Centerfield

I'm not generally down with poring over the minutiae of every decision when it's being done primarily for the sake of finding the handful of questionable ones and highlighting them instead of the overall context. If he batted 97 for 100, talk about all 100 at bats, not just the 97 or just the three.

That said, with the benefit of hindsight, I 'm surprised anyone would bother defending Rudy's choice for the location of the command center. In retrospect, it was a pretty unfortunate call, and it is true that there was already reason to think it was a target.

I don't know what was behind the decision, so I find it difficult to be critical. Regardless, I think it is a leap to say that Giuliani isn't the manager he gets credit for being, which is clearly the point of the book. This is typical politics. Use one issue to tarnish the well deserved reputation of a public official... Clinton isn't fit to be President because he likes blow jobs from women who are not his wife, Reagan was a bad President becaue of Iran Contra, Rudy's heroics are a PR cover up to the fact that he was really not a good manager and a bad Mayor, etc. It's the attempt to take one issue, right or wrong, and frame an individual's entire career that I find absolutely disgusting. This is a decision, BTW, that Giuliani has admitted was a mistake.

I said this in an earlier post; Giuliani supported Cuomo, in part, because he recognized that Clinton's economic strategy and attention to New York was helping him clean up the streets. Wall Street was booming and people give credit sometimes to Rudy when it was Clinton’s success. There is no doubt that the quality of life increased (as did the rents) for those who could afford to live here. His record however, from start to 9/11 was average at best. Will someone tell me who he put in jail? He was not generally well liked, but faced little opposition from a weak Democrat field until Hillary showed up. I think she would have beaten Giuliani. He turned Times Square into a circus and did little to stop the flight of Middle Class families. He was blasted in the press over post WTC numero uno for security plans. His building departments couldn't build 14th Streetthe first two times to the tune of tens of millions and his favorite idea was to put Yankee Stadium in the city, second to dressing up as a woman for SNL or Vagina Dialogues while he forced porn into Middle Class neighborhoods and often took the side of police even in clear cases of brutality. He addressed the issues by sounding holier than thou, or like father knows best. That said, he was an improvement over Dinkins.

The mayor of the world's most important city did not have the capability to stop the second terrorist pilot because our coast guard and air defense were bogus. Even General Foods in Port Chester had stingers on their rooftop, but little for the WTC. Rudy visited Jerusalem and boasted great security teams. To say that crashing a plane was not deemed possible is wrong. I will not blame Giuliani however; my biggest gripe is with Pataki. Remember he was squeezing NYC because of Giuliani and the Liberal hordes. He simply couldn't get it up on 9/11. Spitzer had better secure nuke sites, ports and terminals. He had better protect the water and beef up the coast guard as it becomes more possible to fire clandestinely at us from the sea. While Rudy proved himself to be tough and on message, I do not know what a strategic visionary he is. Given the field, I am not ready to discard him yet.

Rudy made many mistakes after 9/11, but the mistakes in his personal life are even worse.

We don't need another Bill Clinton. Is it too much to ask to have an intelligent and faithful person in the White House? That last two haven't been.

The Republicans should be so lucky they field a Bill Clinton. Or perhaps they enjoy Bush poll numbers. Rudy refused to jump on the impeach Clinton band wagon. Compare that to Newt.

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