How Moveon and General Petraeus helped Rudy Giuliani win the political week

Philip Klein tracks how Giuliani demonstrated to Republicans that he is ready, willing, and able to take on Hillary Clinton.

After making the New York Times buckle under pressure, his campaign released a Web ad contrasting Clinton's strong comments in support of the 2002 Iraq War Resolution with her attack on Gen. Petraeus last week. While none of her Democratic rivals have been able to lay a finger on Clinton for her opportunistic positions on the war, the Giuliani ad hammered the point home. The Clinton campaign was forced to twist itself into a pretzel by once again trying to assert that when she voted for the Iraq War resolution, she was actually voting to allow inspectors more time to work, and that despite telling Gen. Petraeus that his reports require a "willing suspension of disbelief" she was not accusing him of being untruthful.

How Clintonian to assert that saying Petraeus's statements required a "willing suspension of disbelief" was not casting aspersions on his honesty. Does the nation really want four or eight years of that sort of word parsing?

I don't know how many people saw Rudy's webad, but for those Republicans who did, it demonstrated that Rudy is ready to roll up his sleeves and fight back against the Clintons and the Moveon.org machine.