I’ve got nothing bad to say about Rudy Giuliani’s “Justice Advisory Committee“.  Any group of judiciary advisors that boasts Ted Olson, Larry Thompson, and Miguel Estrada isn’t lacking for intellectual or ideological firepower.  That seems by design to reflect well on the man who recruited them.

And therein lies the question that I have about all these high-profile, publicity-seeking teams that “America’s mayor” is assembling.  If Rudy Giuliani is truly a constitutionalist who will appoint constitutionalists to the federal bench, why does he need to hire a bunch of conservative legal stars to point at and all but say to GOP primary voters, “See, I brought these guys in so that means I’m one of you!”  Seems to me that a clear, unequivocal repudiation of Roe v. Wade on legal grounds would go a lot farther in convincing the base of his credibility on the judiciary.

I’m not nearly as skeptical about Rudy’s economic and national security stances, but the same doubt applies to the all-star team he’s put together in those areas.  A presidential campaign isn’t like fantasy sports leagues, or the New York Yankees, where you go out and shop for the most garishly expensive lineup you can find.  When it comes down to where the cheese binds, the candidate himself has to be believable as to what he’s putting himself over as.

Rudy is surrounding himself with conservatives and hoping that he gets sufficiently bathed in their aura for the glow to remain on his face through next spring.  But he’s not a conservative, particularly on the judiciary, and if Republican primary voters let themselves get bamboozled by all this name-dropping, they’ll have nobody but themselves to blame when they wake up and find they’ve nominated the most left-wing GOP nominee since Richard Nixon.

UPDATE: Michael Gerson gets it - maybe a little too much - but J-Ger doesn’t have a clue.

‘NOTHER UPDATE: “Doth” instead of “dost”.  Thanks to “Grammer Nitpicker” for pickething mine medieval English grammer.