August 11, 2007
From the desk of Jane Galt:Mark Kleiman asks if Rudi wanted the city's disaster recovery command center in 7 WTC because it was a love shack for him and his girlfriend:
But just why was it so essential that the command center be within walking distance of City Hall? Here's Barrett:The mayor was so personally focused on the siting and construction of the bunker that the city administrator who oversaw it testified in a subsequent lawsuit that "very senior officials," specifically including Giuliani, "were involved," which he said was a major difference between this and other projects. Giuliani's office had a humidor for cigars and mementos from City Hall, including a fire horn, police hats and fire hats, as well as monogrammed towels in his bathroom. His suite was bulletproofed and he visited it often, even on weekends, bringing his girlfriend Judi Nathan there long before the relationship surfaced.
Giuliani so far has displayed an astonishing amount of Teflon. But if it comes out that he did his emergency planning with his little head instead of his big head, even Republican primary voters might get a little bit upset.
Call me crazy, but the more parsimonious explanation seems like . . . you might want the city's staff to be able to get there quickly in the event of an emergency. As anyone who was in New York on 9/11 can attest, unless you could walk, you didn't get anywhere quickly; traffic was an evil snarl (and much worse downtown, where, at least when I was at the site, the collapse had snafued things like traffic signals and telephone trunk lines).
Plus, the gossip I've heard indicates that Giuliani had a perfectly acceptable love nest for his girlfriend, in the form of her apartment, and the city's many fine luxury hotels. I won't say that they didn't have sex in that bunker, but I sincerely doubt it was constructed for that purpose.
Posted by Jane Galt at August 11, 2007 10:59 AM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound linksWhy does Kleiman consistently speculate on right-leaning politicians through tabloid-type means?
This is not the first time. He talked about the Bush divorce rumors and I think there was one other item. How odd.
Between this and the clumsy swipes they've been taking at Fred Thompson, one might think that the lefties are a tad terrified at the concept of Lady MacBubba facing a Republican who is currently polling in double figures.
It's not just a common sense argument (walking distance). That's one of the things you're supposed to do when building disaster management facilities - either put them in the same building (not possible in NY), or put them in a nearby structure that has access to as many resources as possible.
Of course the Dems are worried about Rudy. Barring amazing circumstances, no Democrat has a chance of winning the presidency in '08 without winning New York.
Rudy has the best chance of taking NY of any Republican. (however slim) He has a better chance of winning NY than any Democrat has of winning the WH without it.
As far as the 'love shack' thing goes, Kleiman is just throwing shat against the wall to see if it will stick. It might. The bullhorn and humidor are just the absurd touch that might give this non-story wings.
Why does Kleiman consistently speculate on right-leaning politicians through tabloid-type means?This is not the first time. He talked about the Bush divorce rumors and I think there was one other item. How odd.
I don’t know why either but it strikes me as odd as well. Based on his profile he’s a college professor who occasionally does consulting work for the government which I assume means he places at least some value on his reputation. I know a lot of students and people who are on the lower rungs of their careers are a bit cautious about posting things on the internet under their real names and having it come back to bite them when they apply for a job. He must be awfully secure in his current position to so publicly and repeatedly behave this way.
I'm no Giuliani fan myself, but I had the same question.
I wonder if those people who think "walking distance" is so laughable are all people who happened to be elsewhere on 9/11, and therefore don't really grok how hard it was to get anywhere (or call anyone, or...) that day.
If convenient love nests were so available, then why was Judi Nathan constantly visiting the command centre before their relationship was known? The ambience of emergency management?
As for Giuliani winning New York, it's my understanding that his support is thinner there than in the rest of the country just because they've already had a taste of him.
I have never seen such a load of manufactured, artificially pumped-up malarkey in American politics as the hyping of Rudy Giuliani's role in the aftermath of 9/11. He did exactly what any big city mayor should be expected to do, and not a whit more. He was not "heroic", he just stood around with a hardhat on for a bunch of photo-ops, and the media, looking around desperately for a hero and a scintilla of positivity in the tragedy, created the urban legend of "America's Mayor". And a bunch of drooling Republican hayseeds out there in the Red States, even people who have no idea what his social views are, are apparently still sucking at this crack pipe to this day. Only in America.
Rudy's general leadership might be overhyped. However, to those like Joe T who seem to think that pretty much everyone is as good as everyone else when it comes to running a city post-disaster, you might want to get acquainted with a fellow named Ray Nagin.
What most people seem to forget is that the command center was not in the World Trade Center. It was in WTC 7, which was physically separate from the WTC and not within the "bathtub" foundation. Even if city officials had regarded the WTC as a potential target, they probably figured WTC 7 would be safe. It was only through an unlikely confluence of events that WTC 7 fell.
WTC 7's physical separation is only relevent in defending the choice of location up to a certain scale of attack. As 9/11 showed, anything that brought down one or two towers effectively involves (at the very least) WTC 7. Remember, the '93 bombing was a failure in part because the truck exploded in the wrong place, where it did the least structural damage; had it been correctly placed, there was a high likelihood one of the towers would have fallen.
While the 'within walking distance' rationale is a good one, your disaster management center should typically not be near enough to the site of the disaster to be affected by it.
The explanation here is quite simple: "Giuliani" is Italian for "give fits of apoplexy to liberals."
Surely you're capable of more incisive analysis than what you proffer here!
I think he did reasonably well on 9/11, but what impresses me much more is how he turned NYC from a crime-ridden hellhole to a very nice, liveable city. Plus, at some personal risk, he did tremendous damage to organized crime in the 1980s.
To do both, he had to be a hard-headed SOB. Would that make him a good president? I don't know, but he has certainly accomplished more in his career than any top GOP or Democrat contender.
I have never seen such a load of manufactured, artificially pumped-up malarkey in American politics as the hyping of Rudy Giuliani's role in the aftermath of 9/11. He did exactly what any big city mayor should be expected to do, and not a whit more.
If only Nagin had generated a few milliRudies of mayoral competence, either before Katrina (viz. xxx, above) or after, New Orleans would have been a lot better off.
Sorry, forgot to address this:
While the 'within walking distance' rationale is a good one, your disaster management center should typically not be near enough to the site of the disaster to be affected by it.
This of course presupposes that one knows where the disaster is going to be some years hence when one is siting the disaster management center.
By that standard, Giuliani should have moved the disaster management center on 9/10, on his way to buying the winning lottery ticket for that day.
Justin JJ,
Your statement might be accurate if you define New York as the Times' staff. In the boroughs, at least, it's not difficult at all to find businesses with signed photos posted prominently. That much can't be said about Bloomberg or Dinkins.
I have never seen such a load of manufactured, artificially pumped-up malarkey in American politics as the hyping of Rudy Giuliani's role in the aftermath of 9/11. He did exactly what any big city mayor should be expected to do, and not a whit more.
I'm sure Joe T. would also claim that he supported invading Afghanistan and that of course Al Gore would have done that. Or is it time to flip back now?
This of course presupposes that one knows where the disaster is going to be some years hence when one is siting the disaster management center.
The fact that there's not a lot of reputable psychics around to pick disaster management center locations doesn't mean that a rational analysis can't pick better and worse spots, such as a location that's already been the site of one attack and is widely viewed as the biggest and best target in the city.
The fact of the matter is that locating the center in WTC 7 put it in one of the most likely spots to be the target of another attack, and that a sufficiently damaging attack would render it inoperable, which is exactly what happened. This is one of those things that was pointed out at the time the location was selected. It may have been arguable at the time of selection, but I really don't understand how that poor choice is at all arguable now. Was WTC 7 the only building in Manhattan in walking distance of the mayor's office?
Justin,
Sure, arguments were put forth then that maybe it should go somewhere else, but arguments can be made for and against putting it anywhere. If they'd put it further away from the WTC, critics would now say that they should have put it closer. This isn't even Monday morning quarterbacking, but more like Tuesday afternoon quarterbacking.
Bottom line: most of the 7th Fleet still sails out of Pearl Harbor, for the same reason it did in 1941. San Francisco was rebuilt on the San Andreas fault. New Orleans is being rebuilt below sea level. In each case, there are compelling reasons why, despite the historical record.
If only Nagin had generated a few milliRudies of mayoral competence, either before Katrina (viz. xxx, above) or after, New Orleans would have been a lot better off.
With no disrespect intended, the situations are hardly comparable. No one knows how Giuliani would have done if faced with "Mr. Mayor, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Staten Island are flooded, all of the bridges and tunnels are impassible due to damage, and there's no electricity anywhere in the city," or if Nagin's situation had been "Mr. Mayor, a jet has crashed into the SuperDome and 300 people have been killed." Scaling the situations up and down in both of those cases to account for the relative size of the two cities.
If they'd put it further away from the WTC, critics would now say that they should have put it closer.
This is just silly. Who, with any credibility, would be saying that if it had functioned as it was supposed to on 9/11? Are you suggesting that criticisms of the location, had it failed to be destroyed on 9/11, would be worth listening to?
This isn't Monday morning quarterbacking. At the time, there were involved people saying "don't put it there", and they were right--not by coincidence or (bad) luck, but because their reasoning was sound. Just because there were both pro and con arguments doesn't mean that all the arguments were equally good.
If you point out to me that constantly using heroin will lead to addiction and the ruin of my swank yuppie lifestyle, and it does; will it seem justifiable to have ignored you if I say "well, sure, you were right in hindsight, but others said I could control my habit, so there were arguments for and against. And if I hadn't wrecked my life, others would be saying 'think of all the great highs you missed...'"
most of the 7th Fleet still sails out of Pearl Harbor, for the same reason it did in 1941. San Francisco was rebuilt on the San Andreas fault. New Orleans is being rebuilt below sea level.
Pearl Harbor wasn't successfully attacked by the Japanese because of its location, or bad reasons for operating the Pacific Fleet out of there. With respect to earthquakes, San Franciscan building codes are much improved since then just because of the earthquake. And I'm not sure that New Orleans being rebuilt below sea level is a good argument for not thinking calmly about location--I've seen plenty of very persuasive arguments that it shouldn't be rebuilt there just because of the practical difficulties of fixing the levies to avoid another Katrina-like debacle, or the consequences of rising sea-levels if global warming has its predicted effect. The next time New Orleans floods, all those arguments will be pulled out as evidence that we could have avoided the consequences if we'd just used a bit of common sense.
Seriously, aside from the 'within walking distance' argument, was there a good reason for putting New York's disaster management center in WTC 7, as opposed to something else in walking distance but not so obviously a target?
Well you could put it near One Federal Plaza; or near the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels; wait,those
were targeted in the backup plot to WTC #1. The
former instance was dramatized in the movie "The
Siege"; and they were dealing with a much less
ambitious cell, which was of Iraqi and Palestinian
background despite screenwriter Lawrence Wright's
experience in Egypt) It's true that WTC was a target but so was the CIA, the State Department according to the revelations of one of Ramzi Yousef's Pakistani colleagues. By this logic, let's not put any facility near Capitol Hill or
the White House; since that was Flight 93's
original destination.
It's a basic tenet of disaster recovery that you locate your backup and management facilities outside the range of the disasters for which you're trying to account. Since the WTC had already been the target of a terrorist attack, I'm pretty certain that another attack on the same target topped the list of scenarios they imagined. Yeah, it would probably be as bad an idea to locate the disaster management center in the Holland Tunnel. And yeah, you probably should locate the alternate White House situation room away from the White House, the Capitol Building, the Pentagon.
I really don't understand why this is controversial.
Surely, there are numerous possible alternative locations that would have been within walking distance that are not as high profile as the Holland Tunnel, or heaven forbid, WTC 7? One would think that a less conspicuous place would suffice.
But then again, freedom is all about authority...
Justin JJ,
I'm going to try to ask you two questions, not to discredit you, but to get you to try to understand that the issue is nowhere near as straightforward as either you or Mr. Kleinman are trying to make it out to be:
1. You state:
Who, with any credibility, would be saying that if it had functioned as it was supposed to on 9/11?
What failed? The city services response wasn't some sort of disaster. It was exemplary. The city did exactly what it was supposed to do in a nightmarishly bad situation.
2. Where exactly within Manhattan would you have placed the response center? Remember - you've got to maintain ample access to the target but no presence within the area of effect. These are your imposed standards. Fine. Implement them.
the city administrator who oversaw it testified in a subsequent lawsuit that "very senior officials," specifically including Giuliani, "were involved,"
Yeah, specifically, the guy in charge of finding the site for the command center asked Giuliani about siting it in Brooklyn. And Giuliani said "How the f*$^ am I supposed to get to Brooklyn? Swim?"
Hence, Giuliani was involved.
PS - why anyone would pay any attention to Mark Kleiman escapes me. As pointed out above, the guy is basically an Ann Coulter of the Left.
Bill,
What failed? The city services response wasn't some sort of disaster. It was exemplary.
My quibble isn't with the city's response, but with the wisdom of locating the OEM in WTC 7. The OEM failed because it was there.
If the city's response was exemplary without the OEM, that tends to reinforce the point that it was built as a mayoral perq, not as an important component of the city's disaster response plan.
Where exactly within Manhattan would you have placed the response center?
Not being a New Yorker, any answer I give must be as ignorant as, well, any terrorist who's thinking 'what would I blow up if I could?'. A quick look at Google Maps, though, shows several areas within walking distance of City Hall, but also several blocks away from any obvious target--anywhere south of the Manhattan Bridge, down to, say, John St. Anywhere between Canal and Chambers St. also looks relatively devoid of high impact targets like City Hall, the Stock Exchange, the WTC, or one of the bridges and tunnels, while still being accessible to the mayor.
To answer Howard, Occam's Beard, etc.: It seems like nobody can pinpoint exactly what Giuliani did that was so heroic, and neither can people specify for sure what Ray Nagin did that was so all-fired incompetent. The problem is Giuliani was meretriciously hyped as a paragon of mayoral brilliance, while Nagin was (I believe unfairly) trashed for not doing things that noone can list, and which probably weren't in his purview or ability to do, anyway.
In politics you run on your record - Rudi had a strong one, Nagin had a weak one. Rudi was well liked and did a lot of good for NYC before 9/11, while Nagin was not and was another in a string of incompetent LA leadership in NO before Katrina.
After the disasters, regardless of what ever else they did, Rudi wore the mantle of leadership on 9/11, Nagin wore the look of a boy who just wet his pants. Images are everything. Whatever Rudi's failures as a mayor were. he rose to the challenge and acted to bring the city together in the aftermath and while Nagin may have been a perfectly competent mayor, the fact remains he was in charge when his city descended into crisis. (the abysmal behavior of the NOPD - looting, car theft, going AWOL -- is just one example of What Nagin allowed under his watch).
In short for better of worse, Rudi, with an already solid track record, kept NYC and projected an image of solidarity, while Nagin, with a much weaker record, saw NO being torn apart and projected an image of chaos.
It's not that hard to find ways that Nagin was incompetent:
1. Delaying calling for evacuation until it was impossible to complete. Among other things, his bus drivers seem to have left the city already, and his staff was too stupid to come up with an alternate plan to get them moving...
2. Sheltering people in the Superdome when the disaster plan specifically said that wouldn't work.
3. Not providing adequate security in the Superdome.
4. Instead, his cops were out looting - and the few that did obey orders were taking guns away from law-abiding citizens. Illegally.
5. Nagin seems to (at best) be just fine with the whole climate of corruption in that area, of which cop misbehavior was just one symptom...
But at least Nagin didn't cry on TV, like the Louisiana governor.
Guiliani's most important competence was that he didn't cry either - that is, he managed to look like a leader who had things well in hand, whether or not he actually had a clue. That goes a long way towards keeping people working constructively on problems instead of screaming and running away. However, it's something that the WWII generation wouldn't have seen as a plus, but simply as the minimum requirement for leadership roles...
And obviously someone had been running the police and fire departments much better than their N.O. counterparts, because they did their jobs, even if it killed them.
markm, I agree that Giuliani's performance was in the "competent" or "acceptable" range -- just not that it was anything exceptional or heroic. There seemed to be no egregious foul-ups (even though some FDNY people and other first-responders are apparently accusing him of such -- and I guess the jury's still out on these claims).
With respect to Nagin, there seemed to be a low-grade (sometimes overt, maybe) racist element in the criticisms of his handling of the Katrina aftermath. I've lived in NOLA (albeit when I was in junior high school), so I do have some recollection of the insidious, pervasive racism in that city. Yes, it cuts both ways, but the depth and tone of the blatant white-against-black racism I noticed there was repugnant. I can't help but think that it still exists today, and that Nagin was the victim of it.
Pearl Harbor wasn't successfully attacked by the Japanese because of its location, or bad reasons for operating the Pacific Fleet out of there. With respect to earthquakes, San Franciscan building codes are much improved since then just because of the earthquake. And I'm not sure that New Orleans being rebuilt below sea level is a good argument for not thinking calmly about location--I've seen plenty of very persuasive arguments that it shouldn't be rebuilt there just because of the practical difficulties of fixing the levies to avoid another Katrina-like debacle, or the consequences of rising sea-levels if global warming has its predicted effect. The next time New Orleans floods, all those arguments will be pulled out as evidence that we could have avoided the consequences if we'd just used a bit of common sense.
Justin, the point is that we still use Pearl Harbor to this day, and if it's attacked again, some bright spark will hold forth on how we should have based the 7th Fleet somewhere else, because we knew Pearl Harbor was a prime target. Nevertheless, it's still the best place to base the fleet, for the same reasons now as in 1941, history notwithstanding.
SF building codes are improved, but then SF (I'm from SF, btw) hasn't had a Big One since 1906, but when it does – and it will – the city will probably suffer serious devastation. Building codes have minimized damage from the small earthquakes that happen from time to time, but when the Big One comes, people in SF will have to start praying (a new experience for most in SF!). It's inevitable. And I fully agree that there are excellent arguments for not rebuilding New Orleans in its present location, too. Nevertheless, in both cases, there are compelling reasons to accept the risk and rebuild SF right on top of the San Andreas Fault, and New Orleans in its original location below sea level. (Tourism for one, especially for New Orleans, which but for its historical flavor could rent itself out as a theme park for a corrupt, dangerous Third World hellhole.)
But pointing out, after the fact, the cons associated with a site really is Monday morning quarterbacking, so let's do some of the Sunday morning variety: where is the next terrorist attack likely to occur (city and target), so we know where not to site that city's emergency management center?
To answer Howard, Occam's Beard, etc.: It seems like nobody can pinpoint exactly what Giuliani did that was so heroic, and neither can people specify for sure what Ray Nagin did that was so all-fired incompetent. The problem is Giuliani was meretriciously hyped as a paragon of mayoral brilliance, while Nagin was (I believe unfairly) trashed for not doing things that noone can list, and which probably weren't in his purview or ability to do, anyway.
Joe T.: Giuliani showed leadership by putting his face before the public, helping to calm the city. Kinda like Winston Churchill during the Blitz; he couldn’t stop it, but he could keep morale up in adverse circumstances. It's called "leadership."
Nagin should live long enough to rise to the level of "incompetent." The famous 200 school buses left parked underwater could alone have evacuated ca. 6000 people per circuit. With a scintilla of leadership – and given more than a day's notice – Nagin could not only have mobilized the buses, but organized a share-a-ride type program that could have evacuated a lot of people. For example, he could have declared every local school a ride center where those leaving the city could pick up those needing a ride. He could have made arrangements with another city (20 miles away would probably have been enough) to use their local schools as temporary receiving stations for evacuees. (He perhaps could have eased traffic flow by making major roads one-way out of New Orleans for a certain period; in fairness, I'm not sure if that was practical, though.)
Simple. Easy. He didn't do it. On top of which, he failed to put himself before the public to galvanize them to action (as described above) and keep up their morale. IIRC, he split.That's why he's rightly condemned for lousy leadership.
OB, all that is duly noted, but it's kind of hard to "galvanize" the public into action when half of them are underwater. And the fact the levees gave way was hardly Nagin's fault... it was those "geniuses" in the Army Corps of Engineers what did it.
With respect to Nagin, there seemed to be a low-grade (sometimes overt, maybe) racist element in the criticisms of his handling of the Katrina aftermath. I've lived in NOLA (albeit when I was in junior high school), so I do have some recollection of the insidious, pervasive racism in that city. Yes, it cuts both ways, but the depth and tone of the blatant white-against-black racism I noticed there was repugnant. I can't help but think that it still exists today, and that Nagin was the victim of it.
Amazing. You had a silver platter list of practical reasons layed out before you, and you avoided all of them in order to play the race card. That's real classy.
I judged Nagin by his own claims in the aftermath of Katrina. He consistently claimed that the city had not underperformed in any way, because they had successfully implemented their plan of doing nothing and blaming others. The official city plan, according to Nagin, was to count on someone else (mainly the federal government) to take care of everything. He fully lived up to his own expectations.
And the fact the levees gave way was hardly Nagin's fault... it was those "geniuses" in the Army Corps of Engineers what did it.
You really want to go into that one, what with Louisiana's infamous mismanagement of pork and other available funds into botique projects, while blithely assuming the levies would always be there? Not to mention NO's lack of competent disaster preparedness?
You can point fingers in every direction and probably hit a few culpable targets somewhere in the chain, but in the end, NO was built to be the next Atlantis yet never took the situation seriously due to an atrocious mix of racial tension, governmental corruption, and good old fashioned "tomorrow never comes" short-sightedness. The city is in a permanently precarious position yet somehow doesn't act like one. And if the best answer anyone can come up with is "it was someone else's fault", a Katrina-style flood will happen again in the forseeable future with comparable results.
OB, all that is duly noted, but it's kind of hard to "galvanize" the public into action when half of them are underwater. And the fact the levees gave way was hardly Nagin's fault... it was those "geniuses" in the Army Corps of Engineers what did it.
Joe, fair enough, Nagin bears no responsibility for the levees problem, and he couldn't galvanize the population once it was underwater. But…he had several days' notice of Katrina's approach, and at least one day when it was clear that Katrina was very likely indeed to hit New Orleans, and no one at that time was yet underwater. That's when he should have acted, but didn't, and that's why I condemn him for lack of leadership. A mayor is supposed to do more than cut ribbons. When the time came, Nagin was weighed in the balance and found wanting.
Imagine if Nagin had gone on television, exhorting New Orleanians (?) to pull together to save their fellow citizens, to queue up those vans and SUVs at schools to pick up the less fortunate and take them to safety in sort of a latter-day Dunkirk. Community morale would have shot through the roof! It would have been one of the feel-good stories of the century, and would have put New Orleans halfway to reconstruction before it was even destroyed.
That's the difference leadership can make.
Justin, the point is that we still use Pearl Harbor to this day, and if it's attacked again, some bright spark will hold forth on how we should have based the 7th Fleet somewhere else, because we knew Pearl Harbor was a prime target. Nevertheless, it's still the best place to base the fleet, for the same reasons now as in 1941, history notwithstanding.
This seems to be more of the 'people will make criticisms no matter what, so all criticisms are invalid' line of argument.
Pearl Harbor makes no sense as a counterexample to what I'm arguing. It was attacked just because the fleet was there, and nothing about the attack's success had to do with illegitimate reasons for using Pearl rather than another location (or in defiance of legitimate reasons to base it elsewhere). In point of fact, I've never heard criticism of Pearl Harbor as the location for the fleet, or as an explanation for why the attack was as successful as it was.
My point has always been that locating the OEM in WTC 7 was counter to well-reasoned arguments at the time against locating it there; actual events demonstrated that those arguments against its location were well-reasoned, but nonetheless they were well reasoned beforehand.
so let's do some of the Sunday morning variety: where is the next terrorist attack likely to occur (city and target), so we know where not to site that city's emergency management center?
This was done at time the location for the OEM was chosen, and overruled. Pointing out on Monday that such quarterbacking was done on Sunday morning is not, in itself, illegitimate criticism.
This seems to be more of the 'people will make criticisms no matter what, so all criticisms are invalid' line of argument.
No, you're putting words in my mouth. My point was that every decision entails weighing pros and cons, and their respective likelihoods and magnitudes. After the fact, it's easy to point to the cons, but one has to look at the full calculation to put the decision in context to see whether it was a good or bad decision.
There's a big difference between a good decision and a right decision. To define my terms, a "good decision" is one that one would make again in the same situation, with the same information. Events may later show it to be the wrong decision, but it could still be a good decision.
For example, if you step out of your front door and get hit by lightning, you made a good but wrong decision. If you were up on your roof in a thunderstorm fiddling with an antenna but nothing happens, you made a bad but right decision.
To extend the football metaphor, a coach calling a quarterback sneak on 3rd and 2 is either being prudent and sensible (if it works), or dull and unimaginative if it doesn't ("What was he thinking?? Everybody in the stadium was looking for a QB sneak, for God's sake!"). How the decision is viewed depends on how it turns out, which determines the weighting factors for the pros and cons.
There's a big difference between a good decision and a right decision.
And what I've been arguing is that locating the OEM in WTC 7 was a bad decision, not a wrong decision. That events demonstrated it to be wrong doesn't detract from arguments that it was a bad decision. It was known and articulated at the time that it was a bad decision, and they went ahead anyway.
That's a point worth considering when judging Guliani's candidacy, that one of the significant decisions he made was a bad decision, meaning (per your categories) at the time. It violated basic ideas about disaster management.
Klug,
He talked about the Bush divorce rumors and I think there was one other item. How odd.
He was pushing the "Bush is drinking heavily again" story really hard back in 2004.
For all you Rudy fans out there on this blog, I just found this post somewhere on the web:
"Rudy Giuliani — Matt Taibbi recently made the case (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/14952564/giuliani_worse_than_bush/print) that the former NYC mayor is actually “worse than Bush.” Giuliani is autocratic, thin-skinned, and self-absorbed. He’s inexperienced, ignorant about policy specifics, and his only selling point (performance on 9/11) doesn’t stand up well to scrutiny. His campaign is built around demagoguery — driven solely by fear."
I don't know if you can say Rudy is "worse than Bush" -- at least Rudy doesn't feel the need to inject anti-intellectualism and phony macho swagger into every public performance. But self-absorbed and thin-skinned -- yes.
Funnily enough, when I look at the field of GOP candidates, the one candidate who has a good chance of losing to Hillary is actually Rudy Giuliani. As bad as Hillary probably will poll with men, Rudy will probably poll worse among women, once the stories of his numerous divorces and estranged kids hit the media full throttle.
Even Bush's daughters like their father. Giuliani's daughter is probably the first child of a major presidential candidate ever who has come out in favor of a rival-party candidate before the start of primary season!
Oh well, that does it then. If a sober, thoughtful policy journal such as Rolling Stone doesn't like him, well then he should just withdraw.
...is autocratic, thin-skinned, and self-absorbed. He’s inexperienced, ignorant about policy specifics, and his only selling point doesn’t stand up well to scrutiny.
Gee, this reminds me of someone. Wait, don't tell me...don't tell me...
The biggest issue I have with ruddy Rudy, is that he is extremely squishy on the immigration thing. That one item is more important than Iraq is, in maintaining the integrity of the US. Those of you with just a smidgeon of history know that unbridled immigration (legal or ill-) has always (as in 100%) resulted in the destruction of a culture and society, to be replaced with the newer (and by default, more energetic) culture.
It don't matter if its a highly cultured civilization, or a bunch of pastoral four-footed herders, those with the most people and most energy, win...and win big.
And what I've been arguing is that locating the OEM in WTC 7 was a bad decision, not a wrong decision.
OK, but the starting point for this was "But if it comes out that he did his emergency planning with his little head instead of his big head, even Republican primary voters might get a little bit upset." Which goes a bit beyond even a bad decision, requiring an inexplicable decision.
Are we seriously comparing Rudy Giuliani with Ray Nagin? Because I remember this one time where Giuliani was talking about making New York City an all-white city...that moment is seared in my memory, I tell you.
Because I remember this one time where Giuliani was talking about making New York City an all-white city...that moment is seared in my memory, I tell you.
1. Evidence, please.
2. See also this
*mutter mutter stupid non-compliant URL filter*
It's here.
Giuliani's pro-abortion stance will seriously irk the Christian pro-life part of the party and they will refuse to show up to the polls and vote out of sheer gall...handing the victory to Lady MacBubba.
Although I consider it refreshing that the party is finally admitting that they've been exploiting the Christian pro-lifers for their votes and they're just not going to pretend any more.
Philandering adulterers are always very proabortion...they want the option in case they knock up their shags.
1. Evidence, please.2. See also this
Whoops, forgot to close satire tags. Won't happen again.
He was pushing the "Bush is drinking heavily again" story really hard back in 2004.
I think it’s called “projection.”
A couple of points about the location of OEM at 7 World Trade Center should be kept in mind. The first is that the relocation of OEM was to get it away from the NYPD and Bill Bratton. OEM was originally an arm of the NYPD and was, until the 77 blackout, housed in the basement of 60 Centre Street, the state court house. When it was clear that the location was inadequate the response location was moved to 1 Police Plaza,from which the 77 blackout was managed.Mayor Giuliani decided to split off OEM as part of his spat with Mr. Bratton and named Jerry Hauer to head up the independent operation. The relocation from a secure building with its own power and communications backup was part of the plan.
The choice of 7 World Trade was made, one suspects,because of the other agencies that were housed there, including the New York offices of the NSA and the Secret Service.As those engaged in the clean up knew, there were substantial weapons storage facilities in # 7 and the clean up was handled in a way that isolated all of the material removed from the site from everything else.
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