I Have Three Words For Rudy Giuliani

I got piled on a bit yesterday in a comments thread — and really blistered in a private email or two — over my view that Rudy Giuliani is a resume without a man and unelectable.

This shameless one-trick pony has banged the 9/11 drum relentlessly, but is so craven at heart that he could not help himself and insulted the many brave first responders and clean-up crews who labored at Ground Zero by boasting that he had been at the ruins “as often, if not more” than those workers.

Now comes The New York Times, which reports that:

“A complete record of Mr. Giuliani’s exposure to the site is not available for the chaotic six days after the attack, when he was a frequent visitor. But an exhaustively detailed account from his mayoral archive, revised after the events to account for last-minute changes on scheduled stops, does exist for the period of Sept. 17 to Dec. 16, 2001. It shows he was there for a total of 29 hours in those three months, often for short periods or to visit locations adjacent to the rubble. In that same period, many rescue and recovery workers put in daily 12-hour shifts.”

As someone who knows some of these workers and has an associate who is involved in the effort to map and treat the severe respiratory problems that many have developed in part because of the callousness of then-EPA Director Christie Whitman, as well as America’s Mayor, I have only three words for Giuliani:

Shame. Shame. Shame.