Rudy Giuliani - Public Tragedy's Personal Triumph Presidential Candidate

A rather large title for a rather small man. Thrice married, 63 year old Rudolph William Louis Giuliani will forever be best remembered as the mayor of New York City on September 11, 2001. As a horrified world sat riveted to their televisions on that fateful late summer day, they watched the tallest buildings in the largest city in most powerful country on earth literally burn and crumble before their very eyes.

As the lower end of Manhattan filled with debris, soot and ashes, his honor, "Rudy" Giuliani seemingly rose from within those ashes like the mythical Phoenix to calm and assure a bewildered city and planet that everything was being handled and would be alright. Rudy seemingly did everything but don a cape and belt out the "here I come to save the day" mantra of the legendary Mighty Mouse. At the time it was very much needed and appreciated by terrified people everywhere.

But as so often happens in life, once the initial shock and awe of a catastrophic event begins to subside, people begin to question what happened and more importantly why. No reasonable or sane person would suggest that Rudy was in any way at fault for the World Trade Center attack, but any of the aforementioned populace had every right to wonder could the sheer amount of the death toll been less.

Let's look at some irrefutable facts. The WTC was the intended target of radical terrorists eight years earlier. According to a published article in the NY Times, at least 121 firefighters within striking distance of safety died simply because their radios were not capable of receiving life saving warnings from police officers on the ground. More than 20 minutes before the 2nd tower crashed to the earth, helicopter pilots were imploring police on the ground to inform firefighters to evacuate that building because it was an absolute certainty that, like the 1st tower, this too would fall. Countless deaths of fathers, mothers, husbands and wives that could have survived. Please don't accept my word alone for this, countless volumes of analysis have been written and archived for your inspection.

Rudy was urged to move the New York City Emergency Task Force out of the WTC, based largely on the previous attack in 1993. Rudy ignored those warnings and kept the command center right dead in the middle of what would become forever known as "Ground Zero". Anyone who touts the leadership skills of Rudy should spend some time dissecting all the terrible mistakes that made a horrific situation even worse. Rudy refused to correct the radio problem or move the command center. Those facts are nowhere to be found in his campaign literature.

So now, six years later, America's Mayor tours the country extolling himself as the most qualified presidential candidate to protect the American people from terrorists. Rudy can no more protect America than he protected lower Manhattan on that ill fated late summer morning in 2001. The only thing Rudy proved, was that his refusal to take advice of people who knew better caused more deaths than were necessary. Sounds eerily familiar, yes????

So as Rudy tours our country shaking hands and telling you how great he is, maybe ask the widow or fatherless child of a firefighter or widower of a WTC employee if they share Rudy's revisionary view of history. Perhaps you might ask his daughter why she's supporting Barack Obama or his son why he won't talk to his father. Most of us at times have had issues with our fathers, but if my dad was running for president, he'd get my vote. Secret Service protection and free drinks is, after all, pretty sweet....