Rudy's Reversal

As we get deeper into the '08 Presidential election, the dilemma of dealing with terrorism is back. Is it a Military issue, or a law enforcement one? Today Rudy says it is military:

The former New York City mayor exhorts America to fight back in what he calls the "terrorists' war on us" and accuses Democrats of reverting to their "denial" in the 1990s, when, he said, President Bill Clinton erred by treating terrorism as a law enforcement matter, not a war.

Democrats, he said in July, have "the same bad judgment they had in the 1990s. They don't see the threat. They don't accept the threat."

but he always treated it like a criminal one.

for most of Giuliani's career as a Department of Justice official, prosecutor and New York's chief executive, terrorism was a narrow aspect of his broader crime-fighting agenda, which was dominated by drug dealers, white-collar criminals and the Mafia. Giuliani expressed confidence that Islamic extremism could be contained through vigorous investigation by law enforcement agencies and prosecution in the court system -- the same approach he now condemns.

His public warnings about the threat were infrequent. To the extent that he mentioned terrorism in his aborted run for the Senate in 2000, for example, it was to call for more spending on intelligence. Even in the weeks after Sept. 11, he framed the attacks in the language of crime, describing the hijackers as "insane murderers" and calling for restoration of the "rule of law."

Remember, the world does not change based on who chooses to become a candidate, but the candidate can certainly change based on what they need to do to appease their base and resonate with the electorate. Problem is, you may not know who you end up with if the candidate is spending too much time trying to make everyone else happy, instead of being themselves.

I may not like Gov. Bill Richardson's position on the war, but I do know where he stands on the issue, and it has been unwavering. Just like his position on the other issues. Rudy is the one candidate on the Right that I can consider, but he'll first have to sell me on who he really is, and that may be a tough job considering the ideological roller coaster he's been riding this campaign.

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