Rudy Can't Fail…

Rudy Giuliani has been talking for what seems like the whole evening, with no signs of shutting up. It is a virtuoso performance, filled with irrelevant asides, gratuitous compliments to Bush, Cheney, heart-wrenching and heart-warming anecdotes, and killer laugh lines. And well-directed shots at John Kerry, too. His use of 9/11 seems questionable to me–he's told moving vignette after vignette and then dutifully linked it to our luck of having Bush as prez. It's a brilliant rhetorical strategy, despite (because of?) the non sequiturs.

I'll be interested in reading the text tomorrow, but this much seems certain: Along with John Kerry and John Edwards, the butts of any number of jokes, John McCain took a beating tonight. Midway through Rudy's speech, everyone has forgotten whatever it was John McCain said earlier in the night. The only way Rudy can blow it is if he pulls a Castro and wears out his welcome with the crowd.