Hillary plots 9/11 attack on Rudy

The Sunday Times (U.K.) ^ | 04/01/07 | Tony Allen-Mills

[Pokey78]

The first face-to-face confrontation of the 2008 presidential race is looming over a US Senate inquiry into health problems suffered by workers at New York’s ground zero after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

As the chairwoman of a Senate subcommittee investigating complaints that workers were misled about air quality after the collapse of the twin towers, Senator Hillary Clinton, the Democrat front-runner for the presidential nomination, confirmed last week that she is considering calling Rudolph Giuliani, the former mayor of New York and the leading Republican contender, to testify at a public hearing.

The health committee’s inquiry has presented Clinton with an intriguing political choice with potentially volatile repercussions for the presidential race. By calling Giuliani as a witness, she could place him in the awkward position of having to submit to her senatorial authority and face a grilling that might dent the heroic image he acquired for his response to the 9/11 attacks.

At the same time Democratic aides have acknowledged that Clinton might risk being accused of playing politics with a tragedy. Giuliani said last week that he was happy to testify “to anybody who has a fair mind about it” and is “approaching it from a nonpolitical point of view”.

Clinton said last week she was still “looking at all the people available to testify”. But other prominent New York Democrats have demanded Giuliani should answer questions about whether he could have done more as mayor to protect the workers who spent weeks digging in dust and dirt that is now considered to have been dangerously toxic.

“Who made decisions, if any, that resulted unnecessarily in a lot of people getting sick?” asked Congressman Jerrold Nadler, whose district includes the World Trade Center site.

The Senate inquiry follows claims by at least 9,000 New Yorkers that they are suffering from lung and stomach ailments they blame on the toxic rubble at ground zero. Their cause attracted national attention in January when Clinton invited the son of Cesar Borja, a stricken New York policeman, to attend President George W Bush’s state of the union address as her guest. Borja was waiting for a lung transplant but died of respiratory failure a few hours before Bush spoke.

Despite subsequent revelations that Borja may not have spent long periods working at ground zero, the health inquiry has become a potential embarrassment for Giuliani, who is increasingly being forced to defend the actions that made him a national icon. He was dubbed “America’s mayor” by Oprah Winfrey, the talk show host.

Last month Giuliani was fiercely criticised by a firemen’s union that has never forgiven him for halting the search for bodies. The mayor was anxious at the time that clean-up operations should begin, but more than five years later body parts are still being found around ground zero.

He has also been criticised for failing to provide the New York Fire Department with more modern communications equipment, which was requested after the attack on the World Trade Center in 1993.

Sally Regenhard, whose son was one of the 343 firefighters killed in the attacks, said last week she had no problem if Giuliani ran for president on his record of reducing New York crime, “but when he runs on 9/11, I want the American people to know he was part of the problem”.

Clinton has been swift to exploit her rival’s difficulties. She earned three standing ovations at a firemen’s convention in Washington this month and promised that, as president, she would “take care of the people who have taken care of us”.

Yet she has also been careful to avoid direct criticism of Giuliani, and several analysts have warned that a face-to-face challenge on his 9/11 record would be risky. “It’s not smart strategy. It’s too early,” Douglas Muzzio, a political science professor at Baruch College, told the New York Sun. Instead she should “take the high road”.

Behind the fencing over health issues lies mounting pressure on both Clinton and Giuliani camps to maintain the healthy opinion poll leads that each has staked out in the race for their respective party nominations. In a Gallup poll published last week by USA Today, Giuliani’s lead over Senator John McCain of Arizona had shrunk from 24 points at the beginning of March to nine points three weeks later.

The former mayor also faces a possible challenge from former senator Fred Thompson, a Hollywood actor turned conservative politician who shot from nil to 12 points in the same poll, simply by announcing that he was considering entering the race.

In the Gallup poll, Clinton’s lead over Senator Barack Obama, who is seeking to become the first African-American president, narrowed slightly from 14 points to 13 points.

On Thursday a new Time magazine poll gave Clinton only an eight point lead over Obama, with former senator John Edwards apparently benefiting from a major sympathy boost after the announcement that his wife’s cancer has become incurable. Edwards jumped nine points to 26 points, only four behind Obama.

If Clinton decides to call Giuliani as a witness, her health inquiry may turn into an intriguing preview of next year’s presidential debates. But the ex-mayor warned the senator last week that he expected any testimony about health issues at ground zero to be “above politics”, and he also reminded her he was a possible victim himself.

“I was probably there as often as anybody, as you know,” he said. “So any exposure to anything bad that anyone else has, I personally had.”

[pinz-n-needlez]

What was Sandy doing in 84-90?

Wasn't he working for the Chinese as a liaison or something?

Wonder if any of the documents had anything to do with Loral...

The Dems know the best defense is a good offense. They could write off all of these hearings as campaign expenses. :-(

[Tolsti]

This is just dispicable as hell.

[Txsleuth]

Dang..I am not familiar enough with Sandy's history. I should find out.

I do know the Dems scare me....the lengths the will go to, to discredit Pres. Bush and his colleagues...and to gain power is frightening. NO rule, or law left unbroken...no life to sacred.

[PhilDragoo]

Let's see, the world's biggest demolition site and I saw countless professional first-responders spending days there with nothing more than a 3M nuisance mask.

And people got sick.

No mention that the event was the highjacking by nineteen jihadists which killed 3,000 all the result of the generalship of Osama bin Laden whom Bill and Mrs. Bill could not be bothered to ACCEPT from Sudan.

The Clintons' cowardice and betrayal in Mogadishu and failure to follow through on WTC I led to the inevitability of 911.

Okay, so to Mrs. White Trash it's nothing more than a bad air day.

To Rudy and we who care for the country it was an act of war and the presence of workers was the result of much personal heroism in the face of known risks.

This is a bomb which won't leave the she-devil's hand before it blows it off.

Reveal yourself, beast. There is no lower road.

[Bommer]

Sally Regenhard, whose son was one of the 343 firefighters killed in the attacks, said last week she had no problem if Giuliani ran for president on his record of reducing New York crime, “but when he runs on 9/11, I want the American people to know he was part of the problem”.

So was Bill Clinton and his co-Presidential wife, Beastzilla! Rudy needs to turn the tables on her.

[Gop1040]

"Do you think that ANY OTHER MAYOR OF A LARGE CITY would have been any less outspoken had they been the target of 9-11?"

N.O. mayor Ray Nagin or S.F. mayor Gavin Newsom anyone?

[KoRn]

Looks like they are wanting to turn 911 into 'Katrina' for Rudy, 6 years later. Bastards.

[Victoria Delsoul]

Reveal yourself, beast. There is no lower road.

Man oh man, LOL!!

[Arizona Carolyn]

She is tone deaf politically (compared to BC). She will overplay her hand this election.

[FredHunter08]

"We have crazed freepers praising hitlery, praising the NYSlimes as second only to the Holy Bible, and embracing every lunatic on the face of the earth who would blame Rudy rather than the terrorists for bringing down the WTC."

A bit overblown. Is it "crazed" to question the myth of Rudy the Hero?

[Peach]

I don’t see Rudy or his kids attacking your dad. Too bad your father can’t say the same for you.

[Blackirish]

This will make the Alito hearings look like Romper Room.

Look for the dims to way overplay their hands.....they will love nothing more then to take Rudy out at the knees.

[Peach]

You’re exactly right about that. The freaking out here alone at his front runner status is really something to behold.

[Fierce Allegiance]

LMAO! Peach thinks FReeper fredhunter08 is the son of Duncan Hunter!

ROFLMAO!

[FredHunter08]

“I don’t see Rudy or his kids attacking your dad. Too bad your father can’t say the same for you.”

My father was not Duncan Hunter. ThompsonHunter08 just seemed a bit long....

My father does have one thing in common with Duncan Hunter that neither have in common with Rudy the Great, however....

You know, I'd have paid money to see Rudy react to what I and a large group of other folks did for recreation this past weekend..... ;) It certainly had nothing to do with hunting.

[Peach]

It’s a crying shame you can’t find enough good things to post about your candidates and instead come on threads about the Republican front runner and bash him.

It speaks volumes about your comfort level with Hunter/Thompson. /sarcasm

[FredHunter08]

“It’s a crying shame you can’t find enough good things to post about your candidates and instead come on threads about the Republican front runner and bash him.”

Only the media has named him the “front runner”.

“It speaks volumes about your comfort level with Hunter/Thompson. /sarcasm”

It says more for my comfort level with liberal Republicans like Rudy.

[Peach]

Only the media has named him the “front runner”.

Sure, ace. And all those polls are just lies. Even the FNC polls. You keep telling yourself that.

In the interim, it's quite instructive that you can't find many good things to post about your candidate.

[FredHunter08]

“Sure, ace. And all those polls are just lies. Even the FNC polls. You keep telling yourself that.”

Polls this early are conducted to attempt to shape opinion, not reflect it.

“In the interim, it’s quite instructive that you can’t find many good things to post about your candidate.”

No need. He speaks for himself. Listen to Paul Harvey’s show.... for the rest of the story.

Go on pushing your liberal, but don’t expect *Conservatives* to buy him. Perhaps we conservatives really ought to reconsider our alliance with the Republicans.... It hasn’t worked out with you people as well as we hoped. You agree too often with the Dems.

Frankly, I’d support just about anyone on the list but the media-drive top 3: your buddy Rudy, McCain, and Romney.

[mimaw]

If Hillary’s hound dog husband would have kept his pants on a paid attention to the war that was being waged on us during their years in the Whitehouse no one would have had to breath that air. That phony bitch should keep her big mouth shut. She and Willie should have left Washington with their tails between their legs and never showed themselves in public again. They are the ones that started the division in this country and failed the American people miserably.