Rudy Giuliani: Not a Foreign Policy Expert, But He Plays One on TV

One of the strangest political developments of the post 9/11 world was the sudden--and totally inexplicable--transformation of Rudolph Giuliani from eccentric mayor of New York City to foreign policy expert. Almost instantly, a man who didn't seem to know or care very much about foreign policy became the go-to guy whenever a major television network needed someone to discuss various developments in the Global War on Terror. And despite the fact that Giuliani never seemed to have anything insightful or intelligent to say (and what he did say was often remarkably partisan and hackish), he kept getting invited back. Suddenly "America's Mayor" was commanding six-figure speaking fees to share his "wisdom" and being touted as a serious presidential candidate, all because he happened to be the Mayor of New York when terrorists attacked.

It's like treating Ray Nagin as an expert climatologist because he happened to be Mayor of New Orleans when Katrina hit. If Nagin decided he wanted to be the head of the National Weather Service, would anyone take him seriously? Of course not.

But with the help of our ever serious press corps, Giuliani has managed to pass himself off fairly successfully as a foreign policy heavyweight. So much so, in fact, that when James Baker and Lee Hamilton went about pulling together a panel of luminaries to help make recommendations on Iraq policy, they asked Giuliani to join.

Giuliani accepted the offer, but as it turns out, he never bothered to show up at the meetings and was asked to either start showing up or quit. He chose to quit. For reasons that I cannot comprehend, that fact remained unreported until today. According to Craig Gordon of Newsday:

Rudolph Giuliani's membership on an elite Iraq study panel came to an abrupt end last spring after he failed to show up for a single official meeting of the group, causing the panel's top Republican to give him a stark choice: either attend the meetings or quit, several sources said.

Giuliani left the Iraq Study Group last May after just two months, walking away from a chance to make up for his lack of foreign policy credentials on the top issue in the 2008 race, the Iraq war. . . .

Giuliani failed to show up for a pair of two-day sessions that occurred during his tenure, the sources said -- and both times, they conflicted with paid public appearances shown on his recent financial disclosure. Giuliani quit the group during his busiest stretch in 2006, when he gave 20 speeches in a single month that brought in $1.7 million. . . .

When Giuliani failed to attend the first two working sessions, his absences didn't sit well with Baker -- particularly when the other luminaries who made up the panel were able to make the sessions in Washington, some sources said.

I'm not sure what annoys me more, the fact that a mayor with no demonstrated knowledge of or interest in Iraq was asked to participate on a blue-ribbon commission on Iraq policy, or the fact that when he was called upon to serve his country, Giuliani was too busy milking his 9/11 fame for profit to bother showing up.

Sensing the potential damage this story could cause, Giuliani's campaign quickly issued the following statement:

The facts are these -- as someone considered a potential presidential candidate, the Mayor didn’t want the group’s work to become a political football. That, coupled with time constraints, led to his decision.

But as Greg Sargent points out, that explanation doesn't make much sense. Why did Giuliani agree to participate in the first place if he was worried his presence would turn the commission into "a political football." He had been publicly toying with the idea of running for president for months before he accepted a spot on the commisssion. And why turn down a valuable opportunity to actually earn some bona fide foreign policy credentials?

I suspect the truth is that Giuliani either 1) didn't have any interest in doing the necessary work, or 2) was worried that his participation on the commission would force him to take ownership of some concrete policy recommendations on Iraq, something he and his advisers perceived to be risky. Either way, it's not a very flattering story. Either Giuliani was lazy and uninterested in public service, or he was cowardly avoiding taking a concrete position on the most important issue of the day.

It's a long time coming, but we may at last be nearing the point where mainstream journalists start to notice that the entire Giuliani campaign is built around the silliest of premises, namely that Rudolph Giuliani is some sort of foreign policy guru.