Message To You, From Rudy

First, a confession: I did not attend today's Republican opposition press conference; the RNC moved it from the very inconvenient location of their temporary Denver war room across the Platte River from the Pepsi Center to a extremely inconvenient location several miles south of Downtown. I decided to watch on live streaming video.

Today's Democratic Convention theme is foreign policy and veterans, so the Republicans sent out three public officials to criticize Obama on those issues; oddly, none of the three have any foreign policy experience or have served in the military. In addition, all three were soundly, even humiliatingly defeated in their most recent attempts at elected office: Michael Steele was throttled in his run for US Senatein Maryland; Rosario Marin in the Republican Primary for US Senate in California; and of course Rudy Giuliani in the recent GOP Presidential primary.

Giuliani's primary and caucus results look like something from a horse racing form: 6th, 4th, 4th, 6th, 6th, 6th, "retired." Of course, losing pols aren't put down, they are put forward as spokespeople for the party.

Steele and Marin weren't there to speak, of course; they were there to show that the GOP has black, brown, and female members too -- and here they both were. They stood beside Rudy, looking appropriately diverse, while the former America's Mayor warned of Obama's dangerous unreadiness to lead the country in these dangerous times -- an assessment, he repeated often, shared by none other than Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.

Giuliani in particular slipped in several references to Israel; Rudy is big among the Zionist Jewish voters (especially down in swing-state Florida), and McCain really wants those votes.

The substance of the attacks was nothing new, but I've always thought that Giuliani is a great attacker (I think it's that self-assured New York superiority), so he seemed effective, to the extent that these press conferences mean anything. But seriously, other than their own claims at expertise, is there anything to suggest that Giuliani is an authority on foreign affairs -- any more than Romney is an authority on the economy?