[tag]Rudy Giuliani[/tag] is such an odd presidential candidate, it’s a challenge to understand the message of his campaign. Apparently, his pitch is this: he’s qualified to fight a successful “war on terror.”
Does he have any foreign policy expertise? No. Does he have any foreign policy experience? No. Does he have any national security expertise? No. Does he have any diplomatic expertise? No. As Jonathan Chait recently explained, “The normal rule in American politics is that if you run for president and your experience comes at the state level, most people will assume that foreign policy is your weak point…. One would presume that this applies even more to presidential candidates whose highest office reached is mayor. And yet we have the strange case of Rudolph [tag]Giuliani[/tag] … [who] has somehow built a record as a foreign policy guru despite having no experience beyond the municipal level.”
Well, at a minimum, Giuliani has his [tag]Vietnam[/tag]-era military experience to fall back on. Oh wait….
If this presidential campaign is anything like the last, John McCain’s Vietnam service will inevitably be contrasted with GOP rival Rudy Giuliani’s avoidance of a war that he opposed.
“Any suggestion that he was dodging the draft is totally, factually inaccurate,” said a senior Giuliani campaign adviser who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic. “He opposed the war on tactical and strategic grounds.”
That has to be the worst excuse since Dick “Five Deferments” Cheney said he had “other priorities in the ’60s than military service.” Giuliani disagreed with Vietnam for “tactical and strategic” reasons? After 40 years, that’s the best he’s come up with?
Look, if Giuliani pulled strings to get out of serving in Vietnam, he wasn’t alone. But this “tactical and strategic” defense is just an awful spin. What’s more, he knows it.
During his 1993 mayoral campaign, he commissioned a “vulnerability study” that listed “draft dodger” as one of the epithets that might be hurled against him.
In blunt language, the consultants who prepared the study articulated how adversaries might frame the issue.
“Giuliani received special treatment from a friendly federal judge to avoid military service during the Vietnam war, when thousands of less fortunate people were dying,” they wrote. “Then, as a member of the Justice Department, he hypocritically prosecuted draft dodgers.”
This need not be a fiasco for Giuliani. In the last four presidential elections, the candidate who won beat to a rival with more military experience. Bush not only pulled strings to get into the Guard, didn’t even show up to complete his Guard duty. He got away with all of it, and Giuliani can too.
The key is telling the truth, which, unfortunately, for Giuliani, undermines his tough-guy image. Good luck, Rudy.