Rudy Giuliani, as noted yesterday, is going to run on his national celebrity awarded to him on the ashes of Ground Zero. Giuliani was shown with poise and gravity on 9/11; images of him arriving on-scene were shown on cable news the moment he stepped out of his SUV into the chaos of lower Manhattan. He stood alongside Bush at his finest moment and unlike Bush, did not go on to launch two failed wars that cost thousands of American lives and billions of dollars from the national treasury. even if he was a staunch advocate for both wars, Giuliani has maintained his glow from the days following September 11th.
But for anyone living inside the tri-state area surrounding New York City – or the smaller subset of people who followed the various hearings and scandals surrounding 9/11 – know that Giuliani’s luster faded long ago as the truth about his administration’s failures on that day came to light. Most notably, the Giuliani administration was criminally lax updating emergency responder communication equipment. When firefighters and police officers rushed into the Twin Towers, their radio systems didn’t work together and in many instances failed entirely. These communications failures cost New Yorkers’ lives.
There has been a persistent effort by family members of victims of the 9/11 attacks to bring out true information and hold officials accountable for their failures surrounding the attacks. Not surprisingly, that will mean that Rudy Giuliani will face persistent criticism from people who believe him responsible for the death of their loved ones.
A group of 9/11 victims’ families who have criticized Rudy Giuliani’s record vowed yesterday to reveal the “truth” of his performance during the terror attacks.
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His moves may be an attempt to head off criticism from relatives like Sally Regenhard, the mother of a late firefighter who vowed months ago to make “Swiftboat”-type criticisms of the ex-mayor.“I can’t see why any 9/11 family member who knows the truth about the failures of the Giuliani administration . . . would not be outraged about the failures,” said Regenhard.
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“My role, and the role of other family members, will be to bring this truth to light,” she said.Regenhard said she didn’t want a fight with other victims’ relatives, but said, “If these family members knew the truth about the failures of this administration . . . they would reconsider support for someone like him.”
There will undoubtedly be a few handfuls of 9/11 family members lobbying on both sides of the Giuliani presidential campaign. Giuliani will be campaigning on his leadership out of 9/11 and attacks on that reputation have the potential to be extremely damaging. I don’t like describing this as Swift-boating because the failures of the Giuliani administration have been well documented; whether they rise to the level of culpability is a different story, but it is not outright falsification to suggest that Giuliani is not worthy of praise for his role as mayor on 9/11.
The biggest reason for Giuliani’s candidacy will be completely undercut if he cannot beat off the criticisms of 9/11 victims’ family members.
Technorati Tags: 9/11, 9/11 widows, Rudy Giuliani
4 Responses to “The 9/11 Problem”
[...] This is going to keep coming up, as I’ve said before. Guiliani’s 9/11-based run will be dependent on endorsements of firefighters and 9/11 widows. But there are many people who have spent the last six years expressing their outrage at Rudy Giuliani’s failures to adequately inform emergency responders and clean-up workers of the dangers they were experiencing doing rescue work at Ground Zero. Thousands of firefighers and rescue workers don’t think Giuliani was a hero. We’re going to keep hearing from them and these voices will need to be listened to as long as Giuliani is basing his campaign on his response to 9/11. Firefighters and rescue workers are still dying from respiratory illnesses connected to the dust and debris from the Twin Towers; they were not given adequate protection by Giuliani – concerns about air quality expressed by the EPA were not conveyed by the Giuliani administration. [...]
Something to say?
DMI’s Civil Justice Fellow Cyrus Dugger has been blogging about the city’s dangerous disregard for the health of 9/11 heroes and the fact that they need money to pay for all that medical care.
Check it out!
The heroes of 9/11 are suffering to this day!!!
http://www.tortdeform.com/mova.....rch=9%2F11
Left by Elana
December 28, 2006 at 5:29pm