Posted on 05/15/2004 6:22:22 AM PDT by Libloather
Giuliani set to testify at 9/11 hearings
Saturday, May 15, 2004 - 12:00 AM
Timothy Williams THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK -- More than two years after leaving office, former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani will testify before the Sept. 11 commission next week in an appearance that could put him in the awkward position of criticizing fellow Republicans in the Bush administration just as he is seeking a more prominent role in the party.
For instance, Giuliani will probably be asked by the commissioners whether the city was aware that President Bush had reviewed an intelligence briefing a month before the attacks that said terrorists might be casing buildings in New York.
"His heroic status will give him a nice welcome and respect, but I see the commission as digging for all the truths they can," said Douglas Muzzio, a public policy professor at Baruch College. "I don't see them softballing him."
He will appear before the panel Wednesday, just a few miles from ground zero.
For most of his political career, Giuliani has been a maverick, breaking ranks with the Republican Party when he saw fit. But since the World Trade Center attack, he has become one of the party's most dependable fund-raisers, relentless campaigners and vocal supporters of the Bush administration.
Observers say Giuliani, 59, needs the party as much as the party needs him and cannot afford to alienate the GOP leadership with his testimony -- if he is interested in running for office again, or winning the keynote speaker slot at the Republican National Convention this summer in New York, or perhaps getting a position in a second-term Bush Cabinet.
"The bottom line is he doesn't want to burn bridges, either in his consulting work or as a future politician," said Mike Paul, a political analyst and former Giuliani aide.
Giuliani has said he may get back into politics in 2006 with either a run for governor or for the Senate against Democratic incumbent Hillary Rodham Clinton. While battling prostate cancer, Giuliani dropped out of the 2000 Senate race won by the former first lady.
Giuliani declined to be interviewed for this article but told The Associated Press last month that he had not seen or heard any intelligence that could have prompted the government to react differently before Sept. 11. "When a horrible thing happens, then you go back and -- with the benefit of hindsight -- you see something three or four months earlier that alerted you to it," he said. "But so far, I haven't seen anything that would have created that kind of alert."
Immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, Giuliani became one of America's most recognizable figures, hailed for his calm and resolute leadership. Since then, however, he has been largely absent from the political fray he once reveled in as New York's famously cantankerous mayor.
Some of his exile has been self-imposed, though a good part of his battle with irrelevance is what happens to any politician without portfolio.
When Giuliani suggested that the entire trade center site be set aside as a giant memorial, for example, he was ignored. And on the eve of the second anniversary of the attacks, when he derided plans for the Freedom Tower and other office buildings at the site, his opinion did not change anyone's plans.
Nevertheless, he has kept busy. His consulting firm, Giuliani Partners, has struck deals with corporate entities as various as the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, WorldCom, the makers of OxyContin and the owners of the Indian Point nuclear power plants.
This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A7.
On the other hand, he can criticize Gorelick and cement his win against the Beast in the next election...
Curious..
I'm wondering what Rudy could say that would be so critical that it would upset anyone of significance in the party.
Backhoe's Gorelick links:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1117579/posts
The Gorelick memos were forced on intelligence because of Clinton's immorality. Rather than impeaching Clinton over Chinagate and other abuses, the intelligence was punished.
Are there new Gorelick-style memos being written today over Glow-Gate? Will we see more hamstringing of intelligence gathering due to the sliming Bubba did of our military? "Don't ask, don't tell." How many times has that policy been violated to satisfy the liberals trying to see how slimy our military has become? Will soldiers be court martialled for aiding congress in its investigation? It all ties together in a sick orgy of depravity by the Left.
No matter how I read this opening sentence, it looks like pure speculation, simply the personal opinion (or fantasy wish) of the reporter.
Is The Daily Herald a newspaper?
(steely)
Lots of speculation going on in this article.
And so, like, what? JUST because they already BOMBED the biggest building in the city ONCE, and caused spectacular damage inside, should one think that terrorists all over the world would just cross 'NYC' off their shopping lists and never go BACK there again?
Besides, since the attacks came from the air, and out of state, what could Giuliana have done on-the-ground to answer such a nebulous threat? Keep everybody evacuated from every building every day?
Yes, Republicans are only relevent to those propagandists in the press when they are critical or can be used against fellow Republicans. It is simply a wish to turn Rudy against the administration or twist his words in a way to make it a negative against the President. They know Rudy is popular and are attempting to spin an article in a way to look bad on Bush and Republicans.
Right?! This is not a "news" article. This shows how news reporters become editorialists. This is how news gets distorted. I don't know where this newspaper "reporter" is from, but obviously he hasn't seen much of Rudy Guliani in action. He'll tell it like it is, tell off the commissioners, if need be, everyone will sincerely thank him, and the world will be a little bit better for it. Rudy has such clarity of mind that if he ruffles any feathers, it will be ones that need ruffling--and those people will also thank him.
Giuliani doesn't care for lying Saudi princes or kings or their money, like this administration does. What's the price of a gallon of gas btw?
I have a feeling that Guiliani will be awesome. Just like, if he is elected in 2008, he will wage an awesome WOT.
The only problem with Hillary vs Guliani, is that Hillary is likely to lose and all her money will go to the 2008 race and that's the way she wants it. The problem becomes: have we taken Clinton out of the NY Senate? and to the Dems, it doesn't really matter when you want the White House. The Dems are pretty sneaky and nothing would surprise me...like
Bubba running for governor of NY to get the vote out across the nation. Imagine two of them running at the same time because there is no beginning to running, just an end.
Guliani doesn't kiss Saudi butt, that's where the split is.
Whachoo talkin bout?
Bill / Hillary? Cancer?
Both
I like it! The Big C!
I like it more than President Scumbag (coined by myself, in my Compuserve days, I hasten to add)!
(steely)
Gorelick should have been thrown in the hoosegow along with Eric Holder, Webb Hubbell, Lee Radek and nearly every other Clinton crony who did their best to decimate the previously apolitical-relatively speaking-Department of Justice.
Ramsey Clark himself couldn't have done a better job of obliterating our nation's carefully calibrated system of administering justice.
Excellent point..
and he'll say so!
There's an ongoing lawsuit to determnine how much Silverstein is entitled to recover from his original investment. I believe he bought the property less than a year before the Sept. 11th terror attacks.
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