<p>OK. I’ll bite. Rudy Guiliani. Defend him on the topic of “family values”.</p>
<p>HH, the GOP candidate will be next to GWB at the GOP convention. And to get the nomination will have to endorse enough of GWB’s tenure to satisfy the wingnuttery that dominates today’s Republican party.</p>
<p>Fear not, GWB will be welded to the Republican nominee at the shoulder, hip, and ankle.</p>
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<p>Do you think they’ll even let Bush speak at the convention? I figure that, by that point, the Republicans will basically confine him to the political equivalent of Gitmo.</p>
<p>He will, of course, be visible front and center and the Democratic convention.</p>
<p>Interesting, a liberal is asking me to defend Rudy Guliani’s personal familial decisions while endorsing a lecherous perjurer.</p>
<p>Seriously, give me a political topic. How does the number of wives Guliani’s had or his estrangement from his son affect his policy decisions? As a rational voter, why should I give a ****?</p>
<p>Over and over you talk about the Rep convention, TD. Do many people (besides whackos like us) even watch the thing? Also, I seem to remember that the current Pres shows up one night. </p>
<p>cgm: I get it: any criticism of a Dem candidate (especially Mrs. C. or Obama, as members of protected groups) is a “smear” or an “attack.” But it’s ok to yuk it up over the Republican candidates, right? (See this OP, for example.)</p>
<p>Vyse, what’s your defense to this?</p>
<p>After the attack on the WTC in 1993 the recommendation was made to get interoperable radios for the police and fire department. Eight years later, Guiliani still hadn’t done it. In fact, the fire department still had the same radios they did in 1993, with techology from the 1960s. They weren’t even powerful enough to communicate in a steel skyscraper, much less interact with the police. </p>
<p>As a result, some fire companies never got the warning to evacuate. This cost at least 120 firefighters their lives, because warnings that the World Trade Center’s south tower had collapsed weren’t heard by rescuers in the north tower. </p>
<p>Additionally, the fire department never heard the warnings from the police department helicopter pilot who saw that first the south tower, then the north tower were on the verge of collapse. One of these warnings was issued 25 minutes before the tower fell, but the fire department never got the word.</p>
<p>Under pressure to explain why he didn’t follow this recommendation, Guiliani tried to claim that interoperable radio technology didn’t exist yet. But a poll of major city mayors shows that 77% already had interoperable radios in place.</p>
<p>Sorry, but I have seen enough of this kind of incompetence and deceit from our federal government already. We don’t need another four years of it.</p>
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<p>“Family values” is a political topic. Guiliani’s party has claimed to have the exclusive on it for more than a quarter century.</p>
<p>But, if you’d rather duck that one, discuss the type of guy Rudy Guiliani would appoint to be Head of Homeland Security.</p>
<p>“Under pressure to explain why he didn’t follow this recommendation, Guiliani tried to claim that interoperable radio technology didn’t exist yet. But a poll of major city mayors shows that 77% already had interoperable radios in place.”</p>
<p>It’s worse than that. Giuliani had his personal valet and chauffeur driver Bernie Kerik appointed police commissioner, who then used funds earmarked for 911 search and rescue to rent an apartment where he carried on a string of affairs , including one with Judith Regan.</p>
<p>Wait. You don’t mean the same Bernie Kerik that Rudy Guliani championed for appointment as head of Homeland Security, do you? The one who withdrew from Bush’s nomination after questions arose about business ties to a mob family? Maybe that’s what Republicans mean by “family” values?</p>
<p>The families of the fallen NYFD firefighters didn’t feel too valued. This letter reveals alot about the kind of decisions Guiliani would make as President.</p>
<p>Making bad decisions that cost people their lives, lying to cover it up, then profitting personally from the tragedy may be a familiar M.O. to us by now, but it’s only part of the story. </p>
<p><a href=“http://thehill.com/images/stories/news/2007/03/09/giuliani_letter.pdf[/url]”>http://thehill.com/images/stories/news/2007/03/09/giuliani_letter.pdf</a></p>
<p>Speaking of Republican candidates, the Republican controlled Congress and White House had failed to pass legislation implementing recommendations of the 9-11 Commission, including funding so that first responders would have a unified radio frequency. Bush’s proposed budget this year included a 40% decrease in funding for first responders compared to 2004.</p>
<p>The Democratic controlled Congress (including Presidential candidates Clinton, Obama, Biden, and Dodd) finally passed the enabling legislation in March of this year. Only 10 Republicans crossed party lines and voted to implement the recommendations of the 9-11 Commission. President Bush threatened to veto the legislation.</p>
<p>Where’s Vyse? I thought he promised to defend these guys?</p>
<p>I wish they’d asked more questions like the evolution one. </p>
<p>How old do you think the earth is? Do you agree with the Texas Republican party that the separation of church and state is a “myth” and Christianity is meant to be exalted over all other faiths?</p>
<p>Do you think the President has the power to authorize domestic wiretaps without a search warrant? Or to confine American citizens indefinitely with no judicial review? </p>
<p>Would you support more National Guard and Reserve troops from your home state being sent to fight in Iraq?</p>
<p>The questions I’d like to hear discussed:</p>
<p>Since you have endorsed the Bush policy of maintaining current levels of combat forces in Iraq until we “win”, are you prepared to do so for ten years? What are your budget projections for the cost over ten years? What is your plan to address the damage being done to our vital armed forces as a result of a sustained decade long deployment?</p>
<p>I would ask the same question of Dems and Reps - “Whether you plan to withdraw troops from Iraq or not, what specific vital military, political, and economics interests does the U.S. have in the Middle East that you intend to defend militarily over the long term?”</p>
<p>How about “Would it be good for America to have Bill Clinton back in the White House?”</p>
<p>Oops…forgot…that one was already asked.</p>
<p>Comparing the Clinton and Bush administrations, my response would be “Hell, yes.” I’d even chip in towards a Bimbo-of-the-Month Club membership for Bill if I thought it would help.</p>
<p>As mini would say, “What about Bill Clinton?”</p>
<p>As usual, after all the bluster about defending the Republican regime, the best shot is Bill Clinton? Next, I suppose we’ll get JFK or FDR.</p>
<p>conyat, do you have a source for that?</p>
<p>Just because you say it doesn’t make it true.</p>
<p>A source for what? The radios? Sorry, I thought that was common knowledge at this point, but I’ll find one for you.</p>
<p><a href=“World Trade Center Investigation”>World Trade Center Investigation;
Here’s the original recommendation in 1994.</p>
<p>Guiliani didn’t follow it:
<a href=“http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/03/13/swiftboat_rudy/[/url]”>http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/03/13/swiftboat_rudy/</a></p>
<p>“The faulty radios were the target of years of scathing internal assessments, bureaucratic wrangling, and accusations of bidding favoritism, and still the Giuliani administration had never replaced them.”</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/30/AR2007033000505.html[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/30/AR2007033000505.html</a></p>
<p>Here’s another source documenting that Guiliani failed to provide those radios, that on 9-11, the NYFD and NYPD still had the same radios they did in 1994–and the tragic results.</p>
<p>Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Guiliani and 9-11 documents what happened as a result:</p>
<p>"as many as eight Fire Department companies in the North Tower did not receive the evacuation order ‘via radio or directly from other first responders,’ " according to the 9-11 Commission (Page 50). Fire department rescuers never heard the police helicopter “pilot warning that the South Tower was about to fall” or “the pilots repeatedly warn[ing] of the North Tower collapse, as early as 25 minutes before it happened” (Page 51).</p>
<p>And from the Salon article: “And on Sept. 11, the faulty radios were just part of a tableau of dysfunction. Fire Department officials couldn’t communicate with police officials, whose helicopters had bird’s-eye views of the unstable towers poised to fall. Police and fire communications weren’t linked, and no one bothered to set up a unified police-fire command post on the street near the towers, which is Emergency Management 101.”</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.usmayors.org/72ndAnnualMeeting/interoperabilityreport_062804.pdf[/url]”>http://www.usmayors.org/72ndAnnualMeeting/interoperabilityreport_062804.pdf</a>
Here’s the study documenting that on 9/11/2001, 77% of mayors surveyed had radio systems that police, fire, and EMS could communicate with each other.</p>
<p>And yeah, Guiliani lied:</p>
<p>“Giuliani’s vulnerability can be detected, in part, in his shifting accounts of his actions. He has said, for example, that technology for police-fire interoperability didn’t exist at the time the planes slammed into the towers. A fawning 9/11 Commission swallowed that line, but the U.S. Conference of Mayors found shortly before Giuliani’s testimony to the commission that of 192 cities it evaluated, three-quarters had radios interoperable across police and fire departments.” </p>
<p>(from the Salon article. This is also confirmed by the book I quoted from and numerous other sources).</p>
<p>Here’s a Republican source confirming that the attacks on Guiliani on the radio issue are “legitimate”: <a href=“http://www.urbanelephants.com/nyc/node/6817[/url]”>http://www.urbanelephants.com/nyc/node/6817</a></p>
<p>More from the urbanelephant site: </p>
<p>“These are legitimate criticisms [about Guiliani], but no FDNY radio was going to stop the 9/11 terrorists from hijacking airplanes, flying them into buildings, and murdering thousands.”</p>
<p>Very true. But I contend that if you can’t even get the radios right, with seven years to prepare, and can’t tell the truth about them, what hope is there that you’ll get the big stuff right?</p>
<p>Final note:</p>
<p>I’d like to add that the sources above are the first ones I grabbed off Google. You could probably confirm most of it in the 9-11 commission’s report or contemporaneous news accounts.</p>