Posted on 05/29/2007 3:13:05 PM PDT by SUSSA
Here’s an unwelcome birthday gift for Rudy Giuliani, as he travels around the city raising money: protests from fire fighters and family members of September 11th victims.
They've shown up in the past at Giuliani's presidential events. Today, they’re gathering in Bay Ridge, and they have plans to follow him nationwide starting sometime around January, according to Jim Riches, a deputy chief with the fire department whose son was killed in the World Trade Center attacks.
“We have all the UFA, the UFOA, and the fire members are all behind us -- the International Association of Fire Fighters,” said Riches. “And we’re going to be out there today to let everybody know that he’s not the hero that he says he is.”
The group’s complaints center on the faulty radios used by the fire department that day and what they say was a lack of coordination at Ground Zero.
And Riches disputes the notion that Giuliani provided any form of leadership on September 11 or in the days following.
“If somebody can tell me what he did on 9/11 that was so good, I’d love to hear it. All he did was give information on the TV”
“He did nothing,” Riches continued. “He stood there with a TV reporter and told everyone what was going on. And he got it from everybody else down at the site.”
That is quite arguable.
I was going to ask for an enumeration of the differences.
Within the party, yes. Newt or Thompson certainly, though hopefully not both. It's rumored that Obama's canidacy and his SoS service may have eased Powell's wife's fears of assassination. He could probably be VP in a heartbeat.
If it comes down to Hillary/Obama vs Giuliana then convincing you there's a difference might be relevant, till then it's not, I accept you belief that they're essentially the same on most issues.
I believe Rudy and Hillary are the same on many, many issues (the vast majority).
I have also seen the damage that a liberal Republican can do in a leadership spot, where their own party is unwilling to challenge their liberal programs and lets them off the hook. (Exhibit 1: Schwarzenegger).
I prefer to have my liberal enemies on the other side of the aisle where I can fight them head on, not be stabbed in the back by one of “my own” and/or silenced into submission. When the quarterback is throwing the ball to the other team, it’s kind of hard to advance the ball to your own goal.
Yes. With law enforcement unions, it’s basically about money. I don’t listen to them, even if they’re NY firefighters.
You’re getting the unions’ side of the story. I wouldn’t trust them worth a damn. How carefully have you “researched” this? In my experience, “research” is a much-overused word when people are arguing with each other. The person who uses it is often bluffing.
I never suggested that all criticism “from a union member” or a Democrat is necessarily wrong. I would suggest that most criticism from union LEADERS is likely to be wrong.
I wonder if the union that endorsed Bush is the one that’s taking the lead here, or if they’re just going along. And how do you know that their stated beefs are their real issues?
Being from Silicon Valley and now North Carolina at RTP, I am totally opposed to unions. But I do believe law enforcement and public safety personnel should be paid a livable wage. If you don’t, you end up with a police force like Durham, NC.
I don’t think there are many in law enforcement who aren’t paid a “livable wage.” Especially in big cities. Even if they aren’t, and even if a public official can be held responsible for that, I wouldn’t consider it a major negative in deciding whether to support him for public office. Public employees of all kinds (except perhaps the Border Patrol) have little problem getting politicians on their side. The taxpayer, on the other hand, is badly underrepresented.
I think when history is written, it will not be as nice to Rudy Giuliani as some would expect. His negligence with WTC 7 is inexcusable. He should take responsibility for that failure, not try to shift it to someone else.
Battalion Chief Jim Riches (above the fire helmet that was found next to his son, Jimmy, Jr.'s remains on March 25, 2002 at Ground Zero) doesn't think the death of his son and other firefighters because of Rudy's management failures are "trivial and mean-spirited reasons" for getting the truth out about Rudy.
I'd suggest you go to the Ground Zero Museum before you call the heroes of 9-11 mean-spirited or other names.
Please see #5.
So, because a guy’s son died in 9-11, he must be right?
Can’t you do better than this?
Look, I didn’t call the firefighters in general “mean-spirited” or anything else. And even if some 9-11 heroes are part of this union attack on Rudy, it’s still possible that they’re mean-spirited. Even heroes can be. And even if Rudy isn’t a hero, it doesn’t mean that their criticisms of him are justified, let alone appropriately expressed.
Battalion Chief Jim Riches was there saving lives on 9-11. As a battalion chief he knows waht went wrong. It isn’t something he read about in a book or in the paper.
His son and many of his fellow firefighters are dead because of Rudy’s management and judgement failures. It’s not mean-spirited to point to those failures in a man who is trying to be president. The public should know about Rudy’s judgement and management ability.
Just because a union that backed Rudy twice, and backed Bush twice, is helping get the message out doesn’t mean the message is wrong, or that they are all liberals.
That’s true. It’s equally true that just because a guy saved lives on 9-11 doesn’t mean he knows enough to trash Rudy. He may or may not.
Whatever the truth of this situation may be, I’m MUCH more interested in what Rudy learned from 9-11 and how he led the city after it happened. If we exclude people from the presidency just because they made a few mistakes, even big ones, we’ll have no choices at all.
Were it not for the 1993 attacks I would agree with you at least somewhat. But given that those attacks occurred and many sane voices at the time were giving Rudy plenty of reason to pause and think about what he was doing, he chose to go ahead with his plans that even before 9/11 seemed foolish. If he did not try and pass himself off as a ‘hero’ I’d be more inclined to let it pass. As it stands, he disgusts me.
OK. It’s true that he had the wake-up call in ‘93.
Mr Riches didn’t become Battalion Chief by not knowing how to fight fires and without knowing a cluster-@#$# when he sees one.
I think I’ll take his word over Oprah’s and Rudy’s about what went on.
It remains to be seen if the American people will believe Rudy and his spin machine or the firefighters who were there on 9-11. Want to bet against them believing the firefighters?
Yup, he got the call...he just did not take it.
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