Is Giuliani’s 9/11 experience really what America needs?

This is reported in the San Francisco Chronicle:

In a speech aimed at recharging his presidential campaign, Rudy Giuliani on Saturday returned to the issue that made him a front-runner for most of the year: his image as a leader and the memory of Sept. 11, 2001.

In a half hour speech that aimed to be Reaganesque in its optimism, Giuliani rolled out his new slogan—“Tested. Ready. Now.” He also delivered what amounted to the campaign announcement speech that he never made.

Yet he also sought to invoke the emotional images of the devastating terrorist attack of six years ago on New York City when he was mayor there, as he spoke of having seen the ability of “our generation” to overcome terrorism and other difficult problems.

If being mayor of New York City at the time of the 9/11 attack constitutes the testing that Giuliani claims as his qualification to be president, what did this testing consist of? He led the city for eight years following the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and, as Wayne Barrett explains in one of the most devastating articles ever written about a public official in this country, he never took the terrorism threat seriously, consigned it to low priority, and was so contemptuous of the need for an Emergency Management Center that instead of placing it in Brooklyn, out of the way of danger, as all his experts urgently advised, he placed it in Manhattan a few blocks from City Hall for his own convenience, and later he used his office there as a hideaway for trysts with Judi Nathan. Furthermore, he placed the EMC at the World Trade Center, the place most likely to be hit by terrorists, since they had tried to destroy the two towers in 1993 and it was known that terrorists keep going after the same target until they complete their mission. He also failed to make sure that police and firemen had compatible radio systems, which led to the totally unnecessary deaths of over three hundred firemen in the North Tower. Then 9/11 came, and Giuliani did a magnificent job of morally leading New York through the traumatic days following the attack, showing an impressive combination of manly stoicism and deep emotional response to the horror and death that had occurred.

So what Giuliani’s testing consists of is leading a city AFTER it has been struck by a massive terrorist assault which he has done nothing to prepare the city for. Is this really the experience we need in a president? Do we want Giuliani to become president of the United States so that he can lead the country AFTER it has been hit by another 9/11-type attack?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 17, 2007 11:27 PM | Send