a process run largely by Jim Baker. But if I had to guess which of Giuliani's ruling vices was on display, my money would be on ambition and cowardice, not greed.

with particular emphasis on the cowardice. We have an unfortunate tendency to try and pick one reason for criticizing our opponents, when multiple reasons are available. Settling on "Rudy skipped the ISG meetings just to make money" is not sufficient.

I think, though, that Mark misses some of Rudy's character in his analysis. Mark suggests

Maybe he was quick enough — I never claimed the man wasn't shrewd — to figure out before the rest of us that the ISG would come down on a position that Bush, and more important the Republican primary voting base, wouldn't swallow.

But then why not stay on the commission, go to the meetings and fight for a set of recommendations that the Republican base would love. He could then quit the commission, publicly and openly, and be in great shape. The reason is the cowardice. Rudy is not going to take a stand on anything that might cost him down the road. Rudy is a perfect example of where the Republican party is today, someone who is all about appearing tough and decisive, but who is completely opposed to actually ever being tough and decisive.

Giuliani and Iraq

Although the mainstream press has ignored it for the most part, folks on the left have kind of taken notice of the report in Newsday on Monday that Rudy Giuliani was booted off the Iraq Study Group commission for failing to attend any meetings. Apparently, he had more lucrative speaking engagements to attend. For the details see Fred Kaplan's piece in Slate, or Kos, or TPM. One thing about ditching the ISG, coupled with another recent comment of Rudy's, has struck me as particularly ironic, but I haven't seen anyone highlight this particular irony.

Recently Rudy released his "12 Commitments" to highlight the issues he will consider most important. It was noted that among those commitments there was no mention of Iraq and his response when asked about this omission was

“What I was trying to do was to look at the things, as best as you can predict it now, that are going to be there a year and half from now,” he said. “iraq may get better. Iraq may get worse. We may be successful in Iraq. We may not be. I don’t know the answer to that. That’s in the hands of other people. But what we do know for sure is the terrorists are going to be at war with us a year, a year and half from now.”

Now many others have commented on the callousness of any presidential candidate simply dismissing the most important issue facing this nation, the war in Iraq, as somebody else's problem. But what strikes me is that when Giuliani agreed to be on the ISG it became, to some extent, his problem as well. It has since become "somebody else's problem" only because he didn't bother to show up for meetings to address the issue. Why would any sensible person expect that he will ever take the responsibility for this war seriously, whether he becomes President or not.