http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2007/06/rudy-giuliani-911-bumper-sticer-victims-outrage.php
The Man Who Stole 9/11
GOP frontrunner Rudy Giuliani is hoping to ride his 9/11 experience
straight into the White House.
But while "America's Mayor" is playing well in New Hampshire, New
Yorkers directly impacted by the World Trade Center tragedy are less
convinced.
In a recent New York Daily News poll, New Yorkers said they favor
current mayor Michael Bloomberg, who hasn't even declared his
candidacy, over "America's Mayor" by almost 2 to 1.
Howard Lutnick, the CEO of money management firm Cantor Fitzgerald who
lost 658 of his employees on 9/11, has given Sen. Hillary Clinton's
(D-NY) presidential campaign $4,600 of his own money over the last two
months and has not given the Giuliani campaign a dime.
Diny Lajamian, who as Cantor's human resources director worked with
families of deceased employees and helped rebuild the company's staff,
says she's disgusted by Giuliani's use of 9/11 as a political prop.
"It's absolutely disgraceful. He's just a sleazebag," Lajamian says.
"I think now the families feel like he left them high and dry."
A rep for a group that aides families of those injured or killed in
the WTC seconds that.
"Rudy thinks our grief and the hurt we experienced somehow makes us
stupid," says Monica Gabrielle, co-chair of the Skyscraper Safety
Campaign.
"Rudy just can't control himself.... He can't acknowledge his
failures.... He just can't stop creating his own myth about himself
and about that day. The man is in love with his own legend."
But Giuliani's most powerful opponents are those who became a symbol
of bravery after the 9/11 attacks—America's firefighters.
The 280,000 member International Association of Firefighter Fund has
been at odds with the former mayor since shortly after 9/11, claiming
the man now worth as much as $70 million "gave up" on dead
firefighters and devoted Ground Zero cleanup efforts to, of all
things, recovering gold and silver.
Removal of victims' remains amounted, they say, to a "scoop and dump."
Tensions heated up again in March, when a draft of a letter explaining
the union's decision to snub Giuliani from their 2008 presidential
forum was leaked to the press.
The union eventually decided to invite him, but the candidate turned
down the half-hearted invitation.
That was the last straw for the group's president, Harold
Schaitberger, who says Giuliani's actions since 9/11 show "disgraceful
lack of respect for the fallen."
Of course, none of this has done much to damage Giuliani's long-term
national prospects.
He retains a healthy lead on his rivals.
And the New York Times has even wryly speculated about the former
mayor trademarking "9/11" itself, the idea being that he could then
legally prohibit his rivals from drawing on the event in their own
terror talk.
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Harry
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