Posted on 05/19/2004 3:17:54 PM PDT by stillnoprotestsagainstmuslims
Families Lash Out at Giuliani at Hearing
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By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK - Outraged relatives of World Trade Center victims heckled former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (news - web sites) on Wednesday as their hopes that he would be grilled by the Sept. 11 commission faded in the face of gentle questioning and effusive praise from panel members. "My son was murdered because of your incompetence!" shouted Sally Regenhard, whose firefighter son died in the trade center. Seated three rows behind Giuliani, she jabbed her finger at the former mayor and waved a sign that read "Fiction" as he gave the city's emergency response a glowing review.
Giuliani finished his testimony and abruptly left the auditorium minutes later, leaving many family members upset that they received few answers. Monica Gabrielle, who lost her husband, Richard, called it a "lost opportunity."
"This was not a time for Rudy Giuliani to talk about all the great things he did on 9/11," she said. "He can save that for his talking tours. He should have told us what went wrong and what we should do now."
The acrimonious hearing brought together the mayor, who became a symbol of heroism for his steady response to the attack, and the activist relatives who have become a voice of dissent over his administration's emergency planning and response.
Their complaints have been supported by a growing mass of critical findings on gaps in command, control and communications among New York's agencies in charge of emergency response.
The anger directed at Giuliani came on the second and final day of hearings in New York by the Sept. 11 commission, created by Congress last year to investigate the attacks and advise the country on ways to avoid future attacks. The hearings resume in Washington on June 8-9 and the final report is due July 26.
The commission released two reports that mark the most comprehensive probe to date of New York's response on Sept 11. The findings detailed a list of failings including poor communication, gulfs in cooperation between police and firefighters and grave deficiencies in the city's 911 emergency telephone network.
The report led to an aggressive interrogation of Giuliani's top fire, police and emergency management officials Tuesday, with Republican appointee John F. Lehman, a former Navy secretary under President Reagan, calling the failings "a scandal" and "not worthy of the Boy Scouts."
Ex-fire commissioner Thomas Von Essen later called Lehman's comments "outrageous" and "despicable."
The harsh questioning of Giuliani's former team was a sharp contrast to the universal praise that commission members heaped on the former mayor Wednesday. His positive assessment of such hotly debated topics as the 911 phone system and gaps in fire and police communications went virtually unchallenged.
"New York City, on that terrible day, in a sense was blessed because it had you as leader," said commission chairman and former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean. "It had somebody who was a great, great leader to take charge of a terrible, terrible event. You also had, as you've told us, some of the best people in the country to call on who worked for you and worked for the city."
Family members called the Giuliani questioning weak.
"A lot of these questions that the public has may die with this commission," said Patricia Casazza, whose husband died as the offices of Cantor Fitzgerald filled with smoke.
Giuliani began his testimony Wednesday with a call to focus on the nation's true enemies and not criticize each other.
"Our enemy is not each other but the terrorists who attacked us, murdered our loved ones and continue to offer a threat to our security, safety and survival," Giuliani said to applause.
Later, Giuliani was chastised by members of the public. A longtime city gadfly berated him and the commission, yelling, "Three thousand people murdered does not mean leadership!" He and another person were hustled out of the room.
Others in the audience shouted about the failure of Fire Department radios, shouting, "Talk about the radios!"
"You're simply wasting time at this point," commission head Thomas Kean told the family members.
"YOU'RE wasting time!" came the angry reply.
Giuliani began his remarks by describing a September morning that began at breakfast with two friends and quickly turned into unimaginable horror as two hijacked planes slammed into the twin towers, killing 2,749 people and rattling the city's psyche.
As Giuliani recalled watching a man leap from around the 102nd floor of the north tower, family members began to cry, clearly disturbed by the account.
The hearing was held at the New School University in Greenwich Village — about 1 1/2 miles from ground zero.
Giuliani also told the commission that warnings of a possible terrorist attack on New York contained in an Aug. 6, 2001, White House briefing paper never reached City Hall, but probably would not have changed local security precautions.
The intelligence briefing for President Bush (news - web sites) referred to evidence of federal buildings in New York possibly being cased by terrorists. It mentioned New York or the World Trade Center three times.
"If that information had been given to us, or more warnings had been given in the summer of 2001, I can't honestly tell you we'd do anything differently," said Giuliani, who has become one of the Bush administration's most vocal supporters. "We were doing at the time everything we could think of ... to protect the city."
Current Mayor Michael Bloomberg later testified that New York was recently advised by Congress that its homeland security funding for the 2004 budget year would be cut by nearly 50 percent. Thinly populated states such as Nebraska, North Dakota and Wyoming receive several times more funding per capita than New York, he said.
"This is pork-barrel politics at its worst," the mayor said. "It also, unfortunately, has the effect of aiding and abetting those who hate us and plot against us."
It's an outrageous abuse of the public trust and we're being forced to pay them for it. I could've supported a purely administrative fact-finding commission whose purpose was to assure me that everything that can be done to protect America from future terrorist attacks has been done. Instead, we've got a religious Inquisition where all of the accused who won't publicly declare their seething hatred of George Bush are to be tortured and executed in the village square.
Hey sweetie - I think we both posted something along the same lines on the "live" thread today. Yours was actually worded better as I recall because when I read it I though "I wish I'd said that arasina's way instead of mine". LOL
I'm glad to hear that others are having similar reactions as Freepers are having.
I don't know why I feel so compelled to do research on this woman, probably because I find her to be an opportunist of the worst kind. So here you go, More Sally Regenhard (or as I say, once an environmentalist pain in the ass, always an environmentalist pain in the ass):
From the "Irish Echo"
http://www.irishecho.com/newspaper/story.cfm?id=14565
"Sally Regenhard, a daughter of Irish immigrants, joined the opposition to the plant soon after fulfilling a long-held dream of buying her own home. "We all have things that we want to do but put off," she said. "This is a goal that I had."
A long-time resident of Co-op City in the Bronx, Regenhard's decision to buy a home in Woodlawn last year had emotional considerations.
Her father, a County Mayo native, worked on the nearby IRT No. 4 subway line. "He was a Mike Quill man," she said, referring to the transit workers' leader.
More important, though, was the fact that her son lived in the Irish stronghold before his death at age 28.
"He was an environmentalist and a runner," she recalled. "He ran in the park. He loved the neighborhood."
Sally Regenhard told her son about her goal of buying a home and his fixing it up became part of the dream. "He was very handy," she said.
Christian Regenhard, a well-traveled Spanish speaker, served in the Marines for a number of years before studying for a degree on the West Coast. Back in New York, he applied successfully to become a firefighter. He was with Ladder 131 Engine 279 in Red Hook, Brooklyn, when it answered the call on Sept. 11, 2001. He was last seen alive helping an injured colleague. His remains were never recovered.
His mother recalled that in the summer of 1999, while working as a counselor with the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, before he joined the FDNY, he helped organize young people collecting signatures for the campaign opposing the water filtration plant.
Now, residents are still resisting what they've called an "eco-nightmare" -- the noise, dust and exhaust fumes that they believe will ensue when 28 acres of parkland are turned into a huge construction site. BLAH BLAH BLAH..
Interesting that her son Christian, who died in the WTC was an environmentalist and also a counselor for the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition - they are involved in all sorts of "social justice" activism and are in bed with some pretty strange folk. I'm not trying to sully his memory but it makes you wonder what the family is like...
excerpt from: http://www.word-power.co.uk/catalogue/1859843565
"Contributions range across a diverse spectrum: The Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, Jubilee 2000, Students for an Undemocratic Society, Fed Up Queers, Gender Identity Center of Colorado, Triangle Foundation, Jacks of Color, National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, Lower East Side Collective, Community Labor Coalition, Church of Stop-Shopping, Indy Media Collective, Black Radical Congress, The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory, Adelante Street Theater; HealthGAP, Housing Works, SexPanic! and, of course, ACT UP itself."
A pretty interesting group of organizations to be associated with, no?
They do dishonor their dead and it seems to be for money and politics, doesn't it?
IMO, any involvement with the group ACT UP disqualifies her as "normal" in any sense of the word.
True...
These presiding loons and media are totally oblivious to what was clear to everyone with half a brain -- twas nothing more than a Kangaroo Court.
The only characters missing were Moe, Larry and Curly.
No, Monica. Your "lost opportunity" was when you didn't demand answers in 1993.
They SAVED ~85% of those in the Towers----At a Cost of ~400 Souls.
~ 30,000 People SHOULD HAVE DIED in the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001.
That ONLY <3,000 Died was an EVERLASTING TRIBUTE to the Hundreds of NY Rescue Workers who Lost their Lives in the Towers.
Despite the "9/11 Comission's BEST 'Propaganda,'" NO CITY EMERGENCY RESPONSE TEAM could have done Better; in fact, by ANY "Assessment of the 'EMERGENCY,'" there SHOULD HAVE BEEN several Thousand MORE deaths!!
The "New York Guys" Didn't Just do "Great,"--They did SPECTACULARLY GREAT; THEY SET THE "STANDARD!!"
The "9/11 Commission" can only "Sit in Wonder" of the uncanny job performed by the "PRO's" in NY!!
"Guliani's Guys" have MUCH MORE to Teach the "9/11 Commission" than the "commission" can POSSIBLY TEACH "The Pro's!"
Doc
Ya Think?
This woman is an obvious leftist hack, who along with the other family members who are organized with the DNC is disgracing the name of her dead family member with her vicious lies.
If it is not obvious to YOU from the behaviours of the RINOs and DEMs that constitute the group, well ... you a bit wet behind the ears then. And clearly you are learning!
There are in addition to the blatant political theater of the commission's proceedings, the very makeup, the sadly politcally myopic roster of the group, they are all political well-connected fops -- no real techincal experts in any field whatsoever, the varied available information it has pointedly ignored because it hashes and mashes their almost preset script, and tehn their is the coup de grace -- internal Democrat memos leaked to public which state clearly the political -- Bush Bashing -- goals to be met by the commission.
If the commission failed to produce material for the Dems political theater -- it was to be rudely and right quickly axed. Well the commission is still a'going, so's we all KNOW what that means: It's a reliable and valuable PRODUCER for the Dems.
I think it is an organized conspiracy too. This is a group who along with Theresa Heinz Kerry are going everywhere accusing the Bush administration of allowing 911 to happen. They do not accuse Clinton who had been in office for 8 years just prior to 911 of any wrong doing. Trust me, this is political, they have their talking points and they are despicable!
I agree with you 100%.
Never before was I so proud of our country and how complete strangers helped each other and men rushed into those buildings to save others.
AMEN to that, alisasny!
Tell me about it. I can`t watch more than 5 minutes of these hearings without getting extrememly p-oed. Like I was telling one guy, a security guard does a shift watching a bank for eight hours, and in those hours the bank is robbed again and again and again, almost one robbery per hour because each time a robbery occurs, the security guard ignores it and even tries to make friends with these robbers, so word gets around.
After the security guard does his eight hours, he is relieved by a new security guard. The new security guard is named George, it`s his first hour on the job, and as soon as he takes his post the bank is robbed once again, right in front of his eyes. George chases the robbers around the block, beats some of them senseless, and even gets the leader of one of these bank robber gangs. And what does he get for it? He gets cursed out. Kerry is going to lose in a big ass way because I just can`t believe that there are that many people who would ignore reality in such a way.
I think you're right. I've been thinking along the same lines as you, but your post summed up my thoughts better than I could!
No argument here. I'm a New Yorker, and I'm just as sick of these folks as you are!
Understandable, if sad. How much coverage have those families -- I think about a dozen -- who wrote the letter to editor supporting the war on terror gotten? If they got any TV time, I missed it. And the vast majority of those who lost loved ones are just dealing with their grief privately and carrying on. But the TV image is going to make the dominant impression.
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