Once in a while, Rudy Giuliani appears so confused, one really has to wonder why he’s even running for president.

Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani said Friday that the alternative minimum tax — which is expected to generate as much as $1 trillion over the next 10 years — could be eliminated over the long term by balancing it out with even more tax cuts.

Giuliani’s remarks prompted a bewildered response from his audience of technology executives. Both Republicans and Democrats said they assumed that the candidate must have misspoke as he responded to a question about the tax and its affect the middle class.

This reflects the sophistication of a small child who picked up a copy of the Weekly Standard, and hoped to make sense of what he didn’t understand. Eliminating the AMT would cost billions. Additional tax cuts would cost billions more. Trying to strike a “balance” this way is like trying to put out a fire with kerosene.

As Kevin Drum put it, we’re apparently dealing with a “buffoon.”