So now Rudy Giuliani's selling himself to the folks in other states as the guy who saved New York from itself. He states that New Yorkers did not agree with his ideas but elected him twice since we liked his results. Well, count me out, America's Mayor. Rudy Giuliani was on his way out of office in disgrace when two jets took down the World Trade Center. It was a horrible day for New York City and for the nation as a whole but it was the day that made Giuliani famous , an opportunity he seized eagerly and he has been earnestly selling himself as New York's savior ever since, making himself a very wealthy man. What a load of crap.
His supporters point out the fact that he was on the scene during the attacks directing the rescue operations and rallying citizens. Bullshit. The only reason he was anywhere near downtown that morning is because he was trying to get to the city government's emergency control headquarters, a command station designed to keep services and leadership up and running in the event of a major catastrophe such as the attacks of 9/11. So he was basically wandering around dodging debris like thousands of other citizens and had no impact whatsoever on the efforts to fight the raging infernos and to evacuate people to safety. He was too busy trying to save his own ass.
And believe me, there's nothing to complain about there. I don't blame him at all. The area was a hellish nightmare and one's natural reaction would be to flee the flaming death raining down all around you. Just don't try to sell it as leadership after the fact. Admit you were as confused and frightened as any of the other non-rescue personnel on the scene and leave at that. Tell the world the truth, that you were trying to reach your bunker where you could maybe get a handle on this situation.
The only problem with that concept is that Rudy had this center located in one of the Twin Towers, in fact insisted upon it over the strong objections of emergency service professionals. After all, 9/11 was not the first attack on the World Trade Center. In 1993 a huge truck bomb was placed beneath them in a parking garage. The towers withstood the shock but a lot of damage was done, a few people were killed and the buildings evacuated. Many eyes were opened as to their vulnerability, most notably the eyes of Osama Bin Laden who would finally figure out eight years later how to take the offending towers down.
But Giuliani's best people also saw the danger and urged the mayor to locate his emergency command center underground either in Brooklyn or on the upper West side of Manhattan, two locations apparently not prestigious enough for the mayor. So he took over a couple of floors of one of the Twin Towers and put his bunker there, complete with thousands of gallons of diesel fuel. Just what that disaster needed, more combustible material.
Add that to the fact that Mr. Leadership, in the eight years between the attacks, did nothing to improve radio communications between the emergency services. In the 1993 attack an in many other lesser but grave emergencies, fire, police and emergency medical personnel could not communicate with one another with the radio systems they were using. It was no surprise to anyone in any of these services that radio communication was one of the first casualties of 9/11, and that loss led to a lot of unnecessary deaths of these incredibly brave professionals who could not hear the orders to evacuate the towers before they collapsed.
Giuliani knew beforehand that this was a grave problem and had done nothing to change the system. So instead of being America's Mayor rushing to the scene to lead the troops it turns out he was just a clueless phony whose own actions and omissions prior to that day only made a terrible disaster even worse. Maybe he was too distracted trying to explain away his complicated marital status to install a proper disaster response in America's largest city and in many ways the capital of the planet itself.
It seems that in the waning days of his mayoralty he was preoccupied defending himself against people who thought it unseemly for a Family Values Republican Guy to install his mistress in Gracie Mansion, embarrassing his wife and children very publicly. Add that to the fact that people were starting to wonder about his first marriage that lasted eight years. Nothing unusual about that except that this first marriage was to his cousin. Nice. Rudy the Vanquisher of Squeegie Guys was starting to wear thin on people who expect a modicum of decent behavior even from their favorite megalomaniacs. Even fools like Donald Trump were looking good by comparison, no easy feat.
Not only was his complicated love life being widely discussed, but it was revealed that the effective policing tactics he claimed he invented to "clean up New York" were actually implemented by his predecessor mayor David Dinkins and his talented Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. Also the fact that his administration had been a disaster for small businesses was coming to light. And now to hear him sell himself as our savior who taught us all how to behave is just too much. He has the balls to try to rewrite history when the people who were here with him are still around. At least with the Holocaust denying lunatics they waited for most of the victims to die before launching their odious campaign.
So basically Giuliani wants to rob the history bank in broad daylight with no mask and then tell you he was just making a withdrawal when all the people who were on line at the bank that day can tell you different. The man was no hero. Not that he was a coward, I won't call him that. He was just a guy in a bad place trying to run for cover. And a guy who by both his actions and inactions before the fact made a bad situation even worse and cost some wonderful and brave people their lives. The fact that he's portraying himself all over the country as something different makes him a liar and an opportunist building a reputation on shit that never happened.
This is a guy who was proud to ban the sale of Chianti at the San Genaro feast in Little Italy but the Federal Prosecutor who couldn't nail Mafia boss John Gotti. It was Rudy in charge of the many acquittals of Gotti that earned him the nickname "The Teflon Don." It as only after Giuliani was safely out of the way as mayor of New York when capable prosecutors finally nailed Gotti. I mean, it's not like Gotti was some clever guy or anything. He was a venal publicity hound who made no secret of who he was a what he did for a living. Any first year law graduate could have made an ironclad case against this guy. But not America's Mayor.
So is this the guy people will vote for to keep our nation secure and enforce our laws? The man who changed his mind about gun control and abortion to kiss the asses of the Christian Fascists who are sticking their noses into Caesar's business these days? The man who's talking about his former constituency like a bunch of petulant children he had to straighten out? Hell, his own children hate his guts and with good reason, he publicly humiliated them and their mother. This is the guy people are seriously considering nominating for President? His record as a leader and a prosecutor are very recent and very public. Just look at the facts and not the myth. Don't make the same mistake New York City did. Chances are you'll suffer and he'll profit from it.