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 ...
I am ashamed to say I forgot about Arafat! Peach has posted a pretty comprehensive list of Rudy's accomplishments as mayor, which seem to refute the accusation that he was a do-nothing prior to 9/11.
In 1981, Giuliani was named Associate Attorney General, placing him in the third-highest position in the Department of Justice. As Associate Attorney General, Giuliani supervised all of the US Attorney Offices' Federal law enforcement agencies, the Department of Corrections, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the United States Marshals Service.
It was in 1983 that Giuliani indicted Marc Rich on charges of tax evasion and making illegal oil deals with Iran during the hostage crisis. Rich fled the United States to avoid prosecution, and was controversially pardoned by President Bill Clinton in 2001.[4]
It was in 1983 that Giuliani indicted Marc Rich on charges of tax evasion and making illegal oil deals with Iran during the hostage crisis. Rich fled the United States to avoid prosecution, and was controversially pardoned by President Bill Clinton in 2001.[4]
BTTT
Thanks for this list Peach. I've followed this thread this morning and was about to go digging for a list like the one you posted.
I'm hard pressed to find a potential candidate who will be capable of leading us through what promise to be some really tough years. In that sense- Rudy has a lot going for him. Senator Allen may have it- we'll see...
In the meantime- I encourage folks to read Rudy's book "Leadership".
Ah, yes, Marc Rich! Memories...light the corners of my mind....<p.Thanks!
In a case less nationally-publicized than those of Louima and Diallo, unarmed bar patron Patrick Dorismond was killed shortly after declining the overtures of what turned out to be an undercover officer soliciting illegal drugs. Even while hundreds of outraged New Yorkers protested, Giuliani staunchly supported the New York City Police Department, going so far as to take the unprecedented step of releasing Dorismond's "extensive criminal record" to the public.
Rudy also went up against the the mob in a big way. He's got guts and the smarts we need to fight the war on terror.
He's certainly not a metrosexual like so many men in Washington, D.C. these days.
Your senses are RIGHT ON!
When Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal suggested that the attacks were an indication that the United States "should re-examine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stand toward the Palestinian cause," Giuliani met the assertion with defiance, declaring,
There is no moral equivalent for this [terrorist] act. There is no justification for it... And one of the reasons I think this happened is because people were engaged in moral equivalency in not understanding the difference between liberal democracies like the United States, like Israel, and terrorist states and those who condone terrorism. So I think not only are those statements wrong, they're part of the problem.[13]
With that, New York City rejected the prince's $10 million donation to disaster relief in the aftermath of the attack.
You sound just like Al Sharpton:
At the same time, however, voices were being raised against the refrain that it was the mayor who had pulled the city together. "You didn't bring us together, our pain brought us together and our decency brought us together. We would have come together if Bozo was the mayor," said civil-rights activist Al Sharpton, in a statement largely supported by Fernando Ferrer, one of three main candidates for the mayoralty at the end of 2001
We lived in CT for most of my adult life. I went to college in Boston and admittedly spent more time in Boston than NYC but we did go into NYC pretty frequently for Yankee games and for concerts and plays.
Then we had to stop going. The city was absolutely not safe. I saw people mugged in front of me, beaten and frightened. Two friends were robbed within minutes of getting off charter buses to see a play in what had been, years before, a pretty safe district.
Rudy changed all that. He's got the guts to take on anybody and the charisma to win over foes.
He has faults, as do all candidates, and staunchly social issue conservatives won't particularly like him.
I also like Mitt Romney and will vote for my favorite candidate in the primary (I'm not sure which one that is yet) and will just pray the nation makes the right decision because without someone strong on national security, all the social programs in the world won't mean diddly.
Rudy is right on one or two issues, desperately left (wrong) on ten dozen more. Rudy is as far left as Joe Lieberman. Of course you would think he is a hero.
It is very important in a crisis for a leader to take charge and to remain calm, decisive, and in control. Rudy pulled this off with aplomb and he deserves high praise for doing so--not nitpicking cheap shots and politically driven Monday morning quarterbacking, which is what this book appears to be.
But he doesn't deserve to be president. His social liberal negatives would leave this country, its traditional strengths and families, more broken and damaged than his threadbare crime-busting anti-terror positives would benefit it.
Suffice it to say, Peach, that folks in my area of red state America don't want him in the White House precisely for the reasons you apparently do want him there.
No thanks.
In 1981, Giuliani was named Associate Attorney General, placing him in the third-highest position in the Department of Justice. As Associate Attorney General, Giuliani supervised all of the US Attorney Offices' Federal law enforcement agencies, the Department of Corrections, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the United States Marshals Service.
He also spearheaded the effort to jail drug dealers, combat organized crime, break the web of corruption in government, and prosecute white-collar criminals. He amassed a record of 4,152 convictions with only 25 reversals.
He's smart as a whip and his stance on crime in NYC, going after the little stuff and working his way up toward the big stuff and being pro active instead of reactive reminds me of President Bush in his stance in the war on terror.
I can understand that it would upset you horribly that Rudy polls better than any candidate running for the presidency at this time. That frankly delights me.
The primary choice must be made on whether the candidate has the ability to win and prosecute the war. Some candidates who are strong on certain social issues are not going to be able to win, for a variety of resons. On the other hand, some candidates who can win will be objectionable to social conservatives.
Perhaps we need to demand of all candidates that if they don't happen to share certain social views that they explain this, and what they would promise as far as leaving the current situation as is. Social conservatives should explain how they would actually DO something, rather than simply expressing support for certain causes.
fear that Giuliani's private life will not be front and center in the primaries and if he wins the nomination it will be all we hear from then till the election.
He's got bigger troubles than his private life.
1 pro "choice" on abortion
2 gun grabber
3 pro homosexual marriage.
Until he does something about these, he doesn't have a chance to get the nomination.
That being said he did do some good things in cleaning up the crime problem in NY city.
Hennican "LEANS" left? Might as well say the sun "KINDA" rises in the east.
You forgot one thing.
He gave back a check to that Saudi Prince!!
How could you overlook that?
sarc/
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