In case you missed it, the big campaign news of the day is this story from NY Newsday:
Rudolph Giuliani's membership on an elite Iraq study panel came to an abrupt end last spring after he failed to show up for a single official meeting of the group, causing the panel's top Republican to give him a stark choice: either attend the meetings or quit, several sources said.
Giuliani left the Iraq Study Group last May after just two months, walking away from a chance to make up for his lack of foreign policy credentials on the top issue in the 2008 race, the Iraq war.He cited "previous time commitments" in a letter explaining his decision to quit, and a look at his schedule suggests why -- the sessions at times conflicted with Giuliani's lucrative speaking tour that garnered him $11.4 million in 14 months.
Giuliani failed to show up for a pair of two-day sessions that occurred during his tenure, the sources said -- and both times, they conflicted with paid public appearances shown on his recent financial disclosure. Giuliani quit the group during his busiest stretch in 2006, when he gave 20 speeches in a single month that brought in $1.7 million.
The Giuliani campaign has tried to spin it this way:
As someone considered a potential presidential candidate, the Mayor didn’t want the group’s work to become a political football. That, coupled with time restraints led to his decision.
The problem is that, as Greg Sargent shows, this simply isn't true.
Josh Marshall thinks this means the end for Rudy's campaign. His readers, it would seem, disagree. On this one I'm most definitely with Josh. As he points out, the damage from this story won't come from the initial media coverage, and it won't come overnight. It will come when his opponents use it to trash Rudy's imagined record of foreign policy strength.
Remember, Rudy is already on record saying that Iraq isn't his problem because it is"in the hands of other people." Now we know that circumstance comes as a deliberate choice.
Rudy's entire campaign is premised on his supposed foreign policy experience. Because of that experience, he was named to the Iraq Study Group. But rather than serve his nation, Rudy decided to serve himself. The media may be ignoring that today, but I promise you, his opponents won't.
UPDATE: Apparently this isn't Rudy's only problem today. The other one? It involves his SC campaign and cocaine. Ouch.
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