When Rudy was on with Laura Ingraham I was really hoping she would address his dog phobia at the end of the interview, being a strong dog lover herself.

Sure, Rudy has some baggage that needs explaining. Unlike the Dem buffoon, I hope he will actually explain in full.

Forget about the silly ferret incident, this guy hates dogs and cats, they make him nervous. How can we ever have a President who hates animals? Have we ever had a President in the White House who has never owned a dog in their whole life??

What’s his position right now? Now that he’s seen the national anger? Still the same or not? Thought he’d come out more law and order. Is that true?

striper1 on July 11, 2007 at 11:40 PM
This video sure didn’t intend to inform us. They just wanted to insinuate that it was all Giuliani’s fault. The parsing is there, they never directly accuse him. Their trick is that it’s his fault by being the mayor at the time. No mention of how these things really work.
The Fire Department leadership is responsible for pushing for good equipment given the operating budget, and making sure it gets through the system to deliver to the stations and overseeing training and systems development/implementation. A mayor is to provide a direction for all these Departmental functions, step in to mediate differences, make the directional decisions when parties come to an impass – not to micromanage their work.

I don’t care who sinks him, just as long as they sink him.

When I first heard about the anti- Rudy Giuliani video made by a firefighter’s union, I thought it might do some damage to the former mayor’s candidacy. And it might have, had they not gone completely over the top in……

Karol is 100% correct, he is going to hav, or already has some serious problems going forward. Many families of the survivors, uniformed and civilian, resent him enormously for making a career out of using the tragedy for political gain.

Most of the comments under this post are ridiculous. The idea that a committee had the final say on radios is laughable, Rudy would never allowe such a thing, ever. Rudy had the final say on all of it – everything and anything – he was large and in charge and he blew it – big time.

The good news? He and McCain should be packing up their tents and moving out and on into the sunset hopfully giving the others a chance to step up to the plate and shine.

Good luck and good riddance to both of them, don’t let the door hit them in their you-know-whats on your way out.

Neither one of them will ever be president in this country anytime soon.

I want to know the substance of the charge before I dismiss a charge just because it comes from a leftist organization. Even broken clocks have the right time twice a day
csdeven on July 12, 2007 at 9:27 AM

There isn’t any “substance”. The IAFF has had a hard-on for RG since way before 9/11, like all other dem-base entities. It’s all union “suppport-dems;attack-anyone else” politics. They are going to get nowhere with this crap.

Even broken clocks have the right time twice a day

Wha…? What’s that got to do with anything? If a clock’s broken, what, do you wait around for the 2x/day it’s “right” and applaud its accuracy, or do you dismiss whatever it says, b/c it’s God-damn broken?

ukgoods, you have it exactly right. NYC was a shithole before RG , but it became a wonderful place to live and work during his tenure (and has been going backward since he left the mayor’s office).

Bloomberg? Oh, jeez. What an absolute sissy.

It’s a weak field of candidates for the GOP. But, Rudy is still the best of the bunch. Why? Because he understands that the worldwide jihad is the only thing that’s important in this election and because he is not intimidated by Her Majesty HRC or her media groupies.

I don’t give a flip about taxes, womens’ “right to choose”, assault rifles, etc. etc. That will all be sorted out. I think RG understands what’s the right thing to do about border security and how that ties in with the jihad.

FWIW, I don’t get the “Fred!” thing at all. As a potential prez, he’s an OK movie and TV actor.

Just the facts.

This union is like the Jersey Girls, feigning a holier than thou critique while simply pursuing a partisan political agenda.

One more: I well remember that about two weeks after the 9-11 attacks, when we in NYC were all still in shock but when it became apparent that NO ONE could still be alive in that smouldering toxic ruin, Rudy asked the firefighters at the site to return to their stationhouses and leave the cleanup and the salvage work to the professionals and experts and let them get back to fighting fires.

WELLL.. .the outcry. The went ballistic. You are asking us to abandon our fellow firefighters, we will never do that, you horrible horrible man.. we will boycott, we will go on city wide strike. bla bla bla… and I remember thinking: all the good things I felt for those brave firefighters on 9-11 just disappeared in a “poof” because these idiotic bastards want to waste time at a smouldering crash site two weeks after and refuse to go back to work.

Rudy tried to be polite with them but wouldnt back down. The firefighters called him names, bickered even with the police and acted like total jerks. Its one thing for a marine not to want to leave a wounded buddy on the battlefield, but this was over two weeks later, NO ONE was alive, and the firefighters refused to leave.

Rudy is right on and the firefighters union still look like weasel jerks to me on this.

If the man is as successful as he was in ’04…we s/b so lucky.

These firefighters are hacks.

The FDNY had new digital radios in the Spring of 2001.

There were problems – they did not work close – radio transmissions would be missed just yards away – but received miles away.

After the FDNY complained – rightfully – they were given their old radios back – analog. THE UNION ASKED FOR THIS while the digital problem was solved. They were using the OLD radios on 911. The radios did not work floor to floor in the WTC. Neither the Union nor the City’s hands are clean here.

Rudy putting the Office of Emergency Managment in WTC 7 – Yep dumb move. Next?

Pulled the recovery of remains too soon? Hard to prove. Sometimes there IS nothing left to bury. The gold story is bogus.

There is no answer form the Union as to who would have done better.

Maybe the fire department should have spent their money on radios instead of giving it to democrats.

BDavis on July 11, 2007 at 10:47 PM

Not sure the Fire Department per se is in this, but the Union sure is, and you’re exactly right. “Union” is supposed to mean bargaining clout – and getting in good radios should have been a priority, right?

Way to not watch the video. The radios didn’t work at all, and it took 7 years to replace one set of non-working radios with another set of non-working radios.

Rudy’s running on his performance on 9/11. Other than lots of tape of him walking around in a mask, I have no idea what he did as an executive, on that day and afterward, that merits him some $85,000/speech on average.

rho on July 11, 2007 at 10:02 PM

Watched the video. The procurement committee is reponsible for radio contract selection, and plenty of times, what sounds correct in the contract doesn’t pan out.
It is not Giuliani’s job or any other mayor for that matter to personally test a radio. OTHER people are tasked with that. Other people are tasked with making the reccomendations as to what the department needs and which system is the best option. Who were they? 7 Years? The union let year after year go by and didn’t push to get it done? This is shared blame at a minimum.
That’s a stupid comment, “other than lots of video of him walking around in a mask.” Well, which of the miles of video of the mayor that day and that week, would YOU have chosen to show? Doesn’t prove anything as to effectiveness, pro or con – only attests that Giuliani stayed in the city and didn’t flee.
You don’t know what Rudy did specifically,minute by minute, but the fact is New York did not fall into chaos, looters did not run rampant in the streets, people stayed calm and helped each other, the city services, despite being ravaged still provided services. Giuliani’s job was to redirect resources – the ones that were still functioning and provide direction for the city government to function as effectively as it could, give power cuts, streets blocked, hundreds of thousands of people walking out on foot …everything.
New Orleans is the perfect comparison as to what happens with a failure of leadership and executive competence at the mayoral level. A week’s warning. An emergency plan that EXACTLY predicted the impact of a direct hit Cat 5 hurricane – even to the month (see National Geographic October 2004 issue). A mayor who sat on his hands, refused to declare an emergency in order to pre-position troops and supplies, and didn’t use the spelled-out recommendations to evacuate 200,000 elderly and poor out of the city in advance by use of commandeered busses.
Can we even begin to imagine the hell that NYC would have been with the likes of Nagin running it on 9/11? We should, and shudder. New York didn’t crumble, because it had solid leadership at the top.

In 2000, my husband and I moved to southern Delaware. However most of our friends, my brother-in-law, my step-son and step-daughter all still worked in lower Manhattan.

On 9/11, my husband turned on the TV right after the first plane flew into the Tower. All the news stations were saying it was a light aircraft and was nothing that serious. Then we watched as the second plane hit. It took forever to get in touch with our family because the phones didn’t work. (Who should we blame for that?) When we finally got in touch, my step-son and step-daughter were extremely shaken up and they asked to move in with us. A close friend who had his office windows blown out was talking about moving back to London. All these people were extremely shook up and they all said the same thing. You will never understand what it was like.

What did Rudy do? Even though he was in the Towers when they collapsed, HE KEPT HIS COOL! He knew the worst thing he could do was panic. He needed to reassure a city and a country that New York would pull through. And this he did fabulously! He was a constantly there reassuring the city and the country that things would be okay!

You don’t understand Rudy s because you didn’t live in NYC pre-Rudy.

I moved to MYC during Ed Koch’s third term. I was almost raped on the subway at 7:00 PM at night at the City Hall Station. The Guardian Angels got on at the next stop and, I believe, saved my life. There were NEVER any police in the subways. And where was Ed? In the basement of the Woolworth Building having drinks since 11:00 AM (I used to work in the Woolworth Building so I know).

I moved to Jersey City during David Dinkin’s term but still worked in the city. I lived through being terrified to go through the Port Authority Bus Station at anytime of the day. God forbid you tried to drive into the city. The squeeqee men would threaten you and if you didn’t pay them off, they would smash your windshield.

On Day 1 in office, Rudy targeted the squeegee men. The NY Times crowd had their usual hew and cry. Rudy told the police take them off the street and check them for outstanding warrants. Guess what, most of them had outstanding felony raps. OVER NIGHT things changed. Then they targeted people who jumped turnstiles. My husband has a great story about going into a Manhattan Subway station. There was a worker painting the turnstiles while a man was laying on the ground getting using a steel bar to break the turnstile and get the tokens out. The poor people who used to work in the token booths were routinely threatened with being torched by thieves pouring gasoline through the money hole. This happened many times.

Then he targeted the sex shops and peep shows in Times Square. He used every law available to him to get them out. Go to Times Square now. It is wonderful. Go to Port Authority Bus Terminal at midnight and you feel safe.

Were mistakes made during Rudy’s terms in office? Certainly. Even after the 93 bombings they located the command center in the WTC. This was a mistake. The reason they did it was that it was so close to City Hall.

Should the radios have worked. Sure! Was this Rudy’s responsibility? I honestly don’t know. This is like saying it was George Bush’s fault that the buses in New Orleans should have been used to transport people out of the city.

To blame Rudy for the remains not being found is ridiculous. The day of the WTC bombings was the mayoral primary. He left office in January 2002. Most of downtown NYC was still closed. My friends who work on John Street had sporadic electricity and phone service at the end of December and this is at least 10 blocks from the WTC site.

I have a personal connection with the events of 9/11. I know people who perished in the Towers. I have been in NYC through the very ugly, the bad and the good. The good started when Rudy was mayor. It is being sustained by Bloomberg now and anyone who tells you otherwise if full of it.

In conclusion, when Hillary was running for the Senate, she donned a NY Yankees hat and said “I’ve Always Been a Yankees Fan”. They asked some Yankee players about this and one of them said: “We know who are real fans are”. They meant Rudy who actually went to EVERY game. He is the real deal.

Is he perfect? NO. Are you?