Rudy, how could ya? The failings of America's Zero, I mean hero.

[Democrat 4 Ever]

Really good article about a new book coming out about St. Rudy of 9/11 fame. Did ya know that the firemen didn't have radios that worked on that horrible day because of a contract let by his administration to a political insider? Insisting that the terrorism center be placed in the World Trade Center ("only bunker placed in the clouds"). Or "Instead of directing his own confused troops, Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik was serving as Rudy's personal bodyguard." There is more, can't wait to read the book.

9/11 'hero' image undone
August 23, 2006
It's the unexamined question of 9/11: What if Rudy Giuliani wasn't quite the hero everybody thought?

For nearly five years now, we've all lived in the glow of "America's mayor," that soot-covered father figure who rose to meet the greatest challenge of all. Rudy standing firm in the terror aftermath. Rudy guiding a rattled city back to its feet.

There was no denying this much in those early days of confusion: New York's grim-faced mayor looked a whole lot more in charge than America's deer-in-the-headlights president.

But what if Rudy's take-charge image was mostly a load of bravado and PR? What if the actual decisions he made - before, during and after the terror attacks - were directly responsible for the city's inability to deal effectively with crucial aspects of the crisis?

Well, it's about time someone opened that impolite inquiry.

Hold on tight, now! One of the most carefully guarded myths of 9/11 is about to be shattered for good.

"Grand Illusion," the book is called. "The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11." It is written by Wayne Barrett of the Village Voice and Dan Collins of CBS.com, two of New York's shrewdest investigative reporters. Published this week by HarperCollins, "Grand Illusion" will forever alter how the world sees Rudy Giuliani's place in America's deadliest terror attacks. You can bet national political reporters will be combing though these chapters as the 2008 presidential campaign season revs up.

With dozens of exclusive and previously unreleased interviews, Barrett and Collins show how the ambitious ex-mayor has spent recent years revising his own truth of 9/11 - and profiting handsomely from it. Casting himself as a prescient terror hawk who wisely prepared his city for the inevitable, Giuliani in fact ignored repeated warnings from the experts, including his own commissioners and aides.

Instead of confronting the looming danger, they tell how he grew increasingly distracted by pet projects, political turf wars and an extraordinarily messy personal life.

Slowly, the little decisions added up.

http://www.amny.com/news/columnists/ny-nyhen23vr4861790aug23,0,7156241.column

[speedoo]

1. The truth about Rudy is long overdue. More from the article....

Equipping the police and fire departments with incompatible radios from a politically wired vendor. Overruling the warnings of his subordinates and installing the city's emergency command center inside the World Trade Center - "the only bunker ever built in the clouds."

"The facts - depressing but unavoidable - were that Giuliani had allowed the city to meet the disaster of September 11 unprepared in a myriad of ways," Barrett and Collins write.

When the planes finally hit, the mayor was great on camera, the authors say - but not so great marshaling a coordinated city response.

Instead of directing his own confused troops, Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik was serving as Rudy's personal bodyguard.

So who was actually in charge in the crucial early hours?

"I don't know who was directing," current police Commissioner Ray Kelly told Barrett and Collins. "I literally don't."

Barrett and Collins got exclusive access to some eye-popping 9/11 Commission interviews that have never been publicly aired before and weren't supposed to be for another three years. And they convinced quite a few of the central players to talk on the record, amazingly frankly.

No. 2 cop Louis Anemone recalled how he tried to get the mayor interested in a citywide anti-terror plan as early as 1998. "Rudy glazed over," Anemone said. "We never had any discussion about security at the World Trade Center. We never even had a drill or exercise there. ... There was just a lack of recognition of the problem at City Hall."

[Democrat 4 Ever]

3. So let the swift-boating of the authors begin. You know they will

have to be taken down because a repug "hero" has got to be allowed to have their feet of clay hidden from view. There is no hero like a faux hero with a bull horn.

[wakeme2008]

2. kick and nom plus

[EST]

4. Politics is, after all, pretty much all hype.

Rat Rudy is as incompetent as the chimp in chief. The thing that was most needed, on 9/11/2001, at least for a few hours, was a hero-figure. There was little, at that late date, that anyone could do to even ameliorate the tragedy but New York and America badly needed a hero.

Incompetent as he is, totally lacking in moral fiber, sound judgment and any number of other things one might consider essential in a great leader, the one thing he had and did was to be there. Doing the walk, talking the talk, he was far better a leader that the awol prez and vp.
We (well, not me--I was embarrassed and outraged by his performance) created in him the thing we desperately needed, right that minute.

Erect a statue to him, build a memorial, burn some incense, but don't even think about returning him to any sort of public office.