Watching Rudy Giuliani on "Meet the Press" this morning, it was tempting to keep a bottle of Maalox in one hand, and a shovel to trudge through non-stop nonsense in the other.

One could probably write a short book about all the dissembling and dishonesty, but one exchange, early in the hour-long interview, at least gave viewers a sense of Giuliani's perspective on Iran.

Tim Russert quoted the NIE, which read in part, "Our assessment that Iran halted the program in 2003 primarily in response to international pressure indicates Tehran's decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic, and military costs."

It led to this exchange:

RUSSERT: Seeing that, hearing that, learning that, doesn't this remove the option of a pre-emptive military strike against Iran?

GIULIANI: No, I don't think it does.... Of course we don't want to use the military option. It'd be dangerous; it'd be risky; but I think it would be more dangerous and more risky if Iran did become a nuclear power.

It must be great to work in the communications staff for a Republican presidential campaign -- you don't have to bother to change the talking points based on new information, you just repeat the old lines as if nothing ever changes.

Update: On a related note, I should mention that Giuliani very carefully distanced himself from Norman Podhoretz's demands for an immediate military strike on Iran, and subtly disagreed with Podhoretz's conspiracy theory that the NIE was the result of anti-Bush animus in the intelligence community. Given that Podhoretz is Giuliani's principal campaign advisor on national security, it's odd that the pupil would publicly disagree with his teacher.