{"id":11403,"date":"2007-07-10T16:45:43","date_gmt":"2007-07-10T20:45:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/11403.html"},"modified":"2007-07-10T16:45:43","modified_gmt":"2007-07-10T20:45:43","slug":"giuliani-faulted-by-firefighters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/giuliani-faulted-by-firefighters\/","title":{"rendered":"Giuliani faulted by firefighters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Newsweek recently reported<\/a>, “As Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign rolls along, there are more and more voices protesting that he’s not the 9\/11 hero America considers him to be. First among them: some firefighters.”<\/p>\n

That’s an understatement. First, it’s not just “some”; it’s the nation’s largest firefighters’ union. Second, they’re doing more than just protesting<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The nation’s largest firefighters union is set to launch a video on Wednesday that seeks to tarnish former mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s reputation as a strong leader before and after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.<\/p>\n

The 13-minute video — set for distribution to firefighters and the general public courtesy of the International Association of Fire Fighters — uses interviews with New York City firefighters and families of 9\/11 victims to argue that Giuliani has exaggerated his record as mayor.<\/p>\n

“He’s running on his 9\/11 leadership and it was lacking — and there was none,” Jim Riches, a deputy chief in the New York Fire Department and a father of one of the 9\/11 victims, says on the video, according to a transcript obtained by ABC News. “I blame Giuliani. He was the leader that day. And he was the leader for the eight years leading up to that.”<\/p>\n

The documentary-style video — titled “Rudy Giuliani: Urban Legend” — specifically criticizes Giuliani for failing to ensure “interoperability” of communications devices; placing the city emergency command center in the World Trade Center even after the 1993 terrorist attack at the Twin Towers; and Giuliani’s decision to abandon efforts to recover remains of dead firefighters as he sought a quick clean-up of Ground Zero.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As you may recall, in November 2001, six weeks after the 9\/11 attacks, Giuliani decided<\/a> to limit the number of FDNY searchers who could recover the remains of their fallen colleagues. The fight between the mayor’s office and the fire department grew rather intense. Ultimately, as Mark Kleiman described it<\/a>, “[O]nce the Bank of Nova Scotia’s gold bars had been recovered, Giuliani ordered that the remaining rubble — including whatever bodies were still there — scooped up and taken to a landfill. When firefighters held a protest, he ordered them arrested.”<\/p>\n

It’s safe to say there’s some bad blood here — which isn’t going away anytime soon.
\n
\nPost Script<\/i>: Some media outlets are already comparing this conflict<\/a> to the Swiftboat Liars.<\/p>\n

But Giuliani may well prove a tougher target than John Kerry. Before the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth launched their attack on Kerry’s Vietnam record in August 2004, most Americans had only a vague sense of his bio, leaving him susceptible to a counternarrative. But the image of Giuliani as 9\/11 hero, as the voice of resolve when all other authority was absent, is deeply ingrained in the American consciousness.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The comparison is ridiculous. The Swiftboat attackers were lying; the International Association of Fire Fighters aren’t. It’s really that simple.<\/p>\n

Now, if the comparison is about targeting a presidential hopeful based on his perceived strength, then maybe there’s something to this. But even that’s flawed — John Kerry was a legitimate, decorated war hero, being maligned by liars, while Giuliani’s heroism is largely a media creation.<\/p>\n

Regardless, keep an eye out for the IAFF video. From what I hear, it’s devastating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Newsweek recently reported, “As Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign rolls along, there are more and more voices protesting that he’s not the 9\/11 hero America considers him to be. First among them: some firefighters.” That’s an understatement. First, it’s not just “some”; it’s the nation’s largest firefighters’ union. Second, they’re doing more than just protesting. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11403\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}