Katrina May Have Made Rudy President

There's an interesting piece by Thomas Roeser in the Chicago Sun-Times today about how the mess in New Orleans may just have made Rudy Giuliani the front-runner in the 2008 election (h/t Hugh Hewitt):

Hurricane Katrina may have changed the dimension of the nation's politics for 2008. With George W., we voted for him because he would take the fight against terrorism to its origination point: the Middle East. I salute that strategy and believe that Iraq will be democratized with great dividends for our international security.

But next it'll be important to have a president who can slash through red tape and make us secure at home. The Katrina thing wasn't Bush's fault, but what was needed was a president who could pull the trigger domestically, knock heads together with the state and local governments and deliver resources quickly. That spells only one name for future president. In an ideal world he may not have been my first choice, but it's Rudy Giuliani.

Giuliani played no role in taming Katrina, but as I saw New Orleans turn into an open sewer, all I could think of was what Giuliani would do. Threats to our country demand a Prince of the City: a prince fearless enough to write his own rules to establish order. And a prince emblematic of Machiavelli's book of the same name, one who can bluff winningly, who can engender fear and respect. As one conservative Republican woman in Temecula, Calif., told radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt: ''All that [meaning pro-life, pro-abortion] doesn't matter if we're not safe." By which she meant Giuliani, the indomitable ex-mayor of New York, the hero of 9/11. With Giuliani, the signal would be transmitted to all: He's determined that we will be safe at home.

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One more thing: Let 'em pair Giuliani, whose words spout like bullets from a machine gun, with a veep who talks slow, with the vowels dripping syrup on hominy grits swimming with butter: Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, who brilliantly handled Hurricane Katrina. Manhattan and Mississippi. Yeah: I like that.

Yeah, I kind of like it too. Read the whole thing here.