try agreeing with him. The guy won’t take yes for an answer!

First off, my comments about Giuliani in this thread began thus: ” I understand that Giuliani is a smart, tough, competent, and accomplished executive. . .” So yes, I plead innocent of the charge of denying that he is, well, a smart, tough, competent, and accomplished executive.

Second, I never said that it was “mystical or childish” to argue that Giuliani is “uniquely qualified” to be Secretary of Defense or State or even president; I said that the arguments I had heard for his unique qualifications seemed that way to me (and I cited one such silly argument in a link). I asked for someone to try to come up with a better argument.

Third, I didn’t say he was unqualified to be SecDef. My point was that it takes more than proven executive ability to do such a job, such as, say, a knowledge of defense issues, and that it isn’t clear that Giuliani beats the other candidates on such scores. I’m glad to see that David Frum, at least, is taking this point seriously.