Posted on 02/07/2007 10:28:17 AM PST by NormsRevenge
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former New York mayor and presidential hopeful Rudolph Giuliani gained fame for his performance after the September 11 attacks, but charges that he also made serious blunders could give ammunition to rival candidates.
Giuliani, a Republican, has all but formally declared his candidacy and polls show he is a strong contender, largely because of his steely and comforting leadership that day in 2001.
But Giuliani also made mistakes in handling the city's emergency services that may have cost lives, say the co-authors of the 2006 book "Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11." Of the 2,992 people killed in the hijacked plane attacks, 2,759 died at New York's World Trade Center.
Such criticism raises the possibility the former mayor may be attacked on his perceived strength, as 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry was when his Vietnam War record was called into question.
A Giuliani aide defended his performance, noting that 25,000 people were safety evacuated from the danger zone.
The Giuliani campaign is more concerned about attacks on his personal life, including his three marriages, and support for gay rights and abortion rights could also alienate social conservatives crucial to the winning the Republican nomination.
"Clearly if you want to take Rudy Giuliani down or out you've got to go after 9/11 but it's going to be a tough job to deconstruct that heroic narrative," said Doug Muzzio, public affairs professor at New York's Baruch College.
"There is a lot that went on that day and prior that if fully known would tarnish the mythology of 'America's Mayor,"' Muzzio said, using a nickname some have attached to Giuliani.
"Grand Illusion," written by two journalists, says that in the late 1990s Giuliani went against the advice of police and emergency management experts and placed the city's emergency command center in the World Trade Center complex, which had been bombed in 1993 and was a presumed future target.
The command center had to be abandoned on September 11, 2001, after hijacked planes slammed into two skyscrapers next door. In the chaos that ensued Giuliani allowed fire and police commanders to be separated in violation of the city's own protocols, co-authors Wayne Barrett and Dan Collins say.
LACK OF COMMUNICATION
As a result, police and fire commanders could not coordinate search and rescue efforts. The National Institute of Standards and Technology concluded in a 2005 report that emergency responder lives likely were lost at the trade center because of the lack of communication.
"In the madness of that hour, of that 102 minutes, normally you would say that's an understandable failure," Barrett said. "The reason he is subject to criticism is because he has portrayed himself as a man of great decision and judgment that day."
A Giuliani aide declined to address specific questions about the command center's location or the separation of police and fire commanders.
"The fact that an estimated 25,000 people were safely evacuated from lower Manhattan speaks volumes about the city's response," the aide said in a statement.
The world remembers video of the soot-covered Giuliani at the scene the day of the attacks, keeping his cool while informing the public, sympathizing with the victims and ordering an around-the-clock rescue effort.
Meanwhile, President Bush was kept at a safe distance from New York and Washington for most of the day, enhancing Giuliani's image.
Former Mayor Ed Koch, a Democrat, said he too was critical of Giuliani's ill-fated decision on the emergency command post, but he doubted that issue would have much impact on the campaign. He also said Giuliani's popularity was waning before the attacks.
"He's entitled to all of the support and honors that he receives around the world for the courage and leadership that he displayed on 9/11," Koch said. "But he couldn't have been re-elected on 9/10."
As mayor, Giuliani was credited with reducing crime but also with strong-armed rule. Amnesty International accused New York City police of brutality and abuse and race relations were tense. He once enraged many among the city's liberal-leaning artistic community by trying to cut off funding from a city museum over a painting of the Virgin Mary made partially from elephant dung.
I hope I'm never held responsible for the actions of some of my relatives!
Persobnally I think he was a great Governor for New York. Period.
Good grief... Rudy Giuliani was MAYOR of New York City (a city of 8 million + people), but he was never GOVERNOR of the State of New York!
If you can't take the give and take on FR, then think very carefully before you post anything.
Who is your other senator? Rockefeller, isn't it?
You are correct my mistake. Thought one thing and typed another. Sorry about that, my apologies.
"Who is your other senator? Rockefeller, isn't it?"
We don't claim him. And all the candidates combined don't have enough money to unseat him. Daddy left him well off and he doesn't mind spending it to get elected. I remember one year he had spent something like $30 million to get elected senator.
May I ask what your point is in posting this information? Are you suggesting that anyone who has a father, or any other family member for that matter, who did anything wrong, should be ridiculed for what we refer to as the "sins of the father"?
Exactly, sitetest. I'm not on the Giuliani bandwagon but I can see a smear campaign as easily as the next intelligent person.
Right on. This is America. You don't have to do and be what your daddy was. You can, but you don't have to. How can he, or any of us, be responsible for what our ancestors (even near ones) did? Ever hear of ex post facto? Hmm?
Say what? Want to try again?
That is a terrible view of life you have. No room for a belief in the perfectability of man? We all enter this world with a bent toward sin as we all come from Adam, the sinner-in-chief, but God gave us a way out and many of us try to take it. Maybe Rudy took the way out? Looks to me like he did.
Something is cutting in West Virginia, isn't it. Y'all keep on sending Sheets Byrd back to Washington and will most likely continue to do so well after they wrap that sheet around him and prop up his dead useless ass in his senate chair. Not to mention that other engineer on the gravy train, Rockefeller. So don't go all high road and evangelical on me.
Just so long as that gravy train keeps on rolling through West Virginia, I do not believe it matters one whit to you who drives it.
Sir: You cannot buy what is not for sale. So don't try to hide behind Rockefeller's use of his money.
I agree with Ed on this point.
I hope Rudy goes away fast, I don't care how he is driven out, as long as he goes back to milking 9/11 as his main source of income and stays out of the limelight of national politics.
Personally I could care less about Rudy's 9-11 performance.
He is a liberal, that's all I need to know.
I hope there's no outbreak of anti-Italian news stories trying to tie Rudy and his relatives into organized crime. It was distressing when it was done to Geraldine Ferraro many years ago, when she was a VP candidate, and it would be a step backward to read such negative mudslinging now.
Many apologies. I've been out for awhile and not had the opportunity to respond to you. I never intended to paint with such a wide brush and suggest everyone with a less than ideal family is doomed. Many rise above their diversity and some even gain something positive from it.
Your father sounds like a very honorable man and a credit to our country. We need more like him.
Dear FreeInWV,
"Many apologies."
Accepted.
"I never intended to paint with such a wide brush and suggest everyone with a less than ideal family is doomed. Many rise above their diversity and some even gain something positive from it."
Mr. Giuliani went to college, to law school, became a federal prosecutor, put bad guys in jail, ran for mayor, did a credible job of it, and didn't do so badly on September 11.
Why would you think that this brush would paint him accurately? Why would you use this brush at all?
sitetest
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