I've always thought it was pretty bold for a guy on whose watch New York City was attacked by terrorists—twice—to front the argument that he is the best person to protect the United States from terrorists. In "Rudy Can Fail," on Salon.com last week, Joe Conason made the point:

"As for Giuliani, what did he do after the '93 bombing? In their reporting for "Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11," journalists Wayne Barrett and Dan Collins went to great lengths to find out. The answer, they discovered, was that he did nothing. And he said nothing. After he was elected mayor later that year, he still did and said nothing about terrorism, a pattern of inaction and inattention that continued for years, even as the trials of the bombing perpetrators went on in his city -- and even as federal investigators uncovered terrorist plots to blow up the Hudson River tunnels and other major New York City targets.

"Eventually, as Barrett and Collins reveal in their stunning book, Giuliani made a series of foolish, self-serving mayoral decisions that exacerbated the damage and deaths caused by the terrorists on 9/11. More recently, his stupidity and vanity almost led to the appointment of an unqualified felon named Bernard Kerik as America's secretary of homeland security.

"It is Giuliani, not Clinton, who has the most to fear from an honest examination of what happened in 1993 and its aftermath. His presidential candidacy will implode on the day that Americans finally grasp the full truth about his performance as mayor."

And speaking of car bombs, watch the clip "Olbermann Debunks London Car Bombing" at AfterDowningStreet.org. Suspiciously ineffectual Mercedes car bombs; what, was the terrorist a Beverly Hills trophy wife? To quote Big Daddy in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," "Ah smell mendacity!"