Giuliani

Comment on NYT article ^ | Sept 16 2001

[tobygan]

One the first acts of Giuliani as mayor was to have Yassar Arafat hauled out of Lincoln Center during a visit to the UN.  This was when hope was viable from the Oslo Peace Talks.  The action was designed  in order to humiliate Arafat and pander to the fanatics who want no reconciliation between Palestinian and Jew for that would foreclose the option of eliminating the Arabs from what land they still hold.

Now with less than 6 months in office, the destruction in lower Manhattan becomes an ironic bookend to his term.

So much for his "love" of NYC.

Later, Prime Minister Rabin was murdered.

And the violence has been escalating ever since.

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Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/23/magazine/23ELEMENTS.4.html

One of the running gags of the Giuliani years was ‘‘the bunker’’ — press shorthand for the $15 million Emergency Command Center the mayor built on the 23rd floor of 7 World Trade Center in 1998. The bunker symbolized the mayor’s bunker mentality — his love of crisis, his almost delighted sense that a besieged city needed an untiring and unsmiling defender.

Now that bunker lies in a great heap of rubble. On the morning of the disaster, which infinitely exceeded even his own direst imaginings, the mayor and his chief aides abandoned the Emergency Command Center for another installation and fled that one in turn only 10 minutes before it was destroyed, killing the men who stayed behind. In the news conferences he gave that afternoon, the mayor spoke of his own escape from death and of the many friends who had died.
 

[Rodney King]

So this is Giuliani's fault for throwing Arafat out of Lincoln Center?

[lawgirl]

this is completely ridiculous.

Guliani for senate- 2004-take out HITLERY!!

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

Come on, admit it, you all checked tobygan's Member Since date.

[Reagan Man]

Lets cut through your obvious hatred for the Mayor and blame that you place on him for the terrorist attacks of Tuesday..

Heres the whole article.

The Hero

ne of the running gags of the Giuliani years was ‘‘the bunker’’ — press shorthand for the $15 million Emergency Command Center the mayor built on the 23rd floor of 7 World Trade Center in 1998. The bunker symbolized the mayor’s bunker mentality — his love of crisis, his almost delighted sense that a besieged city needed an untiring and unsmiling defender.

Now that bunker lies in a great heap of rubble. On the morning of the disaster, which infinitely exceeded even his own direst imaginings, the mayor and his chief aides abandoned the Emergency Command Center for another installation and fled that one in turn only 10 minutes before it was destroyed, killing the men who stayed behind. In the news conferences he gave that afternoon, the mayor spoke of his own escape from death and of the many friends who had died. There was a delicacy in his manner, an anxious concern for the sufferings of others that few had ever associated with him. Giuliani’s stoicism in the past had seemed to come of unfeeling; this was the stoicism of deep feeling held rigorously in check.

At one point during the day, Ed Koch, the former mayor, suggested that America obliterate the capital of any nation that continued to harbor terrorists. You couldn’t help feeling grateful that Koch was no longer mayor. Mayor Giuliani issued no such threats. Quite the contrary: he assured New Yorkers that the Bush administration would find the appropriate response, whatever that was, and urged them to refrain from all forms of hatred, especially ‘‘group hatred’’ directed at Muslims. And then he apologized for having even to suggest something that was beneath the dignity of New Yorkers. The mayor is normally the least graceful of men, but on that day he brought to mind Hemingway’s phrase ‘‘grace under pressure.’’

The time will come when our sense of crisis will settle into a kind of permanent substrate, and New Yorkers will return to their perennial concerns — the schools, the streets, the parks. By November, when voters choose a new mayor, they may not regard grace under pressure as the cardinal mayoral virtue. You could, in fact, argue that by defusing New York’s fixed atmosphere of crisis, Mayor Giuliani has made the city safe for a very different kind of successor. The candidates might embrace this logic themselves if doing so wouldn’t implicitly diminish them.

Indeed, the World Trade Center disaster magnifies the widespread sense that the men hoping to succeed the mayor are smaller than he. But we should remind ourselves that Giuliani himself wasn’t always so magisterial a figure; the hothead candidate of 1993 probably could have started a nuclear war on his own. The crisis shapes the man as much as the other way around; he is, if he has any substance at all, fired in the crucible of office. Giuliani’s bearing at this moment of anguish ensures that he will be remembered fondly, at least by many; New Yorkers can hope that the man they elect may someday surprise them with the same gifts.

[bvw]

"the hothead candidate of 1993 probably could have started a nuclear war on his own"

Hyperbole and a mean, petty snipe. Ruins the whole piece of great writing. But it shows the true heart of the NYT's -- a heart black with petty meanness.

[OldFriend]

Before I have a stroke.......this was printed in the New York Times? These criticisms of Rudy? This complain that throwing Arafat out of the concert hall resulted in the failure of Oslo?

[Cicero]

I remember the incident, but I don't recall the details. As I vaguely recall, Arafat tried to set up a typical liberal love-fest photo-op at Lincoln Center, with Giuliani as one of the players, no doubt alerting the NY press ahead of time, and Giuliani simply refused to play ball. I remember at the time that I thought he behaved with more dignity than the people who tried to orchestrate this PR event.

[Senator Pardek]

Rudy was right - Arafat cannot be trusted. He should have recieved a bullet in his subhuman skull and then tossed into the East River.

[Senator Pardek]

Eddie Koch attacked Rudy for this - I've never seen a man so wrapped up in jealousy.

[CatOwner]

"Guliani for senate- 2004-take out HITLERY!!"

I hate to burst your bubble, but the only way for Giuliani to replace Hillary as Senator in 2004 is if she resigns early or becomes President in 2004. Her seat isn't officially up until 2006.

Schumer's seat, however, is up in 2004, and I think Giuliani would win that seat easily.

[OldFriend]

Oh I was so proud of Rudy when he threw Arafat out of the concert hall...I was questioning whether these complaints were printed in the New York Times now after the attack on the Twin Towers.

[secondamendmentkid]

As a Texan not overly enamored with Rudy's politics and personal life, I must admit to being most impressed with his leadership during this time of crisis for NY and our nation. Unlike the presshounds Hildabeast and ClymerSchumer, Rudy is sincere, timely, and informative. He comes across as honestly trying to do his job in the most effective manner possible and to instill confidence in the citizens of his city. By any measure, he is successful. If he beats his cancer, he will doubtless find other public service in his future.