From The Guardian, 2/23/07:
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ian_williams/2007/02/little_big_brother_giuliani_an.html
By Ian Williams
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Never was there a more fragile legend than the daring deeds of Sir
Rudy.
I was living downtown on September 11, and watched the World Trade
Centre when it was hit by those pretty convincing holograms.
While reporting by phone from my fire escape to radio stations, I
heard on a local station that Giuliani was looking for an emergency
headquarters.
I almost telephoned to tell him where it was.
It was on the 23rd storey of No 7 World Trade Centre.
And the Mayor had spent no less than $16m building "the Bunker" in the
face of strong contrary advice.
Apart from the sheer stubborn silliness, there was the typically
Rudyesque detail that the Bunker was on a twenty year lease paying
$1.4m annual rent to one of his major campaign contributors.
His own city's fire regulations wisely forbade putting a 6,000 gallon
tank of diesel fuel in the building to keep generators running.
So he declared it to be part of the Port Authority of New York and New
Jersey and had it installed regardless.
On September 11, when No 7 caught fire as a result of blazing debris
from the WTC itself, the diesel caught fire, and helped melt the
retaining girders so the building collapsed onto the Con Edison
electricity substation in the basement.
The resulting floods from fire hoses trying to put out the blaze
knocked out downtown Manhattan's telephones after water reached the
neighboring Verizon station.
Some are born to greatness, some grow into it and some have it thrust
upon them.
Blacking out the world's financial centre for a week is indeed a rare
accolade.
Maybe we can overlook a little lapse like closing down Wall Street for
a week, not least since no one seemed to notice its absence at the
time.
But that toxic smog downtown has occluded memories of Giuliani's
unheroic performance as mayor.
Never has there been such an example of acquired memory syndrome.
Giuliani has taken the credit from David Dinkins boosting the size of
the police force and from Bill Clinton for providing the federal cash
to pay for it.
And "America's Mayor" basked in the spurious glory of a financial boom
that happened to coincide with his term in office.
Lower poverty, more police, less crime - and nothing to do with him or
his corrupt police commissioner (and subsequent business partner)
Bernard Kerik.
Kerik was Giuliani's poodle, whose fur was famously clipped when he
lost his scandal-ridden nomination for secretary of the Homeland
Security Department.
9-11 did not sanitize him well enough.
But one wonders whether it will whitewash Giuliani.
Americans expect a certain degree of decorum from their President.
They will need to judge whether or not a man who claims to be a devout
Catholic - and then announces his third divorce at a press conference
without telling his long-suffering spouse - meets that requirement.
Of course loyalty counts - and indeed Giuliani loyally backed
President Bush when the latter churlishly halved the 9-11 aid that
Congress voted to the city.
So much for what voters can expect in return.
This week in Florida, Rudy has been touring firehouses and associating
with "first responders".
These great photo opportunities should be fogged by memories of his
November 2001 order drastically reducing the number of firemen on the
Word Trade Centre site, where they were sifting the rubble for human
remains.
It could have been justified as an economic measure, except every cop
in New York had been on almost unlimited overtime for months, manning
stupid and ineffectual checkpoints on bridges and roads across
Manhattan.
Petty and petulant as ever, he obviously remembered that the New York
firefighters' union backed his opponent.
In December 2001, after that failed, he tried to "privatize" the Twin
Towers Fund that the city had set up for the widows and orphans of
firefighters.
He transferred the funds to a private foundation he controlled that
would pay salaries of up to $250,000 a year to six of his pals -
including his mistress.
As Manhattanites said of him, "you can take the boy from the suburbs,
but you can't take the suburbs out of the boy".
Those suburbs were white.
The cops who sodomized Abner Louima with a toiler plunger may not have
shouted "It's Giuliani time", but they knew that it was.
Implicitly, their mayor backed the idea that any black victim of a
police shooting must have been guilty of something.
Perhaps the most frightening thing about him is that he has
consistently shown the insecurity of a little bullied school kid,
getting payback by behaving like Big Brother when anyone is foolish
enough to give him the authority.
His most defining quote is a verbose expansion of "Freedom is Slavery"
- a succinct summary of the Patriot Act.
He said, "Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness
of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal
of discretion about what you do and how you do it."
On second thought, that alone may overcome the conservative reluctance
to back a pro-choicer and put him the ballot next year.
If he won, he would make W look like a liberal.
_____________________________________________________
Phony "hero" Trudy Giuliani in all her glory
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IrE6FMpai8&eurl=
Harry
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