{"id":12499,"date":"2007-08-10T15:20:51","date_gmt":"2007-08-10T19:20:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/12499.html"},"modified":"2007-08-10T15:20:51","modified_gmt":"2007-08-10T19:20:51","slug":"im-one-of-them-the-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/im-one-of-them-the-video\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I’m one of them’ — the video"},"content":{"rendered":"

Frequently, the difference between a campaign controversy that does permanent damage and a campaign controversy that causes a mild stir is one thing: video. If we saw a print account that George Allen called someone “macaca,” it’s nauseating, but when that is captured on video, it goes into heavy rotation.<\/p>\n

I mentioned<\/a> earlier reports that Rudy Giuliani had inexplicably said he’d spent as much time, if not more, at Ground Zero after 9\/11 than rescue and cleanup workers. By way of Greg Sargent<\/a>, now there’s a clip.<\/p>\n

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For those readers who can’t see online videos from work computers, the clip shows Giuliani saying — in fact, bragging<\/i> — about his time at Ground Zero.<\/p>\n

“This is not a mayor or a governor or a president who’s sitting in an ivory tower,” he said. “I was at ground zero as often, if not more, than most of the workers. I was there working with them. I was there guiding things. I was there bringing people there. But I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense, I’m one of them.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Maybe Giuliani has decided being president isn’t that great after all, so he’s trying to commit political suicide by making ludicrous comments like these in public.
\n
\nAs for the reaction to Giuliani’s stupidity, the denunciations are everywhere.<\/p>\n

* Paramedic Marvin Bethea<\/a>, who suffered a stroke, posttraumatic stress disorder and breathing problems after responding to the attacks: “I personally find that very, very insulting. Standing there doing a photo-op and telling the men, ‘You’re doing a good job,’ I don’t consider that to be working.”<\/p>\n

* Ironworker Jonathan Sferazo<\/a>: “He’s not one of us. He never has been and he never will be. He never served in a capacity where he was a responder.” He added that Giuliani’s comments are “severely” out of line.<\/p>\n

* International Association of Fire Fighters spokesman Jeff Zack<\/a>: “[Giuliani] is self-absorbed, arrogant and deluded.”<\/p>\n

* Fire Captain James Riches<\/a>: “That’s insulting and disgraceful. He’s a liar. I was down there on my hands and knees looking for my son.”<\/p>\n

* Battalion Chief John McDonnell<\/a>, head of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association in New York: “I have a real problem with that statement. I think he’s really grasping and trying to justify his previous attempts to portray himself as the hero of 9\/11.”<\/p>\n

Seriously, I’d say there are one of three possibilities to explain Giuliani’s remarks: a) he’s trying to lose the presidential race; b) he feels like he can make up any exaggerated claim he wants because he’s Rudy! Giuliani; or c) he actually believes<\/i> he spent more time working at Ground Zero after 9\/11 than the rescue, recovery, and cleanup workers who spent a year sifting through human remains and rubble.<\/p>\n

If there’s any justice at all, today marks the beginning of the end of Giuliani’s presidential ambitions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Frequently, the difference between a campaign controversy that does permanent damage and a campaign controversy that causes a mild stir is one thing: video. If we saw a print account that George Allen called someone “macaca,” it’s nauseating, but when that is captured on video, it goes into heavy rotation. I mentioned earlier reports that […]<\/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-12499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12499","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=12499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}