We keep hearing from the pundit class that Obama's and Edwards's lack of foreign experience could pose a problem in a presidential election campaign.

Can someone explain what foreign policy experience a mayor of New York City has?

Obviously, they have less foreign policy experience than a senator.

Why isn't that incontrovertible fact ever mentioned by any beltway insiders?

debcoop

Peter Brown seems to freelance his opinions a lot. He embroiders upon what's in his polls. See his comments on the Lamont-Lieberman race. I find his after poll comments so questionable that it makes me question the format of his polls.

I wonder if Mister Brown would explain to us how Rudy "stood up to the terrorists" manifested itself.

Raindog is not the first person I have heard posit that Rudy would be a dream candidate for the Dems. Josh has said exactly that in a recent (within the past couple of weeks) post, too.

I always think that it is dangerous to underestimate the opposition. What the Republicans did last time (2000) was decide early on who would be the nominee, and that unite behind the candidate. When they do that, the facts hardly stand in their way of mythologizing their candidate. And as you may have noticed, the media has been known to adopt the Republican mantra when it is repeated often enough, facts be damned.

Everything rainguy and Josh have observed about Rudy are absolutely true. But the thing Republicans have done better than Dems in recent years is do whatever it takes to win. I know us Dems just had a major, perhaps even historic, victory in the mid-terms. But the playing field will be completely different come 2008, and my guess is that the Republicans will field the candidate who has the best chance of winning and then line up behind him.

I hope Rainguy and Josh are right. I just think it's dangerous to underestimate one's opponent.

*duplicate post deleted*

If foreign policy just means giving a bunch of CYA speeches after presiding over a massive failure for which you bear at least a small portion of the responsibility (putting the command center in WTC), then by all means Giuliani is well qualified.

Wikipedia also has this chestnut:

Foreign Policy Actions

In 1995, Giuliani made national headlines by ordering PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat ejected from a Lincoln Center concert held in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations. "Maybe we should wake people up to the way this terrorist is being romanticized," Giuliani said, and noted that Arafat had been implicated in the murder of American civilians and diplomatic personnel. A spokesman for the Clinton Administration stated Giuliani's actions were "an embarrassment to everyone associated with diplomacy."

That's probably good for his punditry sideline but bad for his ethics and professionalism.

Giuliani was a calming presence after September 11. We needed that, and he filled his role very well.

But the simple fact is that his main responsibilities at that time were all in PR and stage management-- nothing related to sound decisionmaking. And he had made some extremely poor decisions about where to locate the command center.