Rudy Giuliani has based his entire presidential bid on the "fact" that he has foreign policy experience after his heroic efforts in taking care of New York City in the aftermath of 9/11. Of course, he has no -- and by "no" I mean none, zilch, nada -- foreign policy experience. Indeed, I have detailed elsewhere that he has specifically spurned the chance to actually get this type of experience. Today, however, I am concerned with his performance after 9/11 itself.
Giuliani recently stated that he spent as much time or more at ground zero than did most of the actual recovery workers in the months following the destructive events of that day. While this outrageous, callous, and patently false claim has only further enraged NYC police officers and firefighters, who see the former mayor as trying to falsely, self-lionizingly claim their hard, dangerous work as his own, it has garnered little coverage in the popular press. (John Edwards haircuts, yes. This, no. /sigh SOP, of course.) The New York Times, however, has finally done a bit of digging and it turns out that Giuliani spent a total -- total -- of 29 hours at ground zero in the three months following 9/11. Considering that there were relief workers doing back-to-back 12-hours shifts in the rubble in the days following the tragedy, I think Giuliani is not only crazy, but owes the men and women who were actually there a big, big apology. To the rest of us, he owes a future without him as president.
17 August 2007
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