What does a mayor know about foreign policy

For some time now, I've been getting sicker and sicker of the talking heads speculating that Obama doesn't have sufficient gravitas regarding foreign policy to be a believable presidential candidate. As the usualy line goes, "he's only been in the Senate for two years. What does he know about foreign policy?" Okay, fair enough, but, I've been asking myself, why not level the same criticism at Rudy Giuliani, whose only experience is as a big city mayor? Or at Mitt Romney?

Well, today, somebody from NBC finally did take Giuliani to task by asking, "What does a mayor know about what's going on in Iraq?"

HOST: I want to go back to Iraq and then we will touch on some of those other issues. The President said he's asking people for their support. He's asking them to give him a chance for this strategy. You say you support the troop surge but you say, "There has to be a heavy emphasis on measuring results." What do you mean by "a heavy emphasis on measuring results?"

GUILLIANI: What I mean is, taking a look at how we are effecting violence. There's a specific objective here. The president laid it out last night and a week ago. The object is to make Baghdad secure, Anwar more secure. We can measure that. We can measure -- I think, it's nine sectors in Baghdad -- how much violence is there now? How much violence is there the week after, the next month, the month after. You know, I'm kind of familiar with that using the Comstat program in New York.

HOST: I was going to say to you, sir, what does a mayor know about what's going on in Iraq? On foreign policy?

GUILLIANI: I've spent a great deal of time talking to people about it. I've been on 91 foreign troops in the last five years. I've been in 35 different countries. Right before the speech on Iraq, I met with, maybe, ten or twelve people with differing viewpoints. People who wanted to pullout, generals who helped craft the strategy. So, you know, you try to learn as much as you can about these issues.