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There is an obvious question that I’m sure many people reading this automatically asked themselves upon seeing the title. “Why is this guy picking on Rudy?” they might say. “There are like, forty-two other people running for President right now. Is this just partisan Democrat sniping?”
The reason I picked him is two-fold. First, Giuliani, despite being a “top-tier” candidate has largely been getting a free pass from the mainstream media on his record. There’s been plenty of press coverage of “Pander Bear” John McCain, “Multiple Choice” Mitt Romney, and even undeclared candidate actor Fred Thompson (I ran out of snippy nicknames).
There are exceptions of course, such as the stories I researched for this piece, but since most of them don’t make it on TV, most Americans don’t know about them. If it isn’t on the TV it didn’t happen.
Second, few people outside of New York City know anything about the man, except what we saw of him on 9/11, “the display of Churchillian valor, the outpouring of awe and affection even from once-disparaging quarters, Time's Man of the Year, America's Mayor, and then - after he left office, owing to term-limit laws - the corporate consultancy, the $100,000 speaking gigs, and the continued idolatry nationwide,” Fred Kaplan writes in his review of Giuliani’s book titled Leadership (Equal Measures of Humility and Malarkey on the Hudson, Boston Globe, 12 Oct 02) seeming to make the case that Giuliani’s acts that day wiped out all the criticisms that had existed of him as he was exiting office, a few of which will be addressed shortly.
I think once people see who he really is though, once Toto pulls back the curtain obscuring the Wizard of 9/11, Giuliani won’t stand a chance.
Why do I say that? Most of us have seen the footage showing him walking towards the World Trade Center after it had been hit. What is less commonly known is the real reason he was heading down there; because of an error that led to preventable deaths on that day.
The man put the place where he’d need to go in the event of a terrorist attack on the city, in the very complex that had been hit once before by terrorists, and was high on the list of likely targets for any future attacks because he wanted it to be within walking distance.
“Where was Rudy?” an article from asks. “He didn't know what to do or where to go because he had put his emergency command center in exactly the wrong place. Against the advice of experts, he had built the emergency command center in the area most likely to be attacked, an area that had already been attacked; the 23rd floor of No. 7 World Trade Center. It was off-limits on the only day it was ever needed.” (Polner, What an anti-Giuliani ad should say, 13 Mar 07). An equivalent mistake would be for the President of the United States to relocate NORAD to the Washington Monument. As you know, Tower 7 of the World Trade Center Complex collapsed after 5 P.M. the day of the terrorist attacks.
This is just one of many things that will start to hit the mainstream media’s radar once the campaign for ‘08 is in full swing. I’m not talking about the trivial personal stuff. I really don’t care, nor should the average voter care, if he wore a dress on Saturday Night Live (what guest host hasn’t at this point?), if he’s not getting along with his son, or if he’s been married three times (now, how he treated those 3 wives, that’s a different matter, but I‘m not going to get into that here).
For instance, there’s the Bernard Kerik flap. Do you remember when Kerik was tapped by the Bush Administration to replace Tom Ridge as the head of the Department of Homeland Security before being passed over for Michael Chertoff?
Kerik, who was originally Giuliani’s driver, was later made police commissioner despite the fact that “Bernie,” who was having sex with his mistress, publisher Judith Regan in an apartment paid for by NYC taxpayers that was supposed to be for WTC rescue workers For Rudy a relationship that‘s too close for comfort 1 Apr 07), was quite likely mobbed up.
The allegedly mobbed up Kerik “pleaded guilty last summer to improperly allowing the company, Interstate Industrial Corporation, or its subsidiaries, to do $165,000 worth of free renovations on his Bronx apartment in late 1999 and 2000. The company has denied paying for the work, and has disputed any association with organized crime. But the two brothers Author’s Note: Frank Di Tommaso and Peter Di Tommaso who run it have been indicted in the Bronx on charges they lied under oath about their dealings with Mr. Kerik.” (Rashbaum, 30 Mar 07). Innocent men don’t usually plead guilty. Not when they are fairly wealthy white men who can afford decent attorneys.
Another bit of information about this case that sadly has not gotten any TV airtime far as I know comes from Stabroek News, based out of the small nation of Guyana. “Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was briefed on Bernard Kerik's reported link to a company suspected of ties to organised crime before he appointed him the city's police commissioner and Giuliani has now reiterated it was a mistake to nominate Kerik in the failed bid to head the Department of Homeland Security.” (Giuliani again acknowledges mistake over Kerik nomination, 31 Mar 07).
Simply put, a man who took credit for a decline in New York City’s violent crime rate during the 1990s that had begun under the previous administration had information that a man he was going to make police commissioner had ties to the mafia. Not only that, but later he named a prison after Kerik, then nominated him to the Department of Homeland Security. If our Mayor John Hickenlooper did something like that, the media would call for his head on a platter.
Next, we have the “small” matter of the 9/11 dust. I say small because that is the size of particulates in the air over Manhattan. Giuliani of course does not hold blame on this alone. Christie Todd Whitman, former head of the EPA among others also share responsibility, but this piece is about Rudy.
Whitman told the American people the area was safe, but Rudy, mayor of the city that had been attacked, backed her up. “After the disaster, some 40,000 people worked in the area of the Trade Center or at the Fresh Kills site on Staten Island where the debris from the buildings was dumped. Some were early responders looking for survivors or clearing rubble. Others were hired within days to clean offices and apartments in the area, which were covered with fine dust from the collapsed buildings.” (Griswold, 9/11 dust ‘as caustic as drain cleaner’ 40,000 people; how many of them will die because of the lack of respiratory equipment? If the number is greater than the official death toll on 9/11, 2,973 (not including the 19 hijackers), then won’t in fact Giuliani in part be responsible for more American deaths than Osama Bin Laden?
Back to the dust. So what was in that dust exactly? There were “innumerable tiny shards of glass, which could get lodged in the lungs, and a stew of toxic and carcinogenic substances, like asbestos and dioxin, that could potentially lead to cancer decades from now. ... Doctors have concluded that the workers will have serious health issues for years to come.” (New York Times, as qtd. “9/11 dust ‘as caustic a drain cleaner‘ How can I blame this on Rudy you ask? What impact does it have on his ability to be President? I’m getting there.
From the Washington Post: “Christie Todd Whitman stressed in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that the air in lower Manhattan was safe, although she also said workers at the World Trade Center site needed to use protective breathing gear. … ‘We agreed then, and I reiterate now, that the air on the site was not clean ... We were emphatic that workers needed to wear respirators, a message I repeated frequently. But I did not have the jurisdiction to force workers to wear them that was up to their superiors,’ Whitman said in a statement.” (Barret, EPA, NYC blamed for 9/11 health problems 8 September 06).
In a way she’s right. 9/11 rescuers are getting sick. Some have died, others are dying. Many have filed lawsuits against the EPA for this. What side has Rudy, the hero of 9/11 taken? “Instead of helping the victims of 9/11 recover, Giuliani and Bush have been preventing these plaintiffs from getting what they are entitled to.” (davefromqueens, 23 Feb 07).
There’s my point. The people of New York are getting sick from the 9/11 dust, and Giuliani doesn’t seem to care. A mayor’s duty is to protect his cities people. On this count, Giuliani has failed. What’s to say he won’t do the same for the whole country should he be allowed to win the White House?
There are other problems besides those listed above. Problems such as not giving NYC’s firefighters proper radios so that the firemen in the second WTC tower to collapse never heard the order to get out, or his changing positions on key issues then acting as though the change was his consistent opinion, and all sorts of other things that if I went into this presentation would last for hours. All these things are why I fear a Giuliani Presidency. Hopefully, he won’t even make it to Super Tuesday once these things I’ve found out become common knowledge.
The "works cited" section for this essay could not be included becuase FictionPress kept, everytime I tired to inlcude them, removing the last names of the authors of the peices, as well as the date of publication.
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