Posted on 08/24/2006 3:03:32 AM PDT by Eagle Forgotten
It's the unexamined question of 9/11: What if Rudy Giuliani wasn't quite the hero everybody thought?
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But what if Rudy's take-charge image was mostly a load of bravado and PR? What if the actual decisions he made - before, during and after the terror attacks - were directly responsible for the city's inability to deal effectively with crucial aspects of the crisis?
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With dozens of exclusive and previously unreleased interviews, Barrett and Collins show how the ambitious ex-mayor has spent recent years revising his own truth of 9/11 - and profiting handsomely from it. Casting himself as a prescient terror hawk who wisely prepared his city for the inevitable, Giuliani in fact ignored repeated warnings from the experts, including his own commissioners and aides.
Instead of confronting the looming danger, they tell how he grew increasingly distracted by pet projects, political turf wars and an extraordinarily messy personal life.
(Excerpt) Read more at amny.com ...
Yes, but compared to Hitlery, Gore, Kerry, Kucinich, Biden, et al..., they all look like crosses between Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Ronald Reagan in stature and wisdom.
Agreed!!!!!
Based on Dem hitman Ellis Hennican and a smear book? LOL!
All this indicates is that the Dems fear a Giuliani candidacy.
The funerals, yes, I will give you. He did well there, but it's also more of a "comportment" thing, rather than substance. For example, Dems have criticized Bush for not attending many WoT funerals. If I could change either that or (for example) his amnesty proposal, I'd have no trouble saying that amnesty is far more important.
As for "held the city together when people were panicky," sorry, no, I won't give you that one. I was living here, then as now. There was remarkably little panic. The strongest emotion, of course, was sorrow at the losses. There was also an unusual feeling of solidarity, of "we're all in this together". There was nervousness and uncertainty about the future. I really don't think any of these attitudes were greatly affected, for good or for ill, by anything Giuliani did.
I'd forgotten about the Saudi check. Frankly, though, I see that as of a piece with the other stuff. Rudy's always been good at media manipulation. This book, though, seems to land some hard punches right on the rationale for his candidacy. I look forward to reading it. If there's real merit to its criticisms of Giuliani's competence in matters of substance, then his prospects will be seriously damaged. Without his 9/11 aura, his resume wouldn't have him on anyone's short list of 2008 prospects, in light of all his negatives.
Straight from the Communist handbook: link
In order to be conquered, a nation must be degraded, either by acts of war, by being overrun, by being forced into humiliating treaties of peace, or by the treatment of her populace under the armies of the conqueror. However, degradation can be accomplished much more insidiously and much more effectively by consistent and continual defamation.
Defamation is the best and foremost weapon of Psychopolitics on the broad field. Continual and constant degradation of national leaders, national institutions, national practices, and national heroes must be systematically carried out, but this is the chief function of the Communist Party Members, in general, not the psychopolitician."
Looks like the 'rats are scared.
You or any ordinary citizen could have done all of the things that you mentioned and more. You could have baked cookies between funerals and passed them out. No disrespect to the ones that we lost is intended.
I don't particularly favor Guiliani over any of the other candidates, except for McCain and Newt. I would prefer him to those two.
Leadership, however, is a hard to define thing...Rudi seems to have it. He also has supported the president 100% on the WOT, which makes him miles ahead of McCain.
We've seen it time and time again. Now the left is trying to say that Lincoln was a homosexual; just can't have him being one of the country's most popular presidents.
--yeah--blaming it on Rush Limbaugh?---(sarc)
Well, if Rudy runs either he will prove himself to be as portrayed, or he will fail. I am not doing anything to support any candidate since I don't have a favorite. This is an unusual situation for me. I will vote and work for whoever gets the nomination, even McCain, who still would be better than any democrat. (I would hope he isn't the nominee, though, as I think he will self-destruct before the general elections).
We can certainly agree on McCain!!!!!
Ok, it's confirmed. Hitlery is on the move...
For instance, I would be interested in seeing what posts about Hennican's article show upon other forums.
Fighting Crime
Under Rudy Giuliani’s leadership as Mayor of the nation’s largest city, murders fell by 64% and overall crime – including rapes, assaults, burglary and auto-thefts – fell by an average 57%. According to the FBI, New York was transformed from the crime capital of the country into the Safest Large City in America, while becoming the global model for excellence in law enforcement. Rudy Giuliani believes that “Public safety is a fundamental civil right…when you reduce crime, you restore people’s freedom.”
Cutting Taxes
Rudy Giuliani cut more taxes than any Mayor in New York City history, reducing or eliminating 23 city taxes that saved individuals and businesses more than $8 billion and reduced New Yorkers’ overall tax-burden by 22%. By the end of Giuliani’s term in office, New Yorkers enjoyed their lowest tax burden in three decades, along with 427,600 new private sector jobs, the strongest seven-year gain on record.
Fiscal Responsibility
Rudy Giuliani inherited a $2.3 billion dollar budget deficit and turned it into a multi-billion dollar surplus, while cutting taxes and delivering 8 consecutive balanced budgets. He cut the number of full-time city workers by 19%, excluding teachers and police officers, while slowing the growth of government spending to below the rate of inflation.
Welfare Reform
When Rudy Giuliani took office, more than one out of every seven New Yorkers was on welfare, reflecting intergenerational dependency and a weakening of the work ethic. Under his leadership, the City cut welfare rolls by 60% to the lowest number since 1966, eliminating fraud and abuse while turning welfare offices into Job Centers. Rudy Giuliani believes: “At the core of our approach to welfare reform is the basic concept of a social contract—that for every right there is a duty, for every benefit an obligation.”
Education
Rudy Giuliani worked to reform the nation’s largest public school system, with 1.1 million schoolchildren. He increased school funding from $8 billion to $12 billion, hiring more than 13,000 new teachers, bringing computers into classrooms and libraries, permanently restoring arts education, and offering targeted programs to improve literacy and student proficiency in science. At the same time, he insisted on reforms such as an end to social promotion, abolished principal tenure, and created the nation’s first and most generous Charter School Fund. Rudy Giuliani believes that every parent should have “the ability to send their child to the school of their choice, be it public, private, or parochial.”
Quality of Life
When Rudy Giuliani took office, 59% percent of New Yorkers said they would leave the city the next day if they could, according to a CNN/Time poll. Drawing upon the “Broken Windows” theory of policing, the City cracked down on quality of life crimes such as aggressive panhandling, grafitti, and drug dealing, transforming places like Times Square into safe destinations for theatergoers and sightseers. The City launched an aggressive initiative against drunk drivers, and implemented a ban on sex shops within 500 feet of residential neighborhoods, churches, and schools. In addition, Mayor Giuliani acquired 2,038 acres of new parkland – the most in more than 50 years.
Children’s Services
Acting on his belief that “One of the most important responsibilities of government is to protect children from harm,” Mayor Giuliani worked to create the city’s first independent child welfare agency, reducing the foster care population by promoting a record number of adoptions, and doubling child support collections by cracking down on deadbeat dads. Implementing a program called HealthStat—designed to identify children eligible for health insurance — the Giuliani administration enrolled more than 150,000 adults and children in Medicaid and Child Health Plus.
LOL. The guy had a relatively dangerous lifestyle and just watch this: The media will try to make this into something to depress conservative support for Rudy.
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