GIULIANI SHOOTS BLANKS...OR COP KILLERS

Thanks, Rudy, I've got it now. I'm a terrorist. I'm not with you, so I'm a terrorist. We're at war with the people who attacked the Achille Lauro more than 20 years ago and killed one passenger. The whole point of Giuliani's speech seemed to be that since GWB got going after 9/11, the USA has been willing to murder anyone we could, because we were angry and grieving and frightened.

Did I just hear what I think I did? Did Rudy Giuliani just call for almost-eternal war?

Oh my gosh, GWB is a saint in the miraculous-Church-validating kind of sense. He "got me through it" (Rudy G.) in some mystical way.

What a washout. If Rudy couldn't make me cry, or even recall the grief of three years ago, 9/11 no longer has the knee-jerk reaction power it once had. The new power, for me, is the depth and strength of my resolve to personalize my prayers for the families and to avoid the temptation to co-opt them for my cause.

Rudy just articulated the Bush vision for the world as one in which the USA will "encourage" the spread of "freedom" throughout the world, especially the Middle East, as the solution to global terrorism. "It's our mission," he said, "we extend freedom -- governments that are free and accountable." Okay, America. Are you willing to commit the lives and funds it will take to conquer, convert and occupy dozens of countries throughout the world in order to (perhaps) prevent the occasional loss of life, however precious it may be, at the certain, not occasional, cost of tens of thousands of lives?

Brokaw and Russert think Giuliani scored a home run. I've lived too long.