Rudy Giuliani delivered a speech in Iowa recently on "Restoring Fiscal Discipline and Cutting Wasteful Washington Spending." Just two minutes and 14 seconds into it, the former mayor said, "I will continue to keep America on offense in the terrorist war against us, because I think that's the overriding issue of our day."

Giuliani was also asked recently about his position on taxes. After a few soundbites, he said, "[Democratic presidential candidates] never mentioned the word 'Islamic terrorist' during the debate.... Maybe they think they're going to be insulting somebody if they say it. I'm trying to figure out who would be insulted -- other than Islamic terrorists."

And this week, also in Iowa, Giuliani was asked about increasing federal support for HIV treatments. He responded:

"My general experience has been that the federal government works best when it helps and assists and encourages and sets guidelines... on a state-by-state, locality-by-locality basis. It's no different from the way I look at homeland security. Maybe having been mayor of the city, I know that your first defense against terrorist attack is that local police station, or that local firehouse."

I'm generally not in the habit of offering advice to Republican presidential hopefuls, but I have an idea for the Giuliani campaign. As a way to save time at future appearances, perhaps one of his aides could give Giuliani a placard with the word "terrorism" on one side, and "9/11" on the other. That way, whenever anyone asks him a question about anything, he can simply point to the sign, instead of having to go to the trouble of coming up with an excuse to end up at the same point anyway.