Clobbering its overheated blogospheric detractors over the head, Jonah Goldberg’s very silly-sounding book Liberal Fascism climbs onto the New York Times bestseller list at #10 (you’ll see it listed this weekend)

John Heilemann tries:

The real winner last night wasn’t any of these guys, however. The real winner was Rudy Giuliani, whose strategy of essentially blowing off the first month of the nominating process now seems to have a whiff of (mad) genius about it. Giuliani, to be sure, has seemed off-kilter the past few weeks, lurching from event to event, spouting themeless bromides and adopting a posture of Alfred E. Neuman–esque what-me-worryism. His standings in the polls have been eroding steadily — and not just nationally, but even in such Rudy strongholds as California, where he’s fallen from nearly 40 percent to less than 20 and from first place to third.

Yet now the Republican field is exactly where Rudy’s people believed (hoped, prayed) it would be at this point: in utter disarray. If he wins in Florida, where he’s essentially been living, basking in the warm sunshine and building up his firewall, while his rivals have frozen their asses off in Iowa and New Hampshire, he will be in the catbird seat. Indeed, you could even argue that, despite having won nothing thus far, Giuliani is now the GOP front-runner again, albeit by default. Bizarre? Incomprehensible? Perverse? No doubt. But what better words to describe the man himself and the party he seeks to lead?

Regular readers, who know that I’m not a politico, will remember that I’ve been saying for a while now that come November, it’ll be Rudy vs. Hillary. After Michigan, though, I’m beginning to think that maybe the human Ken Doll

also has a shot at the nomination—the businessman thing is always a safe mask to hide behind in America …

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Karl Rove is plotting strategy for the Republican nominee …whoever he may be:

Time and again, however, Rove returned to the trump card he used in his successfully executed 2002 and 2004 elections, saying that neither Obama nor Clinton is prepared to protect the country from terrorists.

Rove served notice that Obama and Clinton would be targeted over how they vote on any Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act legislation that comes before the Senate this year.

“Do they or do they not want our intelligence officials to be listening in on terrorists’ conversations in the Middle East who may … be plotting to hurt America?” Rove said.

He told the state officials that it would be their responsibility to find “creative and sustaining ways” to “talk about these contrasts.”

Rove also offered advice to whichever Republican candidate wins the GOP nomination.

He said the candidates had to first “create a sustaining narrative about themselves.” Then he said the candidate should “immediately engage” on the “kitchen table issues,” like healthcare, education, jobs and the economy.

Third, Rove said the GOP nominee has to show that he is serious about campaigning “aggressively in places where Republicans don’t usually campaign.” Rove said that includes among black, Latino, Asian and union voters.

“We’re going for everybody,” Rove said.

Lastly, Rove argued that the Republican candidate must show the electorate “that they understand the surge is working.” Rove said the candidate should get firmly behind the war effort, painting the Democratic nominee as “defeatist.”

I dunno. That sounds like a Rudy spiel to me. We shall see.

Pshaw, says Condi Rice. Rocket fire from Gaza and suicide bombers from the West Bank shouldn’t stop the Israelis from negotiating a peace deal with the Palestinians (and because she’s so even-handed, she says that Israeli settlements shouldn’t stop the Palestinians from negotiating a peace deal with the Israelis, either, of course) [e.a.].

Miss Rice also described, with greater clarity than either the president or National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley have so far, the Bush administration’s strategy on the peace process.

The “road map” for peace, conceived in 2002 by Mr. Bush, had become a hindrance to the peace process, because the first requirement was that the Palestinians stop terrorist attacks.

As a result, every time there was a terrorist bombing, the peace process fell apart and went back to square one. [What a surprise! No peace, no peace process! --ed.] Neither side ever began discussing the “core issues”: the freezing of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the rights of Palestinian refugees to return, the outline of Israel’s border and the future of Jerusalem.

“The reason that we haven’t really been able to move forward on the peace process for a number of years is that we were stuck in the sequentiality of the road map. So you had to do the first phase of the road map before you moved on to the third phase of the road map, which was the actual negotiations of final status,” Miss Rice said.

Miss Rice said that what the U.S.-hosted November peace summit in Annapolis did was “break that tight sequentiality … to say, you can do these in parallel, you can do road-map obligations and negotiation for the final status in parallel.”

“You don’t want people to get hung up on settlement activity or the fact that the Palestinians haven’t fully been able to deal with the terrorist infrastructure and prevent that from moving forward on the negotiations,” she said.

Negotiating the core issues, Miss Rice said, brings “force and power … status to help people really pay attention to their road-map obligations, and that’s what we’ve needed.”

Proving that Ms. Rice has her head up her ass and that she, like all her precedessors, is addicted to a process and not to peace (which requires that Palestinian “resistance” be extinguished and that the Palestinians accept the reality of the existence of Israel as a Jewish state), the Israelis managed to kill yet more “militants” and civilians in Gaza today.

I hope Ms. Rice and her godfather Scowcroft are very proud of themselves today for the vaunted stability (and fifty years of “peace”) they are reintroducing into the region.

The Israelis, meanwhile, are preparing for a siege. They are not going anywhere. Indeed, they are not even going to spend money to reinforce the houses under attack from across the border in Gaza [e.a.]:

Acting on behalf of the State Prosecution, attorney Dina Silber claimed that “since other parts of Israel are already, or will be in the near future, subject to rocket fire - Qassams, Katyushas, shells or mortars - the state could not afford to work under the false impression that this policy would be applicable to the Sderot area only.”

Silber also said that “the question that the government should address and focus on is that of the stamina of the residents in confrontation areas. Their endurance, and not reinforcement of houses, is the main feature of the issue at hand; reinforcement is all but one element of the protection of the home front against rocket fire.”

The state also maintains that if a decision to reinforce Sderot houses is taken it will send “shockwaves” that would “constitute a significant precedent as to homes in numerous other parts of the country, which are or soon will be subject to rocket fire.”

More about this from Jeff Jacoby and Eric Trager.

Where are Walt and Mearsheimer to trumpet realism and the death of the Bush Doctrine? Well, only a week ago, they were bemoaning America’s continued unqualified support for Israel at the hands of the Lobby.

That’s an interesting gambit from Hillary, no? It leaves her wide open to attack from her Democratic opponents.

Or, rather, it should have, as Keith Olbermann kept arguing (incoherently, as usual) last night:

OLBERMANN: But to that point, Howard, at the end of this debate, with about 10 minutes to go, Brian Williams gave Barack Obama, opened the door for him to go after [interesting point you make about that assist, Mr. Olbermann  ---ed.], to go after Hillary Clinton on an issue that has been hugely important and hugely felt personally by most Democrats, and most people who have been critical of the administration, this whole question of reading her quote back to her before the vote in New Hampshire about the so-called Gordon Brown question. The implication, several lengths removed, but the implication nonetheless kind of milder Democratic version of the same language that was used by, has been used by so many Republicans since 9/11, and particularly in the campaigns of 2004 and 2006, why when this issue of, you know, this hint, maybe Obama would not be as ready as Clinton would be to handle a sudden terrorist attack after the inaugural next January, why was Senator Obama’s response, I understand why his responses were controlled and statesmanlike on these, you know, personal issues, but why was he somewhat controlled? Why didn’t he, you know, take, go run right through that door that was opened for him?

HOWARD FINEMAN: He was sort of tiptoeing halfway through the door. I think he … had in his mind, you know, Axelrod and all the other [advisers] saying, you know, don’t go after her too hard, be careful, you’re at close range, you’ve had all those other problems. I think that’s a big vulnerability that Clinton has. She can be accused of trying to play the fear card, and I think Obama was afraid to do it too frontally. It’s hard to do it in those circumstances. I’m sure you’re going to hear it on the campaign trail over the next few days.

OLBERMANN: Yeah, but Jonathan, why, if a candidate says, sitting next to you or a million miles away, Jonathan, if somebody says to you, you know, my implication here, that was in this statement that you would not be ready to deal with this, but I would, on such a vital issue, you have two options. One is to refute that, and refute it strongly. And the other one is just to say, “Listen, never mind what you’re saying, this is not the way we should be doing business as Democrats.” Why didn’t Barack Obama take that opportunity when it was presented to him?

Good question, K.O. But why keep asking it after Fineman clearly said that Obama was afraid to take her on?

This is a very smart—though obviously very risky (because it further alienates her from her party’s base, which downplays external threats to America as “Republican talking points”)—maneuver from Hillary. It changes the conversation and clearly distinguishes her from Obama; and, from an impression-management point of view (which is most important of all, as JFK wrote in 1959*** and demonstrated in his subsequent campaign) shows that she is willing and able to confront her opponents (be they Republican or, say, Iranian) head-on.

This kind of impression management couldn’t be more important in the national election. As Arianna Huffington wrote yesterday, Iraq and the “war on terrorism” are still major concerns for the electorate. Today, she’s declaring Hillary the winner in the debate last night and encouraging Hillary to stay on this theme. (I don’t know why Arianna is taking this pro-Hillary stance. I thought she was a Hillary hater. Goes to show you how much I know. I haven’t been following along to see who in the media is on whose side in the campaign.)

Anyhow, bottom line: Rhetoric is marvelous. It is not sufficient. Talk is cheap.

—————-

*** It’s a marvelous and prescient piece, and it was originally published before Daniel Boorstin’s landmark book The Image. And Kennedy’s piece appeared in TV Guide.

I hope to have time to write more about this …eventually. Meanwhile, here are some excerpts:

The wonders of science and technology have revolutionized the modern American political campaign. Giant electronic brains project results on the basis of carefully conducted polls…. Jet planes make possible a coast-to-coast speaking schedule no observation-car back platform could ever meet. …Even wash-and-wear fabrics permit the wilted nonstop candidate to travel lighter, farther and faster.

But nothing compares with the revolutionary impact of television. …

The searching eye of the television camera scrutinizes the candidates-and the way they are picked. Party leaders are less willing to run roughshod over the voters’ wishes and hand-pick an unknown, unappealing or unpopular in the traditional “smoke-filled room” when millions of voters are watching, comparing and remembering.  …

Honesty, vigor, compassion, intelligence-the presence or lack of these and other qualities make up what is called the candidate’s “image.” While some intellectuals and politicians may scoff at these “images”-and while they may in fact be based only on a candidate’s TV impression, ignoring his record, views and other appearances-my own conviction is that these images or impressions are likely to be uncannily correct. I think, no matter what their defenders or detractors may say, that the television public has a fairly good idea of what Dwight D. Eisenhower is really like-or Jimmy Hoffa-or John McClellan- or Vice President Nixon-or countless others.

This is why a new breed of candidates has sprung up on both the state and national levels. Republican Governors Rockefeller (New York) and Hatfield (Oregon) successfully countered the Democratic trend in 1958 with particular reliance on TV appeal.

Seven years into your presidency is a little late to start doing diplomacy, but George W. Bush is trying. He’s providing photo ops, at any rate.

In Riyadh today, the president participated in a traditional sword dance with one of the princes of the royal family.

Jim Watson / AFP/Getty Images

It was a public — and a little awkward — display of affection, all part of Bush’s first visit to Saudi Arabia aimed at repairing strained relations between the world’s biggest oil producer and the world’s biggest oil consumer.

And he’s also trying to plant the seeds of his legacy:

My image [is] ‘Bush wants to fight Muslims.’ And, yes, I’m concerned about it. Not because of me, personally. I’m concerned because I want most people to understand the great generosity and compassion of Americans,” he said.

“I’m sure people view me as a warmonger and I view myself as peacemaker,” the president said. “They view me as so pro-Israeli I can’t be open-minded about Palestinian peace, and yet I’m the only president ever to have articulated a two-state solution. And you just have to fight through stereotypes by actions.”

The president said he hopes to change that image by opening a dialogue and letting “the results speak for themselves.”

“I mean, when this democracy in Iraq solidifies and emerges and is whole, people will understand what I meant about the democracy agenda. People will know that my view is not American democracy, but it’s freedom based upon certain principles that honors the traditions and culture of the host country.”

What a clumsy oaf.