On eve of speech, Republicans defend Palin

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is giving his delayed keynote speech tonight, but he spent as much time this morning defending the night's other headline speaker -- vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

"Give her a chance to make her first speech, give her a chance to do her first interview," Giuliani said on ABC's "Good Morning America."

"Of course it's going to be high stakes," he said of Palin's speech. "The media is ready to pounce on any mistake. ... She looks to me like she's got tremendous confidence, got tremendous ability as a speaker."

Giuliani, who came to national prominence in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was asked "If she were the president on 9/11, you would have been confident?"

"I'd be confident that she'd be able to handle it," he replied. "She's been a governor of a state, she's been mayor of a city."

Palin -- the first-term Alaska governor whose personal and political record has been under the microscope since her surprise selection last week -- did her walk through this morning for her speech, accompanied by John McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis and senior adviser Nicolle Wallace.

Her speech is scheduled for 10:30 p.m. EDT. It's her chance to reassure skittish Republicans -- and convince skeptical voters -- that she's ready for prime time, much less the White House.

The major speakers on the convention's first full night on Tuesday -- First Lady Laura Bush, former Senator Fred Thompson, and Senator Joe Lieberman -- also took turns coming to Palin's aid, saying that she would be a maverick reformer just like McCain.

The McCain campaign, which has been aggressively counterpunching on questions about Palin, said today it has had enough, calling it a "faux media scandal designed to destroy the first female Republican nominee" for vice president.

"This nonsense is over," senior campaign adviser Steve Schmidt said in a statement. "The McCain campaign will have no further comment about our long and thorough process."

UPDATE: McCain just landed at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, and after greeting his wife Cindy and their children, he hugged Palin, and spent considerable time with Bristol Palin, Palin's 17-year-old daughter who is five months pregnant, and Levi Johnston, her boyfriend. They posed for an extended family photo.