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Noonan: Rudy Not Acting Like Wartime Don

By Philip Klein on 4.13.07 @ 10:27AM

Peggy Noonan writes that there's a huge stature gap among the presidential candidates. While in his Iraq speech earlier this week McCain "sounded like a serious man addressing a serious issue in a serious way," she thinks Huckabee and Romney (varmint gate) look small by comparrison.

But she saves her most blistering criticism for Giuliani:

Now, I'm not one to criticize anyone for making such remarks given that I've used Godfather references to assess a certain former mayor's presidential prospects and even diagnose the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But with that said, I have heard a lot of people tell me they think that Giuliani's various schticks, while amusing and endearing to some, simply do not look presidential. So, will voters, likewise, think of Giuliani as the man they'd like to sit down and have a cannoli with, but not want to have as the commander in chief? I don't think Giuliani should hide his personality, but as the campaign goes on, I think he'll have to find a proper balance.

His Oct. 2001 speech to the United Nations was particularly presidential, and in fact, it was the speech that first made me think about the prospect of him becoming president.

topics:
Iraq, Israel, United Nations