The Sunday Times has a interesting article up about one Jim Riches.
Who is Jim Riches? He’s a fire battalion chief in New York City and he “has vowed to torpedo Giuliani’s prospects of winning the White House by attacking his greatest source of strength, his reputation as a hero”.
The source of Riches’ anger? His son, Jim Riches Jr., was a firefighter as well. He died, 29 years old, on 9/11/01. Riches wanted to find the body of his son, but Giuliani ordered the firemen to stop searching for bodies. The firemen refused to stop and clashed with the New York Police Department. 18 firemen were wounded.
Not much later, Jim Riches’ body was found:
Riches Sr had taken a rare day off from ground zero to attend his grandmother’s burial when he got the call on his mobile. He raced back to help bring what remained of his son out on a stretcher draped with the American flag. If Giuliani had succeeded in closing down the operation, “I would never have got to carry little Jimmy’s body out�, Riches said. “I would never have had a cemetery to visit.�
Does this have any potential? Could this truly hurt Giuliani?
Douglas Brinkley, a biographer of Kerry, said: “Pitting the two heroes of 9/11 – Giuliani and the firefighters – against each other will be the Swift Boat campaign all over again. Giuliani has marketed himself brilliantly as the leader of 9/11 but this will damage him. Most Americans respect the firemen more than they respect him.â€?
I cannot help but feel that, although I have a lot of sympathy for Mr Riches, his real anger is that his son died. Period. Not what Giuliani did, but that his son is no more. Did Giuliani behave, perhaps, insensitively? Yes. Does that warrant this reaction? I’d say no.
How should Giuliani deal with this? I’m with Brinkley:
Brinkley predicts that Giuliani will lose if he tries to face down the firefighters and their families. The answer, Brinkley believes, is to cut off the threat by apologising for some of his decisions. “He should say, ‘I just wanted to get New York moving again. I’m sorry I was insensitive’, and start talking about helping with equipment and resources,� he said.
Although I mention above that, in my opinion, Giuliani’s decisions don’t warrant this anti-Giuliani campaign, Giuliani should, indeed, not try ‘to face down the firefighters and their families’. He should do something that’s quite un-Bush and quite un-Giuliani: apologize. He should admit that he has made mistakes.
If we look at history, the American people normally react well to apologies. The problem only increases when one doesn’t apologize.
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