Posted on 05/15/2007 10:45:31 AM PDT by jdm
The other day on Fox News Sunday, Rudolph W. Giuliani blamed a former aide for the decision to put the city’s emergency command center at 7 World Trade Center, where it was destroyed on 9/11. Now the aide, Jerome M. Hauer, the former director of emergency management, has fired back, giving Lloyd Grove of New York magazine a February 1996 memo that shows he argued for a Brooklyn location. He says the mayor overruled him.
Here is what Mr. Giuliani said on Fox:
Jerry Hauer recommended that as the prime site and the site that would make the most sense. He recommended that site as the site that would be the best site. It was largely on his recommendation that that site was selected.
Mr. Hauer’s memo to First Deputy Mayor Peter J. Powers recommended the MetroTech Center in downtown Brooklyn: “The building is secure and not as visible a target as buildings in Lower Manhattan.” The World Trade Center had been bombed three years earlier.
Mr. Hauer told Lloyd Grove in an interview:
Rudy’s getting a lot of heat for the decision. He’s trying to run on his homeland-security and national-security background, and if you start peeling back the skin on the errors he made when he was mayor, you take away a lot of the basis for his candidacy… I feel sad that he would betray somebody that had served him loyally in the past, and I’m angry, too. But when you get to know Rudy, you know that this is the kind of thing he does. That’s just his personality.
(Excerpt) Read more at empirezone.blogs.nytimes.com ...
Your post might just possibly make sense if I were a "Rudy-bot," but I'm not.
Yes, Lou Anemone has made a career of being a Giuliani hater.
However, his hatred for Giuliani only seems to have flowered after he was passed over in hiring for the post of commissioner, leaving him in the largely ceremonial role of Chief Of Department.
Again, I would love to see the full text of Chief Anemone's memos.
So is Chris Wallace and Fox News credible enough?
Yes. So far as I know, Fox hasn't had to fire a major correspondent for making up stories.
The problem with your theory is that Rudy initiated the Haeur blame game in the interview with Wallace. Wallace responded by mentioning documentation about Haeur's opposition to putting the ECC in WTC7. So Wallace was NOT trying to attack Rudy with Haeur - instead, he was, as a good journalist should, following up against a dubious claim (otherwise known as a lie).
So you have the liberal Village Voice and the conservative Fox News both agreeing that Hauer was NOT the one pushing for the ECC to be at WTC7. Two different sources, two very different politics. And references to other officials.
Which leaves Rudy.
An awful lot of breaking news on Rudy today, debate date. I hope the moderator will remember the other candidates on stage tonight. Could this news item be one of the reasons he hesitates to be included in the Iowa straw poll? Interesting.
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LOL! No doubt.
Well, which is it? Is Rudy lying about who put the command center in the WTC?
Or is Rudy such a weak figure that he couldn’t do the right thing but instead had to go along with the obviously faulty recommendation of his staff?
One way he’s a liar, the other he’s unfit to be the leader of the free world. Take your pick.
Well that's the thing.
I would never want to see a social liberal like Giuliani win the GOP nomination. Not only is it not a winning strategy for 2008, it would have longer-term injurious effects on the party.
However, I suspect that you and I both believe that it is bad policy to:
(1) Simply go along unquestioningly with a leftist media push to destroy a man, especially when he is being targeted because he is serious about fighting terror,
(2) Repeat unsubstantiated allegations like media parrots without investigating the claims and familiarizing ourselves with agendas of the claim-makers and
(3) Help destroy the reputation of a man who could really help the eventual GOP candidate win over independent voters in the general election campaign.
Are you quoting talking points or did you live in the city during the Guiliani years? Just curious.
(Rolling Eyes)
You show me one of your conservative “icons” who personally took on a teachers union in their life? Or cleaned up a city block, let alone what was times square?
Even the “icon” Regan himself allowed amnesty for illegal aliens, which led to a 3 Million person problem to ballon into a 13 Millioin person problem....
Yes, the guy who embodied the broken window philosophy is a liberal.... You are an abject moron if you believe that.
Really? So you're telling me that Mr. Hauer never made such claims prior to the Wallace interview?
So you have the liberal Village Voice and the conservative Fox News both agreeing that Hauer was NOT the one pushing for the ECC to be at WTC7.
I hardly believe that Fox News has taking an official editorial stance endorsing Hauer. It seems like they are investigating a story, not pronouncing a verdict.
Before, when we discussed his incompetence about this, the Rudy supporters argued that it was not incompetent, but instead it was a brilliant ploy by Rudy to show the evil terrorists that he would not back down, and not give in.
Then Rudy came out and claimed he had nothing to do with it, and the Rudy supporters were all saying Rudy WANTED to do the right thing, but this evil subordinate was stupid and forced Rudy to put the command center in a bad place.
Now the subordinate shows a memo noting he wanted the command center somewhere else for PRECISELY the reason we all said it was stupid to put it in the WTC.
And the Rudy supporters claim he must have also written other things, that it’s only one sentence, as if they missed the entire point. The one sentence makes it clear that this subordinate KNEW that putting it in the WTC was stupid, and understood that it should be at a lower profile place.
So it is unfathomable that the SAME person later forced Rudy against his will to put the command center in the WTC.
Not to mention that this makes Rudy look like an incompetent fool who had no power to do what was right.
It’s fun watching Rudy supporters flail back and forth as their man keeps changing their positions for them. Ted and Deroy Murdock are off explaining how everything they said before about Rudy being really not for abortions was no longer operative and how that’s a good thing.
What I am saying is that Rudy attacked Hauer and Wallace responded to the dubious attack.
I hardly believe that Fox News has taking an official editorial stance endorsing Hauer.
That is not what I said. I am saying you have two sources - one liberal, one conservative - saying Rudy is lying here.
Blames things on underlings? Typical politician.
Carolyn
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Sometimes it's fun. Other times, rather annoying.
It's not a question of hardening, but of attractiveness of the target. Giuliani rejected good advice and put it in the wrong place.
Or is Rudy such a weak figure that he couldn’t do the right thing but instead had to go along with the obviously faulty recommendation of his staff?
A set of false alternatives.
The recommendation is "obviously faulty" only in retrospect.
Unless someone can point to a memo in which some prescient city official predicted that terrorists would begin using commercial aircraft as guided missiles.
One way he’s a liar, the other he’s unfit to be the leader of the free world.
He is unfit to be President because he is unsound on the issues: notably life issues and 2nd Amendment issues. He also cannot be relied upon to select the kind of Supreme Court justices we need.
There is no need to go along with the Village Voice's personal smear campaign allegining all manner of malfeasance.
Giuliani's stance on the issuesis what matters, not all this DU-style supposition and scurrilousness.
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