Will haunt Giuliani until he dies. I hope, beyond all hopes, that every, single, Democrat grabs that quote and uses it ad nauseum. Start now. Every day. once a day. at the beginning of every press conference.

"Senator Obama, what about the details of your health plan?"

"I'll get to that in a second, but first I want to quote a firefighter from New York...."

That kind of quote, and the whole hatred for the NYFD for Giuliani, could lose its power if it is built up too much. People would just come to accept (as will surely be drilled into them by the MSM) that the NYFD just has some union-organized "anti-boss" hysteria going on. The point will be far more powerful if played down for now, but brought out strategically late in the campaign season, after Giuliani has staked everything on his 9/11 rep.

He didn't fall to pieces, like our President did.

And he didn't spend the day running away from the scene of the crime, like our President did.

In other words (to use a prez fave phrase), Rudy simply did what he was supposed to, as the Mayor of NYC.

Rudy only looks like a hero in comparison to Bush.

(Who has been stridently trying to prove his manhood ever since -- with utterly disasterous results. Whatta bummer for the Iraqis.)

What was so great about what Giuliani did? First, let's focus on what he didn't do. He didn't sit there with a stunned look on his face and try to read additional passages from a children's book called "My Pet Goat." He didn't spend the day flying around in Air Force One in order to avoid danger. He didn't give an address from the Oval Office that night with a deer-caught-in-the-headlights look on his face.

What he did do was, he marched around downtown, looking confident and like he had a plan and conveying a sense that everything was going to be okay. This wouldn't have been so noteworthy except that our President was on that day unable to convey that same sense of confidence. This created a leadership vacuum, which left all of us so hungry for a competent, decisive leader that we were willing to bestow that mantle upon anyone who looked the part. Even I, on 9/11, found myself saying "Thank God for Rudy Giuliani" when I saw him on TV. In other words, thank God that somebody somewhere could at least *look like* he knew what the hell he was doing, even if he was just the mayor of a city that was several hundred miles away from me.

Giuliani's role on 9/11 was only significant because others who *should* have shown us leadership had failed us so utterly and completely.

with the two comments above: simply presenting a focus for people, and letting others do their job, is one aspect of leadership (there are many others, of course).

I don't have a lot of respect for Rudy's politics, and I think he'd make a horrible president.

But he did get up there, and he did lead. That's better than many others ever did.

That's what we're talking about, right?

1. Guiliani chose the site for the NYC "bunker," the 23rd floor of World Trade Center No. 7. NYPD and FDNY suggested a secret site in Brooklyn, which is where the bunker is now. Guiliani announced the bunker opening to great fanfare. Guiliani now blames one of his Asst Mayors for selecting the bunker site.

2. Guiliani insisted that a 7,000-gallon tank of fuel oil be stored in No. 7 in violation of NYC fire code. This fuel tank was punctured by debris from the falling WTC towers 1 and 2. The resulting fire caused the collapse of No. 7 in the late afternoon of September 11.

3. Instead of seeking shelter north of the WTC after the attack, Guiliani walked to the burning WTC. He and other city leaders were almost trapped by the falling towers and nearly killed, which would have left NYC leaderless during the critical hours after the attack.

4. Guiliani did not wear a dust mask as he walked through the toxic cloud after towers 1 and 2 collapsed. NYC did not require workers at the WTC recovery site to wear respirators even though the city and the EPA knew the dust was toxic with various cancer-causing chemicals and human remains.

5. Guiliani forced city workers, especially the Sanitation Department, to work OT cleaning up the toxic dust on lower Broadway so the financial markets could reopen on Monday, September 17.

6. Guiliani did nothing in his 7.5 years as mayor to fix the known problems with the NYPD and FDNY radios (they couldn't communicate with each other and they often didn't work inside buildings). NYPD personnel heard the order to get out of WTC No. 2 after No. 1 collapsed, but FDNY personnel did not. Nor did Guiliani attempt to fix the jurisdictional issues between the NYPD and FDNY, such as who is charge at a disaster site.

7. In his 7.5 years as mayor before September 11, Guiliani was a complete asshole:

- Anyone disagreeing with him was either crazy or stupid;

- He forced his very successful and effective police commissioner, William Bratton, to quit because he was jealous of Bratton's media attention;

- Campaign contributors got many favors;

- Anyone killed by the NYPD was asking for it;

- He cheated on his 2nd wife as flagrantly as possible, inviting photographers to accompany him and his mistress (now 3rd wife) as they strolled to dinner;

- He announced his intention to divorce his 2nd wife at a press conference without telling her first; and

- He dragged their divorce through the tabloids and courts before finally settling.

We have had 6+ years of a president who thinks he is always right because he is doing God's will. Do we really want 4 or 8 years with a president who simply thinks he is always right?

I had the same impression of Giuliani as many Americans back on 9/11 - a civic leader doing what we would want a civic leader to be doing during a crisis. As for what the man actually understands about "the terrorists" was made perfectly clear during his faux-indignant response to Ron Paul's unforgivable clear-headedness at the last debate: "they" attacked us because they're evil; no more thinking required. That alone disqualifies him from high office.

As to his "good" 9/11 qualities, I can't help but think of the 'Animal Mother' character in Full Metal Jacket, who Eightball describes as "one of the finest human beings you'd ever want to know," or something to that effect, "so long as he has someone to throw hand-grenades at him the rest of his life."