I long for President Obama not for Rudy. The author would have been better served with a profoundly better example of leadership!
13
The problem with the article is not the premise that there is a a need for calmness, honesty, and humbleness that Giuliani once seemed to embrace. Okay, I'll accept Giuliani was once effective and all of those things you propose, but presently, I feel extremely begrudged and even offended in being asked to acknowledge his past as a reasonable example of what we need now and in the future due to the damage Giuliani has done since 2016. So I guess the point of the title description being Rudy G was all of the above nearly 20 years ago: calm. honest, humble is accurate. 20 YEARS AGO!!! Okay, I'll give that but he is anything but that now and is no example past or present to illustrate or follow. Rudy has mutated into this Trump thing he has become! He is anything but calm, honest and humble from my perspective and I hope from the perspective of a majority of Americans. Under Trumps dark umbrella, Rudy now represents the complete opposite. What we get from him now is everything in the extreme: hype, dishonesty, subterfuge, ill will, and zero integrity to the point that the comparison offered, even as a rhetorical exercise, strikes one as tone deaf, offensive, absurd, and quite frankly obscene.
4
Your headline is just plain awful. Are you kidding?
4
I know the kind of leadership you are yearning for. I do too.
And I also heard the words Mayor Giuliani spoke on 9/11 and was profoundly comforted.
He had the look of someone who would guide us through a storm.
Please, though, at least consider the experiences of those who have worked closely with him throughout his career.
Rudy's leadership, such as it is, is a masterful and artful impression obscuring an almost bottomless well of terror, cruelty, and intimidation. He revels in the gratuitous ridicule of anyone who questions anything he says or does. He hurts people and then makes clear that anyone revealing this dark core will pay a serious price. He uses and seduces people who, when they're done coming through for him, he discards without an ounce of regret or concern.
Yet I too long for the competence and reassurance of America's mayor.
The problem is that he never really existed.
3
"What he didn’t do was frame anything politically, ever,"
Well, hardly ever. I don't know what you were watching, but when I was watching, Giuliani demanded that the upcoming mayoral election be cancelled so that he could remain in office.
6
Whatever flashes of leadership and humanity Giuliani took part in before doesn't apply to present day. "No one is above the law" has taken a mighty hit from both Giuliani and Trump.
33
At least wretched Rudy went to the funerals.
3
Just say no to drugs.
2
Jennifer, why idealize Giuliani at this point? I just don't understand it. Because total chaos didn't break out? Everyone pitched in to help get us through. He was not heroic. Leave him out of this.
4
Its time to stop this epidemic NOW!
And there's nothing Trump can do about it. Stop blaming him!
The problem is YOU, the opinion people at places like the NYTimes.
The epidemic is Trump Derangement Syndrome. It and its possible effects will kill more people from high blood pressure than Coronovirus will.
1
BTW...the NYT should check out how Boris Johnson is dealing with the virus. Yes, Boris, the one you call the Twin Trump buffoon. Actually, so should Trump.
Funny...the media has simply not been able to get a critical hand on him. Go Boris!
It's not that Giuliani was so wonderful--are honesty, humility and community all that rare? The world is full of Giulianis. It's that Trump is so appallingly awful.
2
Yes, 911 was Giuliani's moment, and in that, he acquitted himself relatively well and with reassuring calm. But that was a very long time ago, and he has squandered whatever resulting reputation he had in favor of becoming a petty, spiteful, destructive personality and histrionic Trump alter-ego.
If life is a series of snapshots, the image of Rudy these days is the picture of a man who has become a shell of his former self, and he has no one to blame but himself.
6
South Korea and China have been producing and deploying millions COVID-19 tests. In the USA tests cost over $3000 if you are lucky enough to have the money (and/or great insurance) and you can find one. Why?
3
Nope the guy whose ego wouldn’t allow him to build a Emergency Response Center in one is the boroughs does not get my vote for anything.
3
With regards to Pence's handling the coronavirus:
Trump says it will disappear in the Spring. Huh? Pray for warmer weather, is how he's going to handle it? Thailand and Malaysia have plenty of warm weather, but they have 43 and 38 KNOWN cases respectively. Australia, with it's small, widely dispersed population has 39 cases - and it's summer down there. We assume it will act like the flu, but many a health professional have lost their shirts betting that this or that new disease will act a certain way.
Thank God Trump is stepping aside and letting Pence run this. (And I know he has baggage as well. His HIV response in Indiana was horrible. But at least he learned.) It's a sign of the times that most American would rather have the VP take over a critical area and have the President go to rallies, tweet and play golf.
And there is another benefit to Pence being in charge - if Trump wins reelection, the next impeachment (and there will be another impeachment), Republicans might say 'Why do we need all this drama? Pence handled the coronavirus pretty well. Why don't we just have him as president?'
I think it has been pretty well documented in the years since 9-11 just what a botched job Rudy made of the whole response. Far more people died than needed to and the information was all wrong.
People were just too afraid to speak up in those days. Any criticism was seen as a an act of treason. You were "either with us or with the enemy."
Those who forget the past...
What exactly has Trumped botched? The flu-like symptom monitoring system hasn't picked up anything out of the ordinary yet. A coronavirus epidemic hasn't hit us. If it does it will show up in the flu-like symptom monitoring system first. That the US (and Canada and Mexico) is lagging Europe and Asia in cases reported has a lot to do with the president restricting travel from China ... and the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Widespread testing of the population for coraonavirus would not pick up much if anything at this stage.
Premature accusations like this only reinforce the allegations by some that some media outlets are politically biased.
2
I have one disagreement with this article. The author states: ' Trump seldom turns his thoughts to the weak.'.
I submit that he's usually thinking of ways to fleece the weak.
3
I do not trust the Government.
1
So just how did (that's President to you, Jennifer) botch the Coronavirus crisis? He assembled a team of experts in January, collected the best information he could get, and spoke calmly (you claim he didn't) and truthfully about what we know thus far. The politicizing has been done by Democrats and your own paper and the WaPo, and Pres Trump called them out on it. You claim he doesn't do facts...he gave the facts as best they are known.
He had a rapid response to the situation, by blocking entry into the US from several countries, and putting at risk individuals in quarantine.
So tell us, Jennifer, wht else you expect, or would have expected, the President to do.
And it is not at all surprising, yes, expected, that you are infected with Trump Derangement Syndrome.
1
So you would feel more reassured if Trump located his emergency response center in Mar-a-Lago?
This is empty. Trump is only capable of leading for himself, Pence is a dunce and a dupe and the implied yearning for someone better at calming the population like Guilliani is, well, Guilliani?
Surely there is a better choice than him. 9/11 was a colossal disaster but not the only one. There is a big world outside of NYC.
3
WAS is the key word.
Your points are fine and respectable...but your headline was reckless. You lost a lot of people with that.
Giuliani is a nightmare.
An unmitigated nightmare.
2
Rudy, calm, honest and humble after 9/11??
Sure, for the whole two months he was in office until Bloomberg took over.
It was Mayor Mike who brought NYC out of the 9/11 disaster, not Rudy. I don't long for Rudy at all. I don't long for Mike, either, really. But certainly not for Rudy.
42
Without data one can wildly speculate causes and effects of nearly anything. eg. in Kentucky we have subsidized with many millions of dollars the building of an Ark. They got original blueprints on Amazon. But this Corona virus is something else. Why people vote against their own interests is a puzzle but Trump's anti Obama care position would seem to penalize many if not most of his supporters. But what if many if not most of his supporters had little or no insurance to begin with? Maybe it's like many other entitlements.If you're not the person getting the entitlement , even if you have no need, your are sore,dare I say jealous?of the one who is.
People hate on Trump but have zero viable solutions to offer. This attack Trump for any and everything is tired. Can we at least unite as Americans to thwart off fear-mongering and panic about an issue that is so far out of our control. Every country hit with this is being challenged. Not one of them has a solution. We are faring much better than most. Get of your high horse and foster calmness in the face of adversity.
1
Yeah no way. I was around after 9/11 and Giuliani was nowhere near calm, honest, or humble. He tried to eliminate the next election to stay mayor for an illegal (at the time) third term, because he claimed he alone could rebuild our city. Not that most of it needed rebuilding. That alone proves he wasn't honest or humble. He never apologized for putting the office of emergency management in the WTC against all advice and common sense. He never apologized for failing to fix known problems with emergency responder radios, that undoubtedly killed a lot of people on 9/11.
Giuliani was awful, and I'm thankful we don't have him in charge now, because he's only gotten far worse. I wouldn't expect thirty-something year olds to know this, because they were just kids on 9/11, but I try to inform them about the truth, which egomaniacal Giuliani would never do.
1
Too bad Ms. Senior only knows Giuliani from his own PR material. Read a biography of Giuliani during his terms as Mayor and shortly thereafter and you'll learn the truth. Try: Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11. A lot of us paid attention to the facts during his tenure.
1
Too bad Giuliani's positive traits appeared for only a few months, after which he shamelessly milked them for self-enrichment.
1
It's odd, really. Just about the only thing Trump should have a bit of empathy for is the fear of a germ. Yet, fear or even caution does not enter into anything he has said about this outbreak. (Forget expecting concern for the vulnerable; we know what he feels about the vulnerable.)
He has coordinated nothing he's said with what anyone else in his orbit is saying about the course of this virus; his comments directly contradict most of what his qualified experts have said. But we already know Trump hates the qualified...they show him up simply by opening their mouths.
No, he really should get this particular crisis; all indications are it's this germaphobe's worst nightmare. My guess is, as long as he feels he himself is personally protected from Covid-19, his empathy is thereby exhausted because it does not extend any further.
If that's true, we're stuck with a president whose nature simply doesn't have better angels.
1
Giuliani is a shell of himself. This is what happens when Trump infects you. You lose all judgment and perspective while mesmerized by his Tweets. Then when Trump orders your loyalty, you lose all sense of reality and ethics.
3
Gosh, I thought we were way past this. Giuliani has always been an absolutely shameless crank, as chronicled in the NYT magazines long form piece on him from...checks notes... JANUARY. As has been proven many times over in the two decades since, the media's willingness to portray him as a gauzy hero when we were traumatized and in desperate need of one was.... probably a big giant mistake, given his past 2 decades of cashing in and disgracing himself repeatedly.
Too look wistfully back at those days of the media messing it up badly by underestimating bad people is...not good! Those misjudgments in 2016 are how we ended up with this tragic dangerous disaster if an Adminstration and shills like Pence and Giuliani who are the antithesis of everything they should stand for
1
Rudy has since proven him a pandering crook, above the law, despising the Constitution. Today it looks like his 9/11 performance was simply good theater.
2
Botches the crisis? What nonsense. It's barely two months since anyone knew there was a new virus. The WHO was informed of a cluster of pneumonia cases of unknown cause on 31 Dec, 2019. As of 22 Jan, 2020, there were still zero confirmed cases.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
The same day, the administration declared a public health emergency.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVYXBGARSSo
During the H1N1 Swine Flu event in 2009, President Obama did not declare a health emergency until 6 months had passed, there had been 20,000 cases and over 1,000 people had died.
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/us/politics/25flu.html
I have long trusted (and continue to trust) in the professional competence of the CDC and its long history of excellent risk communication with the general public. However, the muzzling of our outstanding public health servants, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci who has led NIAID for nearly 40 years, is disheartening. Pence has no credibility to stand in front of these people. It’s like handing the helm of an aircraft carrier over to Trump because he’s the Commander in Chief!
The WHO Director General (Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus) gives a comprehensive daily briefing on Covid-19. Dr. Tedros is a renowned public health professional. The WHO site, like the CDC site, is very informative and should be one important source of reliable information . For the Director General’s daily briefings go to https://www.who.int/dg/speeches.
Sad to say, at times such as these folks should bypass our elected officials and go directly to the reliable sources - CDC and WHO.
1
You botched this op-ed. I Remember Giuliani as the one who assured workers in lower Manhattan after the 9/11 attack that the air was safe to breathe. (Did he ever mention it would be advisable to use a breathing mask/filter?) Yet I also remember him as the "law and order" candidate who led a mob of police officers over the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan just prior to the 1992 election. To me, he places more value on being a political operative than facts. If he never sets foot in NYC again that would be wonderful.
5
9/11 was two decades ago. Aging can change the brain. Not unlike Trump, Giuliani has behaved erratically, illogically, and weirdly in the last few years.
3
Any attempt to glorify Giuliani for his “better late than never” leadership on 9/11 is nothing more than propaganda. My wife was one of thousands of Wall Street workers that was left to find their own way out of the 9/11 nightmare. Her employer initially locked down their buildings and advised their employees to remain indoors. Within about one hour, employees were free to go home. All phone and data communications was nonexistent. After walking frantically in a mushroom cloud of dust and debris to the subway, my wife and hundreds of others found the subways were shutdown. Without any guidance from anyone of authority, my wife then set off on a multi-mile walk to Brooklyn. The swelling line of workers trying their best to remain calm and continuing their march to Brooklyn and safety is an untold 9/11 story. Many women kicked their high heeled shoes to the curb. Faces covered in ash and dust were reminiscent of wartime photographs. Fortunately, Brooklyn train service was operating, and that part of their ordeal was over.
Where was Mayor Giuliani, President Bush, and VP Cheney for these initial 3-5 hours of terror? During these critical hours, they were not seen or heard by anyone fleeing for their lives. In my opinion, their conduct was and is a national disgrace.
4
Trump never seems to be ready for a crisis or emergency. If the taliban decided to attack America, he would be woefully unprepared and would blame the dems for creating a political hoax.
5
the tragedy is that Mr. Giuliani is no longer with us. We lose twice when we loose things like that.
1
That was then, this is now.
Giuliani has morphed into something unrecognizable as compared to his heady days of 9/11. His hunger for money and ego-embellishment are now what drives him.
3
Unfortunately, the Giuliani who responded to the 9/11 tragedy so well no longer exists. He's best friends with Trump these days.
2
Argh . . .
Pence will not provide daily briefings. He will be praying for us though.
I'm an atheist, but I wish there were a God so she could give Trump, Pence et al the inglorious end they have so richly earned.
5
Thank you for reminding us that Trump would be like Giuliani in a 9/11 crisis - a great team to burnish his tarnished image and then, in the name of necessity cancel elections. Rudy failed at his attempt, I fear tRump may not.
1
I did not vote for Trump, but he actually seems to be doing a pretty good job with this crisis.
4
@John Jabo, Because spouting fake facts is the answer to all real problems, or what is it that you believe Trump is doing that is "a good job."?
3
I remember that day, being scared, wondering what would happen next. And I've never forgotten Giuliani. Whatever you thought about him, before or after, he was solid on that day, and seemed, in his response to the chaos, to be all we had.
5
I am deeply grateful to the NY Times coverage of Covid-19. Without its illuminating articles covering all aspects of the coronavirus, from an epidemiology explanation of the covid-19 to up to date news about the spread of the virus throughout the globe, I and many of its interested readers would not have become better informed about the pandemic virus.
9
"The kids? Staying in school." - This included the schoolchildren at Stuyvesant High School and the students at BMCC, all of whom were exposed to asbestos and other toxic chemicals because the government prioritized maintaining normalcy over their health and safety in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.
6
@jaclyn Christy Todd Whitman falsely assured everyone the air and water were ok. She did not apologize for 15 years. A lot of people are today paying for her lies with their very lives.
1
This is one of the best pieces I've ever read on the NYT. Spot on and wonderfully written. Thank you.
7
It’s becoming obvious that the Feds dropped the ball early on this thing. One of the people that died in Seattle went to the hospital on February 24th! The government had no clue anyone was even infected but people were already dying! There has been so little testing done no one really has any idea at all about where this virus has spread to. Trump was only concerned about the stock market and how that might affect his re-election. That will be Pence’s primary responsibility,spin the pandemic so it doesn’t cost them votes, the well being of the citizenry will be an afterthought.
12
What would I do if I or a family member had symptoms of COVID-19 ?
If the family member is elderly and/ or have pre existing health conditions, I'd talk to their doctor and have them admitted to a major medical center (not a community hospital)......
Otherwise, I'd self-isolate unless there developed a breathing problem, then I'd get to the same major medical center!
(from a retired RN)
6
I lived in the first cordon and, as an artist cognizant about health hazards, pulled out my OSHA approved masks to distribute to my friends and neighbors as the particulate matter snowed down upon us. We all knew the type of asbestos spray on construction of the 1960s, and as someone who works with fire, it was not genius to understand the dire effects of all those plastics volatilizing in "the pile," polluting our homes for months. Remember that there was ample research proving that our government downplayed the health hazards to an insulting degree because they wanted the stock market reopened. Look it up.
Guiliani was pretty much despised by 9/11, and the only reason he looked so good is because all other leadership in America had vanished. He briefly filled a void and thank you for that moment. Meanwhile, Kerek, standing next to him, was about to have his own field day in later well documented shenanigans.
Guiliani was later the only politician to politicize the 9/11 rescue efforts. New Yorkers were disgusted with him, and he deservedly lost that very brief moment of good will in his voracious quest for power.
11
If we're lucky this will be just a stress test of US health systems, instead of a perfect storm.
Our coverage, care, and public health systems have been just one epidemic away from a disaster for years. Patchwork coverage systems mean everything from reluctance to seek medical care to provider shortages.
Add the GOP's decade-long battle against the Affordable Care Act, nationally and on a state level where Republican governors rejected Medicaid expansion.
Toss in this administration's short-sighted approach to the pandemic team dismantled in 2018.
We wouldn''t have been ready for this, even without this president's ego-driven approach to appointing epidemic leadership, mistrust of experts, and self-assumed omniscience.
3
With all due respect, in regards to his press conferences, Giuliani did what anyone with any experience in politics should have been able to do... if he’d have just walked off into the sunset after that, maybe he could have held on to some semblance of dignity... but no, he Giulianied it up by going back to his old crazy ways.
Just because Giuliani had a moment of apparent sanity doesn’t mean he was ever very sane... he is cut from the same cloth as trump and it’s no wonder he has become one of his henchmen.
That anyone might long for Giuliani, is a sign of just how far trump has dragged down this nation’s expectations and standards.
Just because trump is so ridiculously inept at everything he does, suddenly makes anyone else’s average response seem stellar.
I suggest the author go back and watch Giuliani’s 9/11 press conferences and objectively define what was so special about his performance...
He was calm.
Ok.
Should he have been spewing threats at the terrorists, vowing revenge, making up outrageous lies, making impossible promises, bragging that he’s the best mayor ever in history and making the attack on NYC all about himself?
Because that’s obviously what trump would have done...
All Giuliani did was act as he should have for once.
trump’s asinine buffoonery makes anyone seem sane and competent.
6
Giuliani is an evil man who used his position in the Southern District as an advance to campaign for mayor. In the process, with trumped up charges, he contributed to the demise of Hortense Gabel, a respected judge and feminist.
2
All I can say is if people think Trump is a leader, the bar has really been lowered
8
Giuliani? NEVER!
6
I had occasion to be an expert witness in Federal court on behalf of the bank I worked for when Giuliani was mayor. The DA under Morgenthau liked me and we talked about stuff, including the Mayor. He and his colleagues hated him for grandstanding when nothing was accomplished and for appropriating the work of others to himself when something went right, and that he all about himself, not the public and certainly not his colleagues. The top guys in the dept could all have gotten lucrative jobs elsewhere but stayed on principle. Hizzoners drive and talent were limited to self promotion, not the combo of that and good works most politicians try to achieve. Not my judgement, theirs.
8
Yes, NYT is getting millenified.
1
I could be way off base, but it appears to me that several op-ed pieces, dropped online tonight, not from the NYT op-ed top ranks (Krugman to O'Dowd, Collins and Stephens, Bruni and Friedman, et al and bless them), but from the generation that will manage what we've left them. It gives me hope. I want to hear more from them, please.
2
Senator Schumer accused Trump of racism for closing flights from China in January.
Now liberals claim Trump did not do enough to fight the Coronavirus. Well, you can’t have it both ways.
And what exactly did Obama do in 2009 during the swine flu epidemic? Nothing.
Obama only declared the swine flue epidemic an emergency after millions had already been infected.
6
The problem with Giuliani is that he has become infected with the same brain rot that affects in everyone in the GOP from Trump on down.
Everything is now partisan, and the only question on any issue is how does it affect Trump? What does he want? What serves his interests?
8
Keep asking Pence if he'll visit Disney World.
Keep asking Trump if he'll meet supporters at rallies -- heck, if he'll go to rallies at all.
And ask them both if they'll meet with the press and Congressional leaders during this epidemic -- without testing everyone in the room.
These guys can't lead because they're afraid, and they care about no one but themselves.
Bone spurs, anyone?
9
Rudy was not much liked
on 9/11.
Truth Is Not The Truth.
6
Yes and it was Rudy who:
Put the communications center for disasters in the basement of the WTC.
Wanted to postpone the Mayoral election because he was the only person capable of handling the crisis/
Now he is just Loony Tunes.
If Pinocchio the President doesn't pardon him he will go to prison after 1/20/2021.
7
@adara614 he only asked to extend his term for a few months due to a cataclysmic event.
Bloomberg thought he was so indispensable that he bought the right to run for an extra term and then bought the votes to win.
He gets a free pass for everything.
And I long for the migraines I had as a kid. Have a rest and I’ll grab the salts... If longing for Giuliani is the answer I cannot possibly imagine the question.
10
He was certainly very competent at monetizing his 9/11 celebrity.
8
Ms Senior, thank you for capturing and elucidating some of my many scattered thoughts on our collective status in the face of a pandemic. You gave words and voice to my confusion as well as my concerns. Let’s hope for the best and support one another through this experience to see that hope realized.
6
Exactly. Details are evidence of caring. For instance: If you were asked to self-isolate for two weeks, presumably you would need a number of filter masks to protect others in your household. Where would those come from if you had not bought them as the surgeon-general yelled at everyone? Would the authorities give them to you? Why do they not have enough masks to deal with a pandemic anyway? It’s surely not our fault. This is one thing that causes me to feel fear, caused by lack of confidence in the “experts” who’ve had years to prepare for this situation. :o(
3
I miss our Last President. He would have been up and about, sleeves rolled up, having exchanges with our allies and burning the candle past midnight.
Thanking the New York Times for forwarding a daily update bulletin on this virus, which in turn is being sent to a fine Public Health Expert:
- Keep washing your hands and do not touch your face;
- Limit travel plans, and cancel if necessary;
- China is recommending its populace to take a stronger dosage of vitamin C.
Here is the Coronavirus Hotline set up by our Government:
1-833-784-4397, and help one another to pull through. Americans are far more resilient in adverse times when a dark cloud descends on our Nation.
8
when one considers the Giuliani of today
versus the Guiliani of September 11,2001,
one can only think of the words of Hamlet
comparing his father to his murderous
uncle:"what a falling off there was here..."
8
Joe Biden delivered the best line ever about Giuliani:
"Rudy Giuliani. There’s only three things he mentions in a sentence — a noun, a verb, and 9/11. There’s nothing else!"
8
Bloomberg did an excellent job rebuilding the city, all while new on the job. Since leaving public office he hasn't been in Ukraine ;)
5
I read this column late in the day, and couldn't read the almost 500 comments. But I wanted my say, and apologize for my probable repetition of things others have said.
I initially admired Giuliani's leadership on 9/11, when we were all in shock, and frightened. But by the time he had been declared "America's Mayor" by a giddy press, it was clear we had been premature.
Someone -- possibly Al Sharpton -- pointed out that it was the situation, not the man himself, that had turned Giuliani into a hero. I agree. He had the microphone, the camera, the attention. He did a very good job at using those tools and helping the city in a time of crisis. But probably anyone else in that office, with those tools, would have done a good job too.
And it was just a few days, at most maybe a week, before Giuliani reverted to type. Some of the things he did were good, some not so good. But all were, first and most importantly, photo ops. And on it went, on and on and on. He became again the mayor who had served us so badly, except now he had a glowing hero-reputation gained almost wholly through his usual opportunism and his cynical misuse of a citywide, and national tragedy.
I am not, will not, cannot, disparage the fine work Giuliani did in those first few days. But I don't concede that it was in any way exceptional when compared with what I believe others in his position would have done. And I cannot in any way forgive his use of this tragedy to serve his own political ends.
15
I used to believe Rudy Guiliani was an amazing man after seeing how he handled 9/11: He did an absolutely incredible job of pulling this country together and making quick, meaningful decisions. Unfortunately, something very unexplainable happened to him and he is now corrupt to the core. I guess he learned a lot after prosecuting criminals for a good portion of his life-- he learned how to game the system.
9
Everything that ever went wrong or will go wrong is the fault of the Democrats. Everything that I ever did or touched is the most amazing thing that ever was created. Except if it is possibly the worst pandemic in decades. Makes me recall that line from the Captain as the Titanic's dire situation was finally summarized by the lead engineer -"Well, I believe you may get your headlines, Mr. Ismay."
2
Unfortunately for Jennifer Senior, the first photo accompanying her opinion piece includes Bernard Kerik.
At the time the photo was taken, Kerik was using an apartment near ground zero — intended for weary 9/11 rescue workers — to conduct an extramarital affair with Judith Regan, the publisher of his memoirs.
(Regan later said she hired a bodyguard after she ended the affair and Kerik continued pursuing her.)
5
Solid column. But you forgot to mention things that have "already claimed lives and will claim more" that Trump and the GOP couldn't care less about.
Climate change and the resultant increase in more severe droughts, floods, and heat waves, etc. It's anecdotal, but when's the last time twenty people died from tornados in a single day? (It ain't even tornado season really, folks.)
Declining standards for air and water quality. The former particularly impacts those with already compromised cardiopulmonary function (much like the Covid-19 virus). Cause of death might be listed as a heart attack or respiratory failure, but the trigger was deteriorating air quality like we saw near the San Francisco region and elsewhere following recent wildfires (another climate crisis thing!).
Lack of adequate, or any, health care coverage. In addition to the thousands of premature deaths from folks who are scared to visit a doctor for a regular checkup because of deductibles or copays, just wait and see how this plays out with Covid-19. It probably already has, not to mention our policies concerning sick leave.
Defunding basic research for the CDC and NIH, who look for better treatments for cancer, dementia, diseases both common and rare. They're also on the frontline responding to possible pandemics and epidemics, again Covid-19. Not to mention inspections for the safety of our food and water.
I could go on and on, but hey the stable genius, the stock market, and the word limit.
5
As there are no more honest men(and women) in gray suits to save us...all we can do is thank God that at least we still have a free press and then thoroughly wash our hands. Like the famous line in Moonstruck, "Snap out of it!",
2
Giuliani was remembered on 9/11 only for his statement that the total number of casualties would be “more than we can bear”. It was Giuliani who put NYC’s emergency operations center in the WTC despite the 1993 bombing. He loves the camera; he was not a good manager or leader.
9
It is the unjustified paranoid, panicking selling on stock market by profit taking investors, hysterical press and frenzied media that has so terribly botched the message. After 911, the shocked nation was united as 3,000 residents of NY, USA died instantly. Corona virus has killed about the same number over a 2 month period so far, half away across the world in China. Comparing 911 attack by radical Islamic terrorists with current nano sized Corona virus (CoV) panic pandemic is absurd and totally biased against the president by an opinion columnist looking to find desperately an excuse to make our president whose admin. is doing the very best to deal with the uncertainty of this Corona Challenge look incompetent. Sure there are millions with a pandemic of Trump derangement syndrome who will find a reason to blame the president.
As a Virologist with an interest in public health, I don't think any president could have done or said anything too differently than Trump has. Accurate testing for diagnosis of CoV infection leaves a lot to be desired, but as far as a vaccine not becoming deployable, it is understandable that we may not have one for at least a year as clearly stated by Dr. Fauci, Director of the Nat. Inst. of Allergy and Infect. Dis. (NIAID). Dr. Fauci has led a multi-billion $ effort to UNSUCCESSFULLY develop a Human Imm. Def. (HIV) vaccine for 30 years and clearly an expert in proposing an estimate of the time required for any vaccine to become deployable.
3
Unlike Mr. Trump, who knew what was coming, Mayor Rudy was caught off guard but did his best to give truth and restore hope.
I was there in 9/11. I did not vote for him, but Mr. Giuliani won my respect.
Trump is a narcissist and con man and never will.
4
There might have been a very slim chance that I would be willing to reconsider my completely negative view of Giuliani had he not proven well before 911 that he was a venal, self-centered leader. It was he who dismissed the advice of NYPD emergency management experts that the disaster command center be located in an underground bunker in midtown. Instead, he had it placed in an upper floor of Seven WTC with an apartment reserved for himself from which he would have a nice view of the skyline and river during his afternoon trysts with his mistress. Seven WTC was unusable on 9/11 because it, along with Towers One and Two collapsed within hours of the attack.
4
Perhaps Ms. Senior could've spared herself some of the negative responses by noting that the credible Rudy Giuliani of 9/11 seems to have been taken over by body snatchers and replaced by a grotesquely venal, deceitful pod.
And I hope it hasn't escaped notice that in the accompanying photo, the man at the podium is his disgraced commissioner, Bernard Kerik, whom Trump pardoned.
Those were the days.
Nonetheless, if we can resist the impulse to deny Giuliani any redeeming qualities in his past, we can acknowledge that the author's point is well taken. Giuliani's public messaging in the aftermath of 9/11 was as competently and appropriately handled as Trump's has been a model of incompetence.
In an almost poignant display of stupidity, Trump doesn't realize that his continued lying in an effort to shore up the stock market is actually driving stocks down. And either there isn't anyone around him with the intelligence to realize it, or they're all so terrified of telling him he's wrong that he's isolated in a self-constructed tower of his own ignorance.
5
@GFE
Giuliani's public messaging in the aftermath of 9/11 included repeated and emphatic assurances the area was safe for workers and first responders, and a refusal to provide protective gear.
This in turn lead to many painful and unnecessary deaths for which the ex-Mayor's party haughtily refused to provide care or compensation, all the while lavishing praise upon themselves as the party of heroes who gave everything to save victims and restore the city.
It was up to that obnoxious liberal freak Jon Stewart to shame conservatives into providing some too-late semblance of care
Rudy looked like he may have been having his shining moment because that's what he wanted us to see.
Like today, it was all lies. All of it. From the start.
1
Pence is incompetent and worthless. That's why trump picked him for veep. Who would eliminate someone for anyone even worse, if even possible, by several orders of magnitude?
4
I disdained Rudy then. And now ... well, I liked him better then.
The writer is correct, to some extent. He showed some competence and compassion, and other leadership qualities.
It’s too bad that his current client doesn’t even understand those qualities to begin with, much less show them.
1
Judas was a faithful follower of Jesus until he wasn't. This article is pretty ridiculous.
4
Ms. Senior, you're entitled to your opinion under the opinion pages; however, I expect more from the editorial staff than such yellow opinion pieces absent basic facts about a leader who messed up regularly and is celebrated for not crumbling like the Twin Towers.
My standards are much higher. For example, after the first Truck Bomb didn't work and all knew the Twin Towers would be a target, your fav mayor decided to put the emergency response team in the Twin Towers.
Your fav mayor also instituted more abject racism than Bloomberg.
3
Sorry Jennifer...I can't buy into your partisan radical politicizing of a health issue. Trump could mix three things and create a cure...and still it wouldn't be enough for the radical left. No credibility...what were you all doing back in January...oh, that's right...the impeachment hoax. Thank God we have adults in charge.
2
@Tom
Tom-Would you please take charge of the Op-ed Dept. of the NY Times? Many Thanks......
2
Humble? He proposed postponing the 2001 mayoral election indefinitely, so that he could mayor for life. Not humble - fascist instead.
5
The photo of Giuliani and Kerik standing together should be captioned "To be Pardoned and Pardoned. "
3
Rudy: Noun, Verb, 9-11.
Trump: Clinton, Obama, Blame.
NOVEMBER.
4
NYT are you for real? The summer before the towers went down Rudi was running around like a lunatic trying to defund the Brooklyn Museum, he never put the money into having communication systems of the police and fire departments talk to each other. That’s why so many people were stuck in the buildings and perished He was told by highly paid consultants what should be housed in the towers Rudi like Trump didn’t listen.
People died because of Rudi, people were jumping off the roof of the towers because they couldn’t be rescued. He had so many opportunities to be normal and he didn’t do so then that crook Bernard Kirk who had a love nest in NJ recently pardoned by trump, pretending that he was something he wasn’t till he was exposed
So please, we New Yorkers know what a selfish bigot Rudi is , he had media leadership but like Bloomberg he talked a good game but he never cared for the city he was suppose to protect
He and Trump are two sides of a busted coin they open their mouths and nothing but lies. You can’t lie to people in ny who lived the experience
I listen to the original doctors of the cdc not corrupt politicians. Trump is not even qualified for a high school president so I am not going to risk my family to their lies.
5
I feel this is simply...ridiculous. Giuliani was a showboat then, and he's worse now. His senility combined with his toadyism to Trump added to his sickening narcissism makes him a laughingstock, second only to...well, we all know who.
5
No need for daily briefings. Pastor Pence and his team are doing what counts: praying. https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/02/29/heres-a-picture-of-mike-pences-team-attempting-to-pray-away-coronavirus/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Imagine+No+Religion&utm_content=44
5
Wondering if Giuliani would solve the COVID situation the same way he did homelessness. Give the virus a one-way bus ticket out of town.
4
That was then.
This is now.
Your mindset is so off base it makes no sense.
Giuliani is now one of Trump's henchmen and he surrendered to the Dark Side.
What is wrong with you? Are you in a time warp?
4
The author might long for him, but I sure don't.
6
Not even in my wildest dreams do I long for him. Bite your tongue!
3
The Giuliani you speak of no longer exists.
2
Yea. Let’s blame trump for the coronavirus. Brilliant. Every country is getting infected. But how dare trump not DO SOMETHING!!!! AAAARGH!!!!
1
Trump is going to get us all killed. he doesn't have the slightest idea what to do about the plague he helped to start,and keep running. The idiots in the Congress are so afraid of their shadow that they couldn't even impeach him when they had a change.
2
Ah youth...so gullible...
Trump hasn't botched anything. This is an absurd column.
3
@Adam
Please Adam, President Trump has yet to name even one Post Office.......
1
You mean the 9/11 Giuliani, not the demented, loose cannon Giuliani of today. No way ....
1
This opinion is nonsense, it's like saying I'll rather have an endoscopy than a colonoscopy!
5
Circa 2001 Giuliani was using his head. Today he is not well mentally.
1
@Yo
For what?
1
Giuliani of 2001 is not the Giuliani of 2020. The Giuliani of 2001 might have been able to provide the leadership necessary calm and reassure Americans of 2020 regarding the coronavirus.
However, the Giuliani of 2001 no longer exists.
The Giuliani of 2020 is a bumbling, lying moron who should not be trusted with sharp objects.
1
I have said this so many times since 911, that I tire of it. Being the President of the United States or the mayor of New York City after 911 was rather easy. You had absolute unity, and the willingness of the American people to do just about anything. The problem we now have is that we have a president who actually enjoys criticizing things to the point where he can’t possibly say anything optimistic that would be received by any sizable group of people.
4
@K. Corbin
Day in day out packing and overflowing every rally venue that the President books, screams nothing less that total support from the People. Your own words contradict themselves. Donald Trump is forced to work with unrelenting opposition, and in spite of the daily insults and whining, he has gotten more accomplished than the last 3 or 4 Administrations combined.I look forward to any comments. Try putting all the Democrats in office, in one room together, and see if they can open an umbrella.....
@MB Do you remember during Obama's administration the Republicans got together and said they would not allow Obama any accomplishments at all? That was not democracy. That was anarchy.
3
@MB Good one.
Hard to not notice our author does not wish for Obama and Biden. During the N1H1 crisis, they waited six months to do ANYTHING, after tens of thousands were infected and a thousand had died...
2
False. See Snopes. Obama declared a public health emergency after just 20 confirmed cases.
6
@skyfiber: Um, no, you are wrong about President Obama’s responses to H1N1. The PJ Media “fact check,” later spun up by Hannity, is misinformation at best. Please look at the many reputable domestic and international news sources that provide timelines of declarations of a “public health emergency” and a “national emergency.” Obama declared the former in April of 2009, one day after the WHO declared H1N1 a public health emergency of international concern.
4
That Giuliani you long for has been infected with the Trump virus. The type of virus for which there is no vaccine and the ignorant seem to be the most vulnerable.
6
You mean, you long for 2001-Giuliani. Sadly, that man only bears a passing resemblance to 2020-Giuliani.
2
Poor Rudy... Some weird, lingering case of rabies. Just runs around biting himself and other people. He'll never be the same... Which, come to think of it, isn't all bad. I mean, so he managed to be right twice a day like a broken clock, but, the rest of the time... Meh... Not so much. Not really. Shoulda quit public life while he was way ahead. But, that's rabies for ya.
3
The first thing Giuliani did after the 9/11/01 attack was to work behind the scenes to call off the mayoral election so he could remain in power. That's the kind of person you want in a pinch? Good luck with that.
Many thanks to Oprah for hanging that "America's Mayor" tag on the man. What kind of New Yorker falls for that tripe?
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
7
If you’ve EVER seen Giuliani as anything even approaching “reassuring“ that says a lot more about you than it does him.
5
I long for Rudy to be in prison. Someone like Ron Klain (headed up the Ebola response) would be my pick. Build on what we know already.
4
What's the issue?
Kudlow noted everything is fine...
OMG - is it possible he's using again!? Free basing?
5
Pretty much anyone could have done what Rudy did. Probably no one would insist that the first responder’s communication center be installed in the WTC after it was already attack once and before the Empire State Building the most obvious choice for a terrorist attack.
By the way, his now pardoned commissioner used a hotel room reserved for first responders to take a break to get it on with one of his girlfriends. How romantic, sex with a background of wreckage and the remains of thousands of people.
2
Perhaps the virus can be given a one-way bus ticket out of town. After all, that's the way NY's homeless crisis was solved.
2
The Giuliani you remember no longer exists. He's a corrupt, dishonest bully that should be removed from all public life!
3
Rudy is clearly not the same person he was during 9/11. He’s a greedy, attention seeking, lunatic. Just having him around the White House is a scary proposition.
2
You really think giuliani 2001 is the same giuliani 2020? Like trump, the guy’s a lunatic. Forget about America’s Mayor, remember Ukraine.
1
Apparently NYT did not bother to research what Giuliani did pre 9-11.
Every decision he made to be prepared for such an attack was a joke. In fact even today NYC has no plan for a mass immediate evacuation.
2
The guy used 9/11 to make Millions. Another loser politician who took advanatage of those who thought he knew something about preventing terrorism?
1
Rudy's performance during and after 9/11 was indeed impressive, as had been his tenure as 'Cop of Wall Street'. Otherwise he has been a generally despicable person. So longing for him is kind of like longing for diarrhea instead of Trumpian coronavirus.
4
do you really believe Rudy would be the same as he was 18.5 years ago?? humble?? honest????????
1
Opinion columnist, indeed. Also a revisionist.
2
No one longs for Giuliani.
2
Hey Jennifer Senior..... There are a few people (yes even here on the NYT) that do not think Trump has botched the Coronavirus. In fact this is one of Trumps better accomplishments. Virus' do not know identity politics and does not care who you are. Trump reacted quickly...very quickly as compared to Obama's handling of a similar scare. The reactions of Trump may have just saved thousands from getting sick. What others are sick of is the weaponizing of everything while Trump is in office to smear him. Unfortunately we are in election time so lets further divide and scare our nation :(
1
Untrue. See Snopes. Trump has bungled this, plain and simple.
8
Wouldn’t it be nice Is this was remotely true.
4
'Giuliani is a small man in search of a balcony.'
- Jimmy Breslin
5
The old Giuliani or the new Giuliani?
1
People like calm leaders in the same way they like calm parents. It's comforting. But it's insufficient. A series of recent op-eds on coronavirus from senior editorial staff at NYT have really made me rethink the quality of the op-ed journalism. Maybe David Brooks needs a new and better platform -- he's the only sane one left.
1
What you call instinct are his Long Island connections. Queens is part of Long Island, and so is Brooklyn, but not Manhattan.
What I'm saying is he's part of the Al D'Amato branch of NY government, home grown Tammany Hall, and they've got it down on who to call and who to make it right.
After 9/11 Giuliani used the same sappy nonsense Boss Tweed or Robert Wagner or LaGuardia did, and it is how Bob Moses ruled with Al Smith. They've known how to serve it up to make throwing people on the street to die look humane and Abner Louima or the Central Park 5 look guilty.
When Boesky confessed Giuliani walked up to him after, smiled and said "thanks, Ivan, I needed that 'cause I had nothin on you from the start". Pure Tammany.
2
I don't long for an administration marred by police violence punctuated with shouts of "it's Giuliani Time" from police during the act of torturing or roughing up suspects. You can have him!
2
I wonder whatever happened to the Rudy Giuliani that almost brought me to tears when I heard his response to the question about WTC casualties “more than any of us will be able to bear”?
1
What about Bloomberg?
As for Giuliani, I heard he fell in with a rough crowd.
3
Giuliani. Calm, honest, humble? Giuliani? Calm? Honest? Humble?
Are you serious right now? Would you like to join us in 2020? How about 2019? 2018? 17? 16, or 15? Any of those would be fine to disabuse you of the hilarious notion that Giuliani is any of those things.
2
There have to be other people more qualified than Giuliani.
1
Couldn't you pine for someone else? Of course, Giuliani had a few moments in his day, but he has Ukraine and an unfailing supplication to Trump. Those shadows of arrogance and self interest shade any positive of his past. Ugh. He's not worth even kidding around about.
1
Just pointing out that your headline claims the government botched Coronavirus but you had no examples of how this was "botched". In fact, the stats would point to the opposite conclusion. Certainly not a fan for tweets etc but equally not a fan ranty unsubstantiated columns
Jimmy Breslin once described Guiliani as 'a man in search of a balcony'. 9/11 was his balcony. What is the point of this egregious drivel, weepily comparing, through a highly vaselined lens, the Guiliani of yesteryear, with the current occupant of the White House, about whom we already know far too much? Why choose such a mediocre man to compare with one even more mediocre? Is this some kind of redemption starter kit for the irredeemable grifter that this unremarkable mayor morphed into once he latched onto the House of Trump? Another five-minute 'think piece', that should have stayed on the bar napkin on which its outline was surely written.
1
Don’t. It’s 2020 now.
2
Trump supporters at his North Carolina rally told NBC reporter, Monica Alba, that they do not think the coronavirus exists, that it is a hoax perpetuated by Democrats.
Does that make you feel protected and safe?
4
This article is a joke, no facts just anti Trump rhetoric, so far the evidence is in a population in excess of 300 million, a hundred odd identified cases, 6 deaths, a terrible lose for those affected but more people are killed in Chicago every month. We have the best medical professionals in the world, trust them instead of another "chicken little" attempt to blame trump for everything...was he responsible for the tornado in Tennessee, your next opinion will show he is responsible.
You do understand that at one point there were only 100 cases and just a few deaths in China at one point, right? Or Italy for that matter. We do indeed have superb health professionals. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for our overall public health system or for this administration's response to this public health crisis.
1
How do you dare to write an article about a mad man. This is when journalists show that they are out of touch with reality with the general population consensus as well as their needs. I almost could bet a %1 million that most of the answers are negative and may come from all the political affiliations. If you want attention run nude or do something weird and risky in front of the cameras. Do not insult readers with intelligence with this kind of articles.
Seriously? the same Rudy who now turned into a grotesque puppet? Who will do pretty much anything for personal gain, including dragging America's values through the mud overseas?
1
Pence is in over his head. And Rudy loves the camera too much. This is too important to leave to these two men. We can and must do better.
1
Giuliani was humble? Only when compared to Trump.
2
Godzilla was a fantastic monster compared with the Creature From the Black Lagoon.
2
Giuliani, over time, cannot begin to compare to Fred Rogers!
2
Any article that includes the phrase “I long for Giuliani...” is a prima facia evidence of the author’s insanity or venality.
3
Stop the nonsense. Trump has handled the virus pretty much the same as anyone else would have. This is desperation.
1
Who wakes up and thinks, You know what, today I'm going to write an op-ed praising Giuliani?
The worst among us get the most attention in this broken society.
1
While I agree wholeheartedly with the rest of the opinion, I believe Ms. Senior gravely misunderstood Trump's heartfelt reassurance that "healthy individuals should be able to fully recover."
When he said "healthy individuals" I think he was referring to people who don't have the virus.
2
Rudy -- as an elected public official -- had to deal with the most unthinkable thing that ever happened to the US. More traumaic than Pearl Harbor. He rose to the occasion -- as later did Bloomberg who dealt with the complicated aftermath. May God bless those who died in the initial attack and the first responders who died then and those who are still suffering. Giuliani handled a lot of trauma.
1
@Ronald B. Duke - What is unhelpful is that Trump (and Pence) have botched and are botching the response to what is without a shred of doubt a crisis that is metastasizing hourly.nit that people are pointing this obvious fact out.
1
You know who I long for? Obama. He would handle this with competence. He would surround himself with the top experts in the field and hunker down with them. He’d issue updates several times a day. He’d be appearing at press conferences or have a competent Press Secretary giving us important information as it became relevant. He’d also treat this crisis with the utmost seriousness. He’d be empathic. He’d be appropriately compassionate to the families and friends who have lost loved ones. He would LEAD!
Meanwhile, we have a guy that repeatedly gives misinformation, even though his experts publicly rebuke him. He hasn’t once mentioned that people are DYING all over the world and are frightened. He has said nothing about coming together as a nation and helping each other as Americans do. Why? Because he knows nothing about any of these things.
God help the United States of America.
8
Couldn't help noticing Pence answered no questions, handed every one off to others. No way he can be blamed for anything he said, since he said nothing.
1
Perhaps you were too unnerved to notice, but after 9/11 Giuliani was raving for attention, to the point of angling for an extension of his term as mayor, and promoting himself relentlessly all the while: there was nothing calm, honest or humble about him then either.
1
Christine Todd Whitman was head of the EPA at the time (little Bush appointment, 01/2001) and actually claimed that the air quality at the WTC site was perfectly safe. She admitted years later that she knew that the hole was full of cancerous toxins. Some leadership.
She deserves prison and to be sued into absolute poverty for that. How many unnecessary deaths is she responsible for? Everyone that has died of cancer that worked the rescue/recovery, that’s how many.
2
The Rudy of 9/11 or the Rudy of today? I take no comfort in imaging today's Rudy in charge of deciding what's for dinner much less a global health crisis.
1
The Guiliani of 2001 is NOT the Guiliani of 2020.
The guy has sold his soul to Trump.
2
Rudy: adverb, a noun and 911. He used it as a opportunity to promote himself. He did not extraordinary, he certainly was a unpopular mayor.
2
I know the feeling, I look back at the Nixon years....fondly
2
Ha! The Jackson years were lovely too.
Still the case that Guiliani, Pataki, Whitman and Bush--Republicans all--allowed or required first responders to work for months on the Pile--a Pile of hazardous waste--without protective gear. Calmly assured us all the air was safe, which is to say, calmly lied to us.
3
What he supposed to do wave a magic wand. When he banned travel from China in January he was a xenophobe. Now it looks like the best move he could have done. He has put the best people on it what else is he supposed to do. Oh wait, i know, make people wait on long lines for masks to make sure billionaires have to pay more for them.
Oh, stop, Jennifer Senior. Did you live in New York as an adult before September 11, 2001? If not, you shouldn't talk about Rudy Giuliani, who was an autocrat who had City employees fearing for their jobs if they were found to be disloyal (sound familiar?); a scoundrel who paraded his mistress up Second Avenue in front of the media and announced to his wife that he was divorcing her in a press conference; a mayor who threatened to pull funding from the Brooklyn Museum because he found some art displayed there to be sacrilegious; and a man who freaked out on the radio about ferrets.
Giuliani surprised almost every New Yorker by his behavior on September 11 and afterward. Shortly thereafter, however, he reverted to type - suggesting that he be kept on beyond the end of his term "for continuity" (the Governor refused to accede to waiving statutory limits).
Some of us remember the Giuliani years in New York. The Rudy of today is just a natural extension of who he was then. Don't romanticize him - please.
5
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) is responsible for managing the outbreak of infectious diseases, not the president. Locally the state and county health departments, which ultimately report to the CDC are in charge. This is a public health issure, not a political one.
4
I wouldn't go to Guilani to look for decency in a crisis, especially since there's a much better and more relevant example set by President Obama in his handling of the Ebola outbreak. Americans lost no sleep over falling prey to Ebola because it was kept at bay by the administration's efforts, and perhaps that is the most salient reason why it wasn't used as an example in this article: it did not become a crisis in this country. I pray the public finally realizes you need someone with empathy, intelligence, and self-control to be President of the United States of America, not a malignant narcissist who slashes government structures and programs because they were created by a black man and only considers a global pandemic in terms of how it might affect his re-election. And, BTW, Sanders is just Trump waving a blue flag instead of a red one. I'd prefer that the Democratic party not become the party of the aggrieved, the victimized, but rather the party of leaders and progress.
5
Guiliani was excellent after 9/11 and was a good mayor. But something has happened to him since then. Now he is a little bit bizarre to be frank.
3
Excessive alcohol consumption is not good for brain cells or the stability of one's personality.
Have you noticed that the whistle blower report about unprotected HHS workers working with corona virus exposed passengers coming from China and the cruise boat in Japan to Travis Air Force Base has completely disappeared from the news? Those workers may have been exposed and then went back home, out in the communities. The first California case was only 8 miles from Travis Air Force Base. Was this investigated or buried. Did this happen or not? Are information and true infection numbers being hidden? Testing is not really happening yet at scale, so we do not even know how big the problem is. I feel as though we are being kept in the dark about a monster storm brewing in our near future. Is anyone else noticing what feels like evidence suppression?
5
This might be a good time for Americans to show we can work together without politicizing everything. The idea that Mr. Trump has "botched the Coronavirus Crisis" is at least unhelpful. Considering how few cases have been identified so far it may even be inappropriate to call it a 'crisis'. I don't mean to argue that point, a strong response is plainly needed, but we could support our President's efforts to deal with the matter instead of automatically attacking his performance right out of the starting gate.
6
The fundamental issue with Trump is that he doesn't understand epidemic. This was evident when he defunded CDC and disbanded the epidemic experts. An emergency plan to be successful requires sustained investment and expertise. Trump crippled that emergency plan, that resulted into the slow response to this crisis.
7
@John R.; Yes, they're now ignored as Johnny-One-Notes; people tune them out. I wonder if they realize the extent to which they damage their own case.
1
Calm, honest and humble-Giuliani after 9/11? You must have been too young to remember he tried to change the mayoral terms and basically helped Mark Green to lose the primary by claiming only he (Giuliani) could govern the city in the aftermath of 9/11.
He also divided the city in ways that still reverberate today.
I often wondered what non residents saw in him as "America's Mayor", and Ms. Senior's opinion piece did a fine job explaining what others saw.
I felt then and feel now he did his job and not more.
6
@UWSGrrl Giuliani did not actually change the term limits, but Bloomberg certainly did for himself.
Let's not forget it was FDR who had the audacity to ask for more Supreme Court justices.
4
I have always said that Giuliani handled 9/11 very well--he seemed to be everywhere at once, displaying gravitas, rational, realistic thinking, and an ability to calmly convey a sense that things were as "under control" as they could possibly be on that horrific day, and the weeks and months after, when everyone in NYC and the surrounding areas seemed to be in a state of fear, disbelief, and an almost-zombie-like stupor (the bars were packed).
I was never otherwise a fan, but credit had to be given where it was due, and it WAS due.
So what in the world happened to that man? To be more specific, what happened to so many politicians who, although I may not have agreed with their policies, seemed to at least be people of integrity? What in the world was the concoction that went into the Kool-Aid roughly four years ago?
4
I have zero recollection of Giuliani after 9/11. I remember years of a calm, collected, cashmere-clad Bloomberg at various new conferences. He had much more of an effect on post-9/11 NYC as the effect of 9/11 lasted years and I’ll forever be grateful for his stewardship then and through the recession, which barely touched NYC.
13
A dichotomy is emerging in the U.S. Beneath a federal government concerned with optics, protecting Trump and skewering the Democrats there is a state-level effort to take charge and 'lean in' to the fight against this virus. Those not shackled by Pence's censorship are organizing, sourcing necessities and speaking out with factual information, not spin.
10
People are being too harsh to President Trump. Trump has actually staked out a pretty simple position -- if you can just stay alive until the heat comes in April you should be able to come out of this pandemic alive. So, that's less than a month away. We can do it America. Stay alive and pray for a heat wave.
102
What is the evidence that Covid-19 will wane once April arrives? That’s what happens to seasonal flu, but we don’t know what effect, if any, warmer weather will have on thus coronavirus. Pardon me, but I take no comfort from Trump’s uninformed prediction.
122
@Gone Coastal Wonderfully sarcastic post. Alas, the un sarcastic reality is that there are many of us who live in the Southern Hemisphere. For this American down under, winter is coming.
69
@Gone Coastal - I'm not aware that the sarscov2 bug looks at the weather report, or that there is any evidence (or even “alternative facts”) to back up the supposition that spring weather will halt this pandemic. 72F in Hong Kong today, and ongoing spread in other warmer regions too.
54
It's really too early to know if the President or the government has botched anything. Is Covid-19 a crisis? It's got nothing on the flu, which is affecting millions of Americans, hospitalizing hundreds of thousands of Americans, and killing tens of thousands of Americans---all so far this flu season. And it does it every year, year after year. Even during the Obama administration! Disease is apolitical. A new disease is always unsettling, but the hyperbole in the press is outta control. bird flu, swine flue, SARS, HIV all caused some panic, but none caused the end of the economy or the world. After you've lived through a few new diseases, you learn to take it in stride.
4
There was no panic then because we knew there was an epidemic emergency that had sustained funding and expert resources deployed all over the world to manage the crisis in a timely manner. Trump defunded that and disbanded the experts. So here we are.
5
@AB whoa. I was a caseworker/counselor for people with AIDS in NYC in the late '80's and early '90's. My clients, many of whom I came to care about very deeply (I wrote a memoir about one of them) were dying off in droves very quickly after being diagnosed. They were pariahs alive--if you had AIDS, you tended to LOOK like you had AIDS (AZT just made that worse). And it was a miserable death, and many of those who died had families who had turned their backs on them, and died alone in SRO's, hospitals, or often-crummy apartments. Maybe it didn't have a big impact on the economy (I wasn't paying attention to that), or end the world, but it was an absolutely frightful and frightening and deeply sad time...not something anyone with any kind of heart could "take in stride."
2
Not really. It was Trump who stopped the inbound flights from China to cries of racism from the Democrats. He was right, they were wrong. This entire “crisis” is being hyped by the press. Is it a threat? Yes. Is it the end of the world? No.
6
No, it's not the end of the world. Even the Spanish flu that devastated thousands of lives around the world eventually passed.
1
@T Smith So good to hear from an expert such as yourself on this issue. Whew! For a while I was worried. Are you up for a position in the Trump administration? You have all the qualities.
2
It is sad for our country that intelligence isn’t required criteria to occupy the office of the presidency.
16
Of all the key words in your sentence ""America's mayor was calm, honest , and humble", the word "was" stands out as the most important. That man is no longer.
9
@operacoach I hear tell that he fell in with a bunch of rascals, lately
2
This is a joke, right? Is today April 1st? Because, I lived through 9/11 also, and I remember Giuliani mostly grandstanding, posturing, and trying to force though a third, illegal term as Mayor, in October of 2001. Not to mention that he located the headquarters and nerve center of terrorism response, at the top target in NYC for terrorism, which led to the deaths of hundreds of first responders, not to mention the thousands of civilian deaths.
And, why blame Rudy for not immediately evacuating the second tower, right? Even though that would have saved countless lives.
All after two rounds of tax cuts which led to cuts in the emergency communications infrastructure budget. Hard for all those policemen and firefighters to communicate with an outdated communications network.
Two years before that, he was obsessed with dung being thrown at the Virgin Mary, and with ferrets.
But hey, as long as we're rehabilitating right wing, failed figures from the past, who helped contribute to America's downfall, let's not forget Dick Cheney, amirite?
15
Visited a Costco center yesterday and found out that they did't have any toilet paper left. Toilet paper? Are we now fighting the Coronavirus with toilet paper, like we were supposed to fight a certain hurricane with paper towels?
11
The way Mayor Giuliani handled himself and kept the great city of New York calm and functioning during and after the 9/11 attacks always impressed me beyond words.
Both he and President Bush were at their very finest on that day and the days that followed. No one can take away their incredible resolve to remain calm, focused, determined, and professional while being the impressive leaders that they were at that time.
Which is all the more reason why I simply shake my head in disgust and disappointment in the kind of person Giuliani became.
His current behavior is practically a slap in the face to all New Yorkers. He has become such a disgrace and embarrassment.
4
Glad you used the proper tense. "Was" is correct. Maybe used to be somebody, a contender, but those of us who lived in NYC during Rudy's tenure always recognized he was a grandstander, a publicity hound. I give more credit to Bill Bratton's policing policies than Rudy's posturing both as mayor and US Attorney. Anyone remember how Rudy and Senator Pothole Al D'Amato donned those denim vests and went out on fake drug busts? Whatever heroics you want to credit Rudy with for those days, he's so over-rated. And he's become just more joke fodder for late night comedians. Give me Ed Koch, John Lindsay, a Fiorella La Guardia any day of the week. And they won't be naming any NY airport after Rudy. Rudy and Trump...birds of a feather!
4
The man who placed the NYC emergency response center in the WTC (against the advice of his most capable advisers) just so he could have photo ops walking there from City Hall? And you long for him? Trump really has lowered the bar as to what passes for competence
9
The way Mayor Giuliani handled himself and kept he great city of New York calm and functioning during and after the 9/11 attacks always impressed me beyond words.
Both he and President Bush were at their very finest on that day and the days that followed.
No one can take away their incredible resolve to remain calm, focused, determined, and professional while being the impressive leaders that they were at that time.
Which is all the more reason why I simply shake my head in disgust and disappointment in the kind of person Giuliani became.
His current behavior is practically a slap in the face to all New Yorkers. He is either a liar or a chameleon or some stranger that slithered out of the sewer.
Whatever or whoever he is these days, I can't even bring myself to look at him. He has become such a disgrace.
2
Trump hasn’t “botched” the Corona virus. That shipped sailed when China didn’t close down its live wild animal markets after SARS.
3
@Conservative Democrat
His war on the CDC and other federal science agencies certainly qualifies as a major "botch".
2
Isn't Giuliani over in Ukraine investigating corruption?
Sure, on 9/11, he acted like a great leader. In fact, he was trying to keep a whole lot of corruption on his own turf under wraps. And just look who he's standing next to in the photo accompanying the op ed.
4
"calm, honest and humble?"
Your memory is deeply flawed. He was an arrogant bombastic demagogue. He went so far as to suggest the need for his term to be unlawfully extended because he was so necessary to NYC's recovery.
7
It is not true. Your premise is false and it is the consequence of a hatred for Trump that blinds you to the facts.
@ehillesum Trump deserves hatred. If Obama had done half of what Trump has done people would be screaming for his dismissal. Trump and Rudy are abysmal.
1
@ehillesum
Do Trumpers ever ask themselves why a majority of American voters did not vote for Trump? Or why a majority of American voters, to use your word, "hate" Trump? Or why Trump's enablers spend so much time trying to invent excuses for inexcusable conduct?
Why would the President of the United States openly ask Russia, China, and Ukraine, to interfere in our elections? He was impeached for that!
Why do over eighty percent of Blacks and Latinos think he is a racist?
Why do gay people see him as a threat to their civil rights?
Why do Muslims consider him a threat to their religious rights?
Why do a majority of women voters consider him a horrible example for their children? Why are migrant women and children seeking asylum being detained?
Why do mental health professionals believe that Trump is in desperate need of help?
You might want to ask yourself why, in contrast to Trump, President Obama is so well respected and has
continued to increase in popularity even after governing for eight years. Could it be a coincidence? Or could it be that the truth, science, and the Constitution still matter?
Does integrity, the truth, mental sanity, or just the absence of corruption and payments to porn stars have anything to do with it?
Could it be that maybe, just maybe, the majority of American voters got it right in 2016? Was flipping the House of Representatives just another coincidence?
Take a moment and think about it.
I'll wait! But just until November.
2
if the President doesn’t need to initiate the protocols surrounding the virus then explain who does? Has slashing the funding for the Center for Disease Control for years and years by billions and billions of dollars been a wise move not only for America, but for other countries that rely on its research and medicines?
“there have been zero recommendations about what could have been done differently...” - according to you.
you are commenting on an article that that is comparing your beloved President to your beloved Mayor and finds him wanting in this time of crisis,
Also, please let me know. This fake news that y’all always get from everywhere, I wonder where you are getting the other “real news” from? Since the internet, media, television, newspapers, Facebook and everything else are all contaminated.
4
I'll give the author her memories of Rudy after 9/11. Then I'll remind her that he's used that tragedy continuously to make money, stay in the limelight and let's see...make more money. He's no hero.
5
I may have misread the following, but yesterday I read that Pence was going to be updating our Governor's on a weekly basis. I hope this isn't true.
2
ridiculous
5
By assuring everyone the air quality was fine, as of 2018 we have 72,000 people(healthcare workers, firemen, and police officers) with documented illnesses(asthma,respiratory illnesses and cancer) linked to 9/11.
18
By what standard do you say Trump "botched the response"? What will be or would have in your view been a successful response, particularly when the crisis subsides? If you can't answer these questions, then it's clear that Trump would have been accused by the MSM of botching not matter what happened or happens.
2
Let’s start with complete sentences ... and not blaming democrats for a “hoax.” Honestly, his botching this is right in front of us. Nobody expects the President to single-handedly solve this crisis. But we do expect him to speak clearly, learn from experts, not question science and not make up nonsense about vaccine timelines.
3
@pete
Mainly that Trump has repeatedly cut the CDC's budget drastically since taking office. Along with that of every other scientific American agency.
https://www.cdc.gov/budget/congressional-justification.html
2
pete, and then not put "pray it away" Pence in charge. who after 3 days of his special group being formed is touting their daily meetings like its an accomplishment. "we've met everyday...for 3 days..." wow! get some smelling salts, snap out of it...!
1
One of the many problems in this administration's response, aside from Trump's ignorance, is that he has purged just about everyone near the top who has ever been in a leadership role in life or death situations.
9
A crisis of this magnitude reveals a great deal about a nation's character, as well as the moral make up of a nation's leaders. This challenge is not about building ineffective walls that separate us, this is all about building bridges that allow all nations to work towards one single objective, to eliminate a common threat to all of us.
Neither Trump nor Giuliani have the fundamental leadership, knowledge, or communication skills, necessary to deal with a challenge of this magnitude. But what makes this situation so dangerous and potentially catastrophic to the US and the world, is Trump's inability to listen to the experts, accept basic scientific medical facts, and speak the truth about the Corona Virus to the Americans. The lack of common sense is staggering.
Trump's lack of integrity or humanity has been in full display for the world to see. Trump does not accept any scientific facts that he perceives may hurt him politically. When experts discuss the potential lethal nature of the virus, Trump talks about the effects on Markets and the Democrats. When scientist speak about the effects of global warming, Trump talks about a Chinese hoax designed to hurt the US. economy. To Trump, this is not about people suffering or dying, this is all about his
re-election and his blind obsession with money.
Will someone please submit Trump to a mental health evaluation and get him the help he needs to deal with his mental disorders. Until that day, God help us all!
9
It's true.
Giuliani was admirable and (mostly) forthright about 9/11. What surprised me then was his stance about not blaming anyone but the perpetrators, and urging unity and calm, and encouraging grief but not revenge.
What a different wretch of a human being he is now, with his duplicity and his support for Trump's shenanigans and lies.
4
Trump cares more about the stock market than people who have the virus, or are vulnerable to it. Forget buying more hand sanitizer, buy more stocks!
7
Sorry, but Rudy Giuliani is dead to me. The former Federal Prosecutor tried, and is probably still trying, to extort bogus investigations of Trump political rivals. He is nothing, less than nothing.
9
Way off base. Trump is certainly botching the Coronavirus response, yes. But Giuliani botched the 9/11 response, and badly. You need to read Wayne Barrett's book, "Grand Illusion: the Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11". And I'm betting a good number of NYC firefighters would also heartily disagree with you.
7
Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.
6
I believe that Giuliani was shell-shocked for a time. Remember that his foolish decision to place the city’s emergency center in 7 World Trade nearly got him killed. No one could have gone through the close call and escape that everyone there experienced without at least some PTSD. We should be thankful for his warning not to blame the Muslim communities. But unfortunately, it didn’t take long for Giuliani to grab the “America’s Mayor” title and let himself believe it. He then saw opportunities to leverage the adulation for political and especially financial advantage, and quickly became what he is now. Whatever that is.
3
Thanks for the laugh. I needed someting as crazy as this article to assuage my coronavirus fears and the stock market plunge.
Humble, honest Rudy, that's a good one.
6
"Unfortunately, Trump doesn’t do facts, doesn’t know humanity and has only a passing acquaintance with community."
Trump does narcissism. Period.
A narcissist sees self as the center of the universe and his/her responses to everything are informed exclusively by how it impacts them personally. The COVD19 pandemic reflects negatively on Wall Street which is bad for trump. Thus the Fed must immediately do whatever to prevent that and the public must be assured that everything is fine, regardless of the truth.
Unfortunately trump lacks the intellect to see the long game and thus his knee jerk responses are often more damaging - witness the panic created by the Fed's emergency measure.
Can we please elect a president in November with less profound psychopathology?
5
"As impossible as it is to imagine, Rudolph Giuliani — the yowling Gollum of basic cable, President Trump’s Cain-raisingest enabler — was once one of the most steadying, reassuring men in the United States. If I hadn’t lived through it, I would have said I’d dreamed it."
Couldn't have said it better. He's now unrecognizable in his current incarnation. I definitely wouldn't believe it if I hadn't lived through it.
1
That version of Giuliani hasn't existed for a very long time.
He's gone from prosecuting mob bosses to working for one.
5
Unfortunately the lack of information is replicated at the local level. Try getting sick in an area that may or may not have Coronavirus, and calling your doctor's office for guidance, given the current circumstances. Although I doubt it's Corona, they don't know whether to tell me it's safe to come in for an office visit or not, or how to know when it's safe to go back to work without giving whatever-I-have to others. Normally during flu season, they've got answers. But not this year.
Though many of my right-leaning neighbors insist government can't be expected to take care of 350 million people, they're at the top of a hierarchy that very directly impacts all of us.
4
I like this piece. It is spot on about Trump and his ways, and whatever one might think about Giuliani, the contrast of approaches is undeniable,
2
The CDC estimates that so far this season there have been at least 32 million flu illnesses, 310,000 hospitalizations and 18,000 deaths from flu. In the U.S. alone.
This is the "regular" flu. And these numbers are typical.
Where is the perspective here?
Let's see...he attempted to capture the mayoralty for another term, un-elected.
He did, indeed, place the center of all emergency services in the most exposed location, the most attractive target in the city.
He refused to release, and ultimately "lost", every character of written evidence regarding his administration.
He refused the expense of assuring emergency services could communicate with one another, costing truly heroic lives.
And that's not to include things like threatening to close museums when he didn't approve of the exhibits, threatening to recall (and, Trump-like) angrily attacking a judge for enforcing basic rules of evidence.
A tanker-full of little things like that.
Of course he seemed a reassuring presence in a city stumbling about searching for reassurance of any kind.
The man was a crook then and he's a crook now.
Sure he did a nice enough job after 9/11, on the surface of things, but he was who he is, and that's not good.
7
“ But this is the all-caps presidency. Trump’s fans may pride him on his directness, but it’s always of the all-caps sort, predicated on showmanship rather than sincerity, fearmongering rather than comfort, fracture rather than unity. Rage is the new authenticity. It is the very worst thing in the world for an epidemic, when trust and calm are paramount.”
Above all Trump is a self-serving narcissist of the highest order, with a middling to low intellect. As such he will always do what he perceives is best for him, and in so doing resort to any tactic that occurs in the moment to achieve this, usually lies, disparagement dismissal or worse, with the full firepower of the office of the presidency combined with twitter to back him up. Thus far, to his legions of idolators, this has all been mother’s milk, as long as he was entertaining them or reflecting their anger, and A-ok as long he turned on anyone who he perceived crossed him. From sycophants like Jeff Sessions to the Fed. Chairman Powell, to Def. Sec. Mattis and Sec. of State Tillerson., no one escapes this man’s obvious pathological self-regard. But the important question now, just like with Captain Queeg’s finally revealed total incompetence when confronted with a typhoon in the book, “The Caine Mutiny”, is how much longer supposedly responsible people will tolerate and enable Trump and his despicable behavior, at a time when the stakes, and the need for trusted leadership, have never been higher.
4
Giuliani was in his last year in office (back then mayors honored the 2 term limit rule that had passed in the 1990s) and for years the FDNY and NYPD had worked on a joint field radio project.
The prototypes never worked well. So fire fighters and police had very hard time talking to each other that day.
The lack of a fire/police radio is on Rudy.
3
May I make a recommendation regarding the President' team effort on the disease Covid-19, minus the ghost of former Mayor Guiliani.
Hospitals and medical clinics should require persons to show their passports if they have one, prior to entering the facility. There should be a law, in which all States should quickly adopt as a State health and safety code, that could be rescinded after this episode (can't evaluate it yet), abates, which requires anyone with a passport to tender it at the hospital site.
People lie. Merely asking a patient have you traveled in the past several weeks, and where, is not sufficient a screening method.
At a hospital clinic today that was packed, a very timid couple of Asian descent entered. They seemed as if they had never been to this clinic previously. I guess that they are new to a County, probably the California, and maybe the Country. The vast majority of patients in the clinic are not US Citizens, and English is not their primary language. I saw as many as six different nationalities in the groups of people in the waiting room.
If the couple had been traveling, they might not be forthcoming about it. Fearing what I don't know. Maybe they had just entered the country and will be truthful.
A passport would show proof of travel. California's new ID is like a passport or California drivers/residents have to get a passport if you don't want the new ID in order to travel by airplane anywhere. I would not dissuade travel.
Some people may sound or look "foreign", but not have a passport. Do you recommend that they be refused treatment?
1
@RR
Or here's a thought: rather judging people by their level of apparent timidity or racial characteristics we could get a President who takes this stuff seriously, spends the money required to generate a meaningful response, and test people who come in with symptoms related top possible exposure.
Of course this eliminates the fun of saying "Show me your papers" to sick people seeking relief and eliminates the ethnic hi-jinx that ensue, and obviates the assumption that white people don't travel, but you gotta give some before you take some.
"What about the expense!?" you bloviate. Well, maybe some that trillion-dollar "Now you love me, right?" gift to the already wealthy could be clawed back. By a President with courage, I mean, so, no, guess not. But when the choice is test kits or death it likely becomes easier.
Now all we have to deal with is the Trumpers bleating about this being a virus created by Democrats, who are running about infecting their own to make Trump look bad. They forget we're Democrats and likely realize it maybe isn't the best idea to go around killing our own voters to get them (Trumpers) to vote for Biden.
We already know its a waste of time convincing people to vote for The Bern, commie pinko socialist that he is
2
@RR
How do you nationality by appearance?
Do Americans have a tattoo on their forehead?
No offense to Ms. Senior, but it's easy to stay calm when you don't care. I'm sure Cheney was calm too, as Trump would have been. When you're incapable of empathy, the suffering of those around you is unlikely to stir any genuine emotion.
5
Did we forget that Giuliani pronounced ground zero air quality safe. To date how many emergency workers have fallen ill or died because of the contaminated air that they breathed working that pile? America is capable of better.
Then and now.
5
That was EPA
And then there's good ole Don Jr saying Democrats want to see millions of deaths. Where did this guy come from ?? Oh, Don Sr !!
13
that was a different rudy before he drank the kool-aid
2
Giuliani was a terrible major! This article defies belief. Why would NYT even publish it. Giuliani always only cared for Giuliani. Comparing the handling 9/11 to the Corona Virus ?
5
Ms. Seinor, you're not wrong to wish for calm, honestly, and humility in the present crises (let's remember that we are faced with more than one crisis, even though one seems to be absorbing all our attention just at the moment).
Exhibiting calm, honesty, or humility is likely to disqualify one from employnent by Trump. So are other qualities such as wanton display of humanity, knowledge, care, respect, attention to detail, or inadvertently appearing less horrible than your boss. It's pointless to look for any of these qualities in those Trump hires ("the best people", remember?).
2
You've noted that Ms Senior's book has been translated into 12 languages. I'll note that I won't be reading any of them after her praise of the Giuliani, a first-class shyster and Trump acolyte. Crooked Kerik his police commissioner extends the net of dissemblers and prevaricators that ring the Trump White House. NY survived 911 despite Guiliani.
7
This is the most absurd article I have read in the NYTimes: Giuliani made 9/11 all about him, the narcissist that he is. Then he profited from it. He is America's pariah and an agent of Putin, not America's mayor. He should be in jail with Trump.
10
That Giuliani is dead. As with so many others in this Administration his body was taken over by Trump's infectious brain disease.
6
Now Rudy is infected with Trumpitis.
4
Lady, you long for Rudy? What the heck is the matter with you? Sheesh. God almighty. UGH
8
How is Trump "botching" the Coronavirus response? Its the RUSSSSSIANS!!!!!!
1
@D
Um, mainly the fact that every other country with cases (including Cambodia) is testing FAR more people than America is right now?
No need for Russia to intervene - our president is botching this just fine on his own.
4
Some people are saying this “ Virus “ is just a bad Cold.
And some people are craven bootlickers.
4
@Phyliss Dalmatian
Can't say anything to tarnish Trump, Inc.'s brand.
Judge Rudy by the company he kept. Standing next to him in the article photo is police commissioner Bernie Kerik, ex-Iraqi Minister of the Interior who was convicted of taking a $250,000 bribe from an Israeli millionaire while serving in that position of trust. Kerik then went on to join the unsavory Giuliani Associates, tool of dictators both domestic and foreign.
Rudy used those moments in 2001 to prime the pump for a 20 year career milking the government, people and malignant foreign interests in the name of “security.” Make no mistake, 9/11 was the best thing that ever happened to Rudy.
12
trump·er·y
noun: trumpery; plural noun: trumperies
1. attractive articles of little value or use.
practices or beliefs that are superficially or visually appealing but have little real value or worth.
adjective: trumpery
1. showy but worthless.
"trumpery jewelry"
How did so many people miss this definition back in 2016?
4
@J Anders Al-Gore-ithm....a process repeated endlessly until the desired outcome is achieved...
There are more than two people in America. Trump and Rudy Giuliani aren't the only candidates. In fact, the federal, state, and local governments have many qualified people who are trained to deal with these situations. The problem is that the Trumpian notion of "destroying the administrative state" has intentionally tried to collapse the very infrastructure put in place to deal with emergencies. Like a fracturing banana republic, everyone is paralyzed to react in fear of incurring the wrath of the Twit in Chief.
4
It seems like you would be pleased with N. Korea response - they have zero cases and were effective in preventing it.
1
I’d hold off remembering (the present unhinged) Rudy G as a 9/11 paragon of competence, because it’s just NOT so. Several of the most troubling things during 9/11 were CAUSED by Giuliani himself. Namely, his insistence in making the WTC the site for NYC’s “disaster response” HQ after being strongly ADVISED by experts to locate it elsewhere due to the WTC’s attraction to terrorists... and it was previously attacked (albeit in much less disastrous results). But the arrogant mayor Rudy ‘knew best’. WRONG.
Then in one of his false economy moves Rudy overruled having interagency compatible communication devices for first responders. Therefore making communication between fire Dept., medical personnel, police, and other city services more difficult or impossible. Again, Rudy ‘knew best’.
Giuliani was always quick to claim credit for improvements in crime fighting initiated and executed by the then police chief.
Admittedly the Rudy G of yore had more credibility than the greedy buffoon who’s trump’s court jester and advocate. Bottom line Giuliani has become nearly as big a fraud and con man as his orange tinted crooked Don client. Just sayin...
PS the best line ever by Joe Biden was when Rudy was running for President and Biden rightfully noted, “That every sentence from Giuliani has a noun, a verb, and 9/11 in it!”
6
Oh please! Giuliani gets far too much credit. He lowered his racist, xenophobic tone a bit, so people praise him. What an awful mayor he was - cut from the cloth of Trump. It was actually a test-run for Trumpism.
He was a good prosecutor, that's all.
5
Being confident during 911 is a clear sign of complete delusion. And that was my estimation of Rudy. His father was a felon. He’s a lunatic who follows conspiracy theories and goes on dates with Trump in drag. You might readjust your expectations of Rudy.
4
Stop writing such articles..
Giuliani is a traitor to America and it won't change; and he will never be forgiven for doing what he did.
Giuliani performed after 9/11 because whole nation was behind him and he spoke the truth. None of these are a commodities of current GOP leadership as well as real core Giuliani .
6
Calm. honest , and humble are three things Giuliani can't manage any more either.
3
I think the difference between the two men is one of context. As mayor, Rudy's crisis was one in which the nation did not look to him for a response. They looked to W and the Bush administration. The citizens of New York saw it differently. The task at hand for Rudy was one of blocking and tackling: Get the $$ from DC (no problem), start the cleanup, boost the city. Rudy did a great job and it helped that he was of the same party as W. He deserved the honorific of "America's mayor". At the time, we wished he was our President and not W. I don't know what happened to Rudy when he went to DC. Maybe the Trump effect.
anyone who lived in or around NYC during the Giuliani era has mixed memories of his tenure. Crime went way down, but he exasperated tensions between minorities and whites. He could be crude at times, and he stupidly put the emergency command center in the WTC as a sop to the Port Authority. He hit all the right notes on 9/11 and for some time thereafter. He was one of the guys and the guys being Firemen and Police. But he overstayed even that welcome when he tried to extend his term. Since then everyone as everyone knows he has become a sad but evil clown.
1
Giuliani is a great example of how context drives perception. He was born for the storm and those who are fare poorly in the peace. Remember prior to 9/11 when he informed the media that he was moving on from his second wife -- before he told her -- and his great, hunger-striking adversary Rev. Al Sharpton looked like Gandhi for protesting the Navy's practice bombing of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques?
Then 9/11 happened and the ex-wife and Sharpton were forgotten. Suddenly, Giuliani -- and we -- had a real windmill to tilt at. All that oversize passion was now focused and harnessed.
Qualities and people are what they are. It's the context which makes them appear good or bad. -- thegamesmenplay.com
2
I wonder how Giuliani would have responded to the tragedy if the president wasn't a fellow Republican.
2
The NYT has been so critical of everything Trump for so long that this column just reads as another sermon to the choir.
3
"He didn’t lie."
Well, something terrible has happened between then and now, because Giuliani lies ALL THE TIME now, especially for the Master Serial-Liar of them all, Donald J. Trump.
1
Ms. Senior is easily fooled. Rudy was merely making a photo op. He was determined to get in the picture with rubble and death all around. There is no end to his vanity, no end. He did nothing to help 9/11. NOTHING.
5
Unfortunately - whatever Giuliani was or did. is long gone under the stain of his shameless association with Individual 1.
Sorry. Whatever Trump touches dies, and we have not seen anything that indicates otherwise.
1
Let's not get nostalgic for someone who worked so hard to undermine our constitution which resulted in getting a crooked president impeached. It should be remembered that Benedict Arnold was one of our first military geniuses but he is remembered for being a traitor. Giuliani should share a similar legacy.
this is just going to get worse as Trump and his lackeys have no idea what science is, how it works or even believe it should be relied upon as a solution- All just psycho-babble and confusion, their stock in trade.
And he also recommended Benard Kerik - a subsequent convicted felon - be appointed head of the Department of Homeland Security.
3
Oh don’t worry, Rudy will probably somehow become the Administration go-to Ambassador for Covid-19 worldwide, and be handsomely paid for it.
I’m just glad Biden is not the supreme commander yet...lest he be ordering millions of smallpox vaccines.
1
Maybe you're talking about a different Giuliani than the Giuliani we all know and despise now.
1
If you are looking for "calm, honest and humble", you are better off mentioning Obama.
2
@The Poet McTeagle
AMEN!!! to that.
1
That guy from 19 years ago is MIA.
This would seem, now, to be a JFK "ask not" moment.
Instead, we get "don't ask me" from the fraud in the WH.
I am sure it has been sanitized. How many stories on Fox News about the virus as a pandemic.
Fox guys get - in a little box hidden on the page
*Denver Dem ripped for tweet supporting spreading coronavirus at Trump rallies
*Dr. Drew: The scariest thing about coronavirus isn’t what you think
*Iran men who licked holy shrine face prison, flogging, as troops ordered to fight coronavirus outbreak
Something about Dems, Iran, and Dr Drew says "Media-driven panic over coronavirus is a bigger problem than the virus" as his headline...
Its been sanitized by fox allready....
1
You live in fantasy. You seem to forget that he botched 911 by refusing to move the Emergency Management Center. That's why he was walking around all day
Giuliani is going to the Ukraine to find out the true cause and source of the coronavirus.
1
The "America's mayor" Giuliani you refer to no longer exists. He has been infected by Trump virus and is now a zombie working to spread the virus to others.
1
Giuliani's behavior after 9/11 proves once again that even a blind chicken can find corn.
1
And now look at him
1
No matter what happens in our world trump shows what a stumble bum he is - how anyone can support him is astonishing. Are there really that many feeble minded, hateful, bigoted people? Apparently so.
2
Whatever you admired or remember about Giuliani is long dead.
The President does not seem to listen to the people advising him. During the meeting with the Big Pharma reps, he could not understand that a vaccine is a year to 18 months away. He asked why we couldn't just use the flu vaccine. Then, he seemed to think that "treatment," which is available now, is just great, and solves the problem. We need some adults in the room, and SOON.
4
I think what is forgotten is the crippling effect of the Y chromosome on the elderly. Every morning we wake up with confusion and distorted reality and remember the passion and strength of our youth.
2
The Firefighter's Union does not share your longing: https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/cq/2007/07/12/cq_3065.html?pagewanted=all
75
You’d prefer to replace crazy with crazier? Given the choice between Giuliani and Trump . . . God, I can’t believe I’m saying this . . . I’d choose Trump.
24
@Anthony: Me too, but only because Giuliani would immediately be removed under the 25th Amendment.
7
@Richard Schumacher
Please note that a large number of mental healthcare professionals (25) have studied Trump's public conduct and determined that he is in desperate need of help from mental health professionals.
That is not intended to in any way diminish Giuliani's apparent AA problem.
A choice between those two demands other options.
8
@Anthony: Fortunately, that's a choice we don't have to make. If we did, though ... urrk, I've never had that taste in my mouth and I never want to have it again ,,, but i'd go for the one with the law degree. There's always a chance that some synapse has survived all these years. With Trump, there's no chance. Well, he might get abducted by aliens.
6
Thank you for this reminder. This editorial goes to show what a leader should do during a time of crisis. Take charge. Be the spokesperson. Calm everyone's nerves. This has nothing to do with the actual person because we all now know just how corrupt Guiliani can be, probably due to Trump. I believe we now have the opportunity to choose another leader who can be lead our country: the person who followed Guiliani, Michael Bloomberg.
3
If that was the case, what happened? He is off his rocker now, and out of touch with reality.
2
I’m not quite sure how accurate Jennifer’s memory is, but I clearly remember and Giuliani was a terrible Mayor and is only remembered because he happed to be the NYC Mayor when the World Trade Centers we’re attacked by terrorists.
1
Don't waste even a second "longing" for Giuliani, b/c he is NOT "calm, honest, and humble" and hasn't been in a loooong time!
What you WANT is Dr. Fauci, who IS calm, honest and rational - but we already saw that Trump doesn't want to hear the truth from Fauci or the CDC.
Trump wants meaningless 'promises' that we'll have an effective vaccine in a month or two. Dr. Fauci wasn't playing that game. Thank heavens there's someone left who will tell Trump clearly (and in front of other people) "NO, that's NOT what I told you!"
Trump is almost entirely severed from any known reality at this point.
6
You conveniently neglect to mention a massive difference in Giuliani's situation --- he didnt have a vicious kneejerk opposition straight across the MSM and the opposition party distorting and falsifying his actions and statements.
The fact is, Trump has done just fine with the virus outbreak. Maybe you were one of those who called him a racist for restricting flights from China very early on, which clearly was a major major decision that was correct.
Honest? He never owned up to relocating crucial communications equipment on top of another world trade center building, where it was promptly destroyed the day it was most needed.
3
This article, with its inflammatory headline, is just one more example of the concerted media attack on our President.
1
Giuliano exploited 9/11 for the benefit of his career. “Saint Rudi of 9/11” he was known as.
1
Botched?
Yes, the Dems need to position our President's response
Nevermind that our President has some of the top experts (as confirmed by both the Dems and Reps) in the world dealing with this crisis.
It doesn't matter that people are ill, and worse, dying. Nor does it matter people are losing value in their retirements accounts.
But shhhhhh....its better to politicize this because all that matters is beating Trump, right Dems??
3
Yes, so long as Trump is in power and incompetent I too long for . . the kiss of the vampire.
2
It was disgusting yesterday to see Pence, bearing the one expression he has, fake stone-faced stoicism, as if waiting to be carved on Mount Rushmore, with his team all trying to appease the absent, absent-minded Trump, who we know was glued to the TV, waiting for someone to slip up and displease him.
2
Why isn't Trump's screenwriter and puppetmaster Steven Miller, sharing any of this awfulness?
1
Yeah, and Bernard Kerik makes me nostalgic, too.
1
Were you really in NYC then?
Remember that Giuliani had actually placed his command post on an upper floor in the world trade center complex, so it had to be evacuated.
He was a good mayor for about two weeks; then he announced he wanted to cancel the mayoral election.
Fantastic commentary Ms. Senior, and you nailed it in every way. The Stable Genius is incapable of true leadership in all the ways that matter as you point out. To put Mike Pence in charge was a lazy idiotic move, having yet, another person incapable of true leadership or any real intelligence in charge of a new nightmarish reality. God help us.
2
I’m afraid that Giuliani, competent and rational, is long gone.
2
Giuliani lied about what toxic mess was waiting on the pile at the trade centers and firemen and others proceeded to wade into it day after day with serious health consequences and death.
1
Please remember, half of us Americans believe this stable genius over the fake media and do-nothing-Democrats! It's apparently a pox invented by the Chinese and so won't survive the big, most beautiful, HOTTEST spring in history!
1
I was home yesterday and listened to a joint press conference between Cuomo and DeBlasio on Covid-19. I was most reassured to hear that the first Covid-19 case confirmed in NY is quarantined at home, and not in a hospital because her symptoms are not as serious. This was when I realized that, like the flu, our reaction to Covid-19 infection would vary in intensity. They should say convey this message repeatedly.
I wish you were more clear about your having "lived through" Giuliani's performances during September 2001, because your Monday morning experience and recollections from ... somewhere on earth ... seem to lack context.
Yes, I appreciated Giuliani's somber and calming presentation on the days following the attack. But what I especially remember is that before a week was up, he was pushing to have his term extended, as if only he could manage things. (Obviously, NYC did fine without him.)
That's the same kind of mindset that scares me about Trump. Will a defeated Trump push to extend his term because only he can lead the country? Based on Rudy's behavior back in 2001, we know what he'd say.
4
It would seem by his actions and statements on the economy and the stock market that these are Trump’s major concerns . He cares more about interest rate cuts than a coordinated approach to this virus. He has Also has turned the virus threat into the political arena by attacking his democratic rivals.
1
Much as I hate to say this, I blame all of this global confusion and insanity on the president of the United States. No, he didn't invent the coronavirus, but America used to be a country that others could look up to for guidance, support, and stability. Now, we have become a clownish version of a banana republic, leading no one, abandoning our allies, breaking away from ages-old alliances, and led by a criminal, maniacal liar, who, at every turn, creates chaos. We are no longer the beacon of hope, and that, in itself, is a cause for much of the madness we are witnessing in the world today.
8
Jeniifer, you don't mention that behind the calm that Giuliani projected, there lay an act of arrogance and hubris that possibly caused deaths of several brave fire fighters of NYFD. You see, just like Giuliani's current client Trump, Giuliani himself had overruled experts about the location where a new command center (to deal with a future terrorist attack after 1993) should be built. Most experts were opposed to locating it at the World Trade Center because WTC was likely to be a target itself. Giuliani overruled them and ordered it built in WTC itself.
The command center was in ruins moments after the planes hit. It meant that all radio communication was lost. Fire fighters inside the WTC lost radio contact, could not receive the instructions on their radios to get out of the building quickly, and perished to their death climbing up. Having a command center located away from a likely target of terrorist attacks could have saved the lives of many of these brave NYFD firefighters.
When I look at the footage of Giuliani on 9/11/2001 I wonder if, behind his calm demeanor, he is thinking about his ill-fated decision about command center location. Does he at all feel responsible?
5
I think the person you were watching was Bob Newhart - not Rudolf Guiliani - easy to mix up , especially when wearing a surgical mask.
2
Giuliani may not have been grilled by the press about his decision to place the command centers at the WTC despite the concerns that having already been a target of a terrorist attack, there was a good chance it would be of another but as far as I can recall he never admitted his mistake. His decision doomed many police officers and fire fighters to their deaths. I find it laughable that the police union officials attack De Blasio but thing to consider Giuliani a saint.
Giuliani did try to spin the attack to his political advantage by proposing that perhaps he should stay on as mayor despite the fact that term limits had been imposed.
And all you need to know about Giuliani is that first picture with Kerik, a corrupt official who had no qualifications for being police commissioner other than that Giuliani liked him
4
Face it, we are on our own. Trump and Company are not only incompetent, they don't care. They hope if they lay low, all this will pass. Trump can then go back to doing his rallies, and all will be right in the world.
5
What was both inspiring and tragic that day - were the hundreds of firefighters and police officers who gave their lives trying to rescue the doomed occupants of the WTC. Don't forget it was the Guiliani administration who couldn't resolve the radio communications that would have alerted many first responders to evacuate - needlessly costing many lives. What was amazing that day and the weeks following - the people of NYC. They showed what Americans are made of when they pull together. Mr Guiliani - courage, leadership? He was basically a talking head bystander who stupidly located the emergency command center in the previously bombed Towers, and yet he reaped underserved accolades from the media for his management of the aftermath.
2
Just because Trump "botched" our (yes, in the national interest) response to corona or climate change certainly doesn't mean we need Judy Ruliani.
3
G was about to be run out of town on Sept 10.
2
This whole adulation of Rudy thing puzzles me. Sure he stayed calm-ish and wriggled out of discussing why he relocated the city's into one of the towers but he didn't actually do anything. Now, as consigliore to the trump crime family he gets away with anything he wants. Huh?
3
"I long for Giuliani", the one who told us all to go shopping? What low expectations you have of leaders.
2
Viruses and bacterium are tiny, infinitesimal, minute life forms. Who said God didn't have a sense of humor when he wrote in Matthew 5.5 "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth." He was talking about viruses and bacterium, not humble, meek little humans.
This is not to say that we are not unlike a virus ourselves. Look at what we are doing to our planet. We are systematically killing it and every life form on it, for profit.
Did you read about the protein molecules found on meteors recently?
Like intergalactic spermatozoa, asteroids and meteorites fertilize planets when and if they become fertile. Earth became fertile. Now, like a deadly virus, humanity has quickly spread across its planet killing every life form in its path, for profit. I've seen this happen on hundreds of thousands of planets throughout the universe. Very few planet dominating species achieve the wisdom to survive. The beast within them, 600 million years of genetic competition, compels their pathway through time. Typically, they over-populate, destroy their habitat, each other, and disappear forever while their planet slowly starts over. Very few planet dominating species find the right path into the Universe. Very few survive. Time is running out for humanity. I am saddened. I had hoped humanity would find the right path to the stars. They have imagined it but fail to honor it.
Kind Regards and Best Wishes,
The Grand Exalted Ruler of The Universe
aka HoodooVoodooBlood
1
Rudolph Giuliani?
Rudolph Giuliani the political hack most recently shaking down the Ukraine for the corrupt trump?
The same Rudolph Giuliani who spends most of his time spreading lies and conspiracy theories?
The guy who seems unhinged and incoherent on FOX News?
Yes that would be very reassuring indeed!
7
Giuliani sent thousands of NYC employees to the ruined World Trade Center without protective gear to remove bodies and body parts from the smoke and debris when there was no hope of finding living victims of the crashes. Thousands lost their good health; hundreds are dying; hundreds are dead.
Giuliani, not Bloomberg, started stop and frisk.
5
Didn't Giuliani insist on moving the city's disaster response headquarters to the World Trade Center - against all advice - prior to 9/11?
Wasn't he also responsible for the fact that emergency responders radios weren't modernized to the point of inhabiting different frequencies, and thus rendering different departments unable to talk to each other during 9/11?
In a sense, his actions kind of mimic of the unpreparedness of the Trump administration.
But hey, he was calm and authoritative on the wake of the disaster, and that apparently is enough to impress a lot of people.
3
As much as I dislike President Trump, I think you're being a bit unfair to the government as a whole. The CDC has lots of helpful information about the epidemic. It's where I found out that soap is fine, for example. It's even better if your hands are dirty.
45
@Tim Haight one problem is that during Trump's press conferences, it's a given that each participant must stand up there and sing Trump's praises before getting on with actually providing information. It's all political for them. It's impossible to see it any other way.
23
@Tim Haight But trump won't use it!
5
That’s right, it takes a government agency to remind us that soap can clean hands. Who’d have known? But have no fear, Private Bone Spurs is here.
21
And thus begins Rudy's Campaign For Rehabilitation. This is the second volume of a multi-volume epic. The first volume was Rudy's Adventures in Ukraine.
Having lived through both Rudy's and Mike's reigns of New York City, I can honestly say that I don't miss either of them.
How many people died at the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001, and thereafter, of consequences of that attack? And how many people from NYC have died of Coronavirus?
2
Giualiani behaved himself for two minutes, but it didn't last -- a lot of other people acquitted themselves far better, under what were awful circumstances for everyone. Seems like -- and this holds for any crisis -- that's the best you can ask for.
3
Apparently how one acts in an emergency is only part of what a person is. Giuliani may have been a good leader at that moment in 9/11 and should be given credit for that. But he remains a deeply flawed individual. We could use a leader who remains good in all or at least most circumstances -- somebody like Obama. There are such people out there.
5
I don't know who Ms. Senior is talking about. Whatever qualities were in evidence in 9/11 are long gone, and by his own design. The person I miss for calm, honest, and humble is President Obama.
18
What happened to Giuliani? It remains one of the many great unsolved mysteries of our age.
170
@Skye6206
He always was what he is now it was just hidden under a veneer of false high mindedness.
11
@Skye6206
I agree.
It's right up there with the Jimmy Hoffa and Helen Brach disappearances.
Although, whatever happened to Giuliani could be the makings of a conspiracy theory involving aliens . . .
9
I think part of it was, as long as Rudy was definitively in the spotlight and he didn’t have to go searching for attention and validation, as long as he felt sure of being the center of media attention - as he was in the aftermath of 9/11 - he was relaxed and could be his best self.
9
Rudi may have been competent back in the day - I don't know if he really did much more than appear composed at photo ops. However, since being mayor, he clearly has gone off his meds. Not a good model for crisis behavior these days.
5
There were 27 new deaths in Italy today.
"Italy had experienced the coronavirus outbreak despite being one of the first countries that not only closed contact with Wuhan but also all air contact with China..." The Guardian
I took a look at the Fox news comments a few days ago, and aside from the hatred toward their own citizens (democrats) which is a huge problem, most of the commenters say closing air travel and borders and building more walls is the answer, as if they really do not understand how easily and well this virus spreads.
The other thing is the idea that the flu is worse. Look at the stats from Italy. If you add the 29% death rate from the coronavirus, on top of the death rate from the regular flu, then why in heaven's name is the USA acting with such complacence?
6
trump's marketing team is all over this. From Pence to Mulvaney to that crazy Conway and even Miller, the response from team trump is that the re-election campaign is going well, the FED flinched again and is giving more free money to the Wall Street money changers and so far, no one wearing a MAGA hat has been diagnosed with the virus.
What? trump worry? Not him. The secret service will throw themselves in front of coughing people and take a hit of virus for that man.
Ax for the rest of us, we're on our own. Maybe the best thing would be if team trump doesn't do anything that they think is useful. We'd all live longer.
4
It will be interesting to see how the virus discriminates between Democrats and Republicans.
3
Rudy Giuliani was "America's Mayor", but he wasn't ours.
And any New Yorker with a working memory will tell you so.
In fact, Rudy had worn out his welcome here by 9/11 and with his mean-spirited vindictiveness he had managed to tear this city apart.
Granted, Trump and his administration are bad and have no clue what they're doing in face of this new Coronavirus, but
I don't long for Giuliani any more than I long to go through those days after 9/11 again.
8
The modus operandi of this administration is spin. Put the most favourable face on the emerging calamity. Half answers to tough questions. Minimize the danger to millions of Americans.Use the flu comparison to defang this life threatening virus. Measure containment by looking at the Dow Jones. Not a pretty picture. Trump is simply incapable of taking charge. He is NOT a leader. And neither is Pence!
4
Yearning for Rudy? Rudy did what most big city mayors would have done. The press made him America's Mayor. The day before 9/11 New Yorkers wanted Rudy gone. Please no more nostalgia for Rudy when most New Yorkers would love to see him doing the Perp Walk.
8
Giuliani humble? He actually and overtly promoted the idea of canceling the then-pending mayoral election so that he could use the 9/11 catastrophe to circumvent term limits and stay in power. And don’t forget btw his decision to house the Command Center right in the WTC, site of the ‘93 bombing.
8
Mike Bloomberg is campaigning as "the" crisis manager to vote for. Regardless of one's political inclination, he was responsible for lifting NYC from the ashes of 9/11.
4
@Elizabeth What kind of spin are you listening to in Ohio?? Bloomberg was responsible for lifting NYC from the ashes??? Dear lord - propaganda is alive and well. Read the posts from actual New Yorkers and you will see that we do not like either Guiliani or Bloomberg because we had both as leaders and both were terrible for the people.
He also told us the air was clean -- a *major* oversight in leadership.
4
Wow, we are in a dire situation when we have to resort to comparing Giuliani to Trump nostalgically.
5
I teared up again when I read the phrase “more than any of us can bear, ultimately” referring to the unknown number of deaths on 9/11. Same for COVID-19, when all is said and done. We will never hear anything remotely as compassionate and heartbreaking from DJR.
2
NYC under Mike Bloomberg went through the swine flu epidemic and the west nile virus.
His response and management of this is still a model for how an epidemic should be handled.
He is the person who funded the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins, Baltimore and has extensive experience in these fields of crisis management.
No one else running even comes close to his qualifications and background.
This is a man who actually did things vs. pontificating and helping to pass legislation.
I worked for Pete for a year. Now I am devoting all my free time to helping to put Mike Bloomberg in the White House.
Neither Bernie nor Biden can comfortably beat Trump and unite our country.
Mike can and will.
3
@Simon Sez
Sorry, but that's going to be a hard sell here in NYC where we know Bloomberg best.
We also tried to warn the rest of America about Donald Trump.
They didn't listen.
4
Right now we need to buy time. There is a better chance at containment when spring is here. We need to slow down new cases to provide hospitals a buffer and not overwhelm them. We need to buy time for a vaccine to be developed. That is the only way to stop this.
The emergency stockpile has 30 million N-95 masks. That is enough to cover hospital workers but they should be distributed to communities. Hospitals should be using self-contained breathing apparatuses. Doctors in Wuhan were still getting sick even with N-95 masks. Perhaps fire departments can loan them some. Disposable respirators are meant to help people escape danger not to work in it for hours. The shortages are due to a slowdown in China and high demand from the public there. That is a good thing because China has the majority of the infections and they are being worn there. China needs to be working if we expect more masks to be manufactured.
Plasma transfusions from recovered patients are effective. Remidisvir, interferon alpha, and anti-inflammatories are also recommended. Children below 9 have not died. The working age population has a fatality rate of 0.2% which means do grocery shopping for your older relatives while the retirees quarantine.
If we really want to get political then blame the government for the epidemics created by abstinence only sex education. If you want to help stop this then research and write about how to expedite a coronavirus vaccine.
1
only in a crisis will you see the quality of a great leader. 'Cometh the hour cometh the man'. I will start with Churchill; lets see who emerges in this world as a great modern leader....
55
@Terry F We already know. And it isn't the current incumbent.
7
Giuliani seemed to have a grasp of a difficult situation and that served him well. There also probably wasn't that big a delta between the image and reality. In the case of Trump, all he is is image. Whatever he's saying at a press conference or on twitter is an act and he's forgotten it by the time he gets back to the oval office. Most of us here are horrified but what we see and hear from him. Others somehow find him to be effective. Whether it bothers or comforts you, you should know that the delta between his image and what he's actually doing (very little) is huge.
2
A better comparison may be the contrast with Obama's handling of the Ebola outbreak. While it had little impact here there was much concern in the press. He had a plan, implemented it, and kept a steady demeanor throughout.
11
@BEK after 6 months and many more deaths than the Coronavirus has hit so far. Trump took care of it in 3 weeks.
@RS Took care of what? We are only seeing the tip of the viral iceberg at this point. It's going to get much worse before it gets better.
Considering the government overrode the pleading of the CDC and flew 14 sick people from that Diamond Princess cruise ship back to the U.S. on a plane with healthy people, I would say the response has been spotty at best.
And you do realize Ebola was far more lethal than easily transmitted than Coronavirus, yes?
I'm listening to the news, and just now heard the death toll in the U.S. is at eight people. I'm sorry for this. Very sorry. And I don't want to make light of a pandemic and possible world scourge. However, what if the lead story today and every day was 'four thousandth American dies from lack of health coverage.' These are preventable deaths. We are frightened of a virus for which we bear no responsibility, and even more frightened of a man who wants to reduce preventable deaths with Medicare for all. Crazy, crazy world.
9
Why does China's Chairman-for-life Xi get a pass? He presided over the emergence and proliferation of this contagion. Health Expert Xi has probably made the crisis worse by announcing that victims of coronavirus would be treated with "traditional Chinese medicine". They would be better off digging -- or in the case of China, repurposing -- mass graves.
And instead of announcing that he would put a stop to the behavior that spawned China's most recent outbreak of disease, Glorious Xi banned the wildlife trade "except for medicinal purposes." There are no medicinal purposes for wildlife. None.
Xi should be the object of scorn, not Trump.
1
@NorthernVirginia
There's enough scorn to go around.
1
"The realities of this virus shouldn’t be sanitized." And the dangers of this virus shouldn't be exaggerated either. Imagine if those of us in the US all just assumed that we will be exposed to the virus and there is nothing we , the ordinary citizens, can do to prevent that other than to wash our hands from time to time. (The government would still be in charge of travel bans and quarantines.) Anxiety exists because we think that there is something we can and should do to avoid coronavirus, like staying at home for months until a vaccine is developed. That is not a viable solution particularly if everyone adopts it. Just wash your hands and try not to outsmart the virus or anyone else.
3
I take a somewhat middle ground here.
I never thought that Giuliani was a particularly good mayor before the events of 9/11; I was a resident of Staten Island at the time and there was no mistaking his appeals to coded racist tropes regarding crime in his campaigns, especially to that population, which gave him his margin of victory.
It is true, though, that he struck the proper sober tone during the aftermath of those days, at least for a while. When the spotlight began to shift from local events to national ones--the Patriot Act and the like--he starting becoming more petulant. And, of course, he left office very shortly after.
And as for his personality now . . .well, let's say that the prostate cancer medications and therapies are known to have some, uh, major side effects.
6
I detest Trump and Pence's administration.
The news conference in which Pence introduced the experts who will be leading the response to the Coronavirus conveyed a commitment to reality-based expertise. I felt strongly encouraged by it. (Looks like if it's something that's immediately affecting the stock market, Trump is on it.) I've asked myself why has there been no positive coverage, or coverage at all of that encouraging ensemble? It would help us to know that there is a reasonably good competence at the top. At this time we need an objective media that is willing to praise the President if for some unusual reason he has resorted to reality based solutions. not just the usual ad nauseum feed on his characteristic dysfunction.
2
@Walter To
First of all, given this administration's record of lying, misleading, misdirection, blame-the-other-side-ism, there is no reason to believe anything that comes out of it.
Secondly, there is no such thing as "positive" coverage or "negative" coverage of something like this. Deaths are deaths. New cases are new cases. A plunging stock market is a plunging stock market. Those are called "facts," and like Joe Friday on "Dragnet," we just "want the facks, just the facks." And as stated above, we have very little experience getting them from this administration.
1
@Walter To When the CDC wants its name removed from a press release about repatriating sick Diamond Princess passengers, because the Health Dept. overruled the scientists and stick those 14 sick people on a plane with healthy people, we're not talking about reasonably good competence.
Oh, the idiocy of The Health Dept. saying 'we have a plastic wall on the plane. That will be sufficient for quarantine' and 'we have doctors aboard' -- what, because the presence of doctors will prevent the spread of disease? Insanity.
It probably doesn't matter what Trump says. Most of America isn't going to believe or trust it, anyway.
10
Knowing what we know now about Guiliani, it's ridiculous to think he could be given any position of leadership again. Besides, his fumbling and incompetence before and during 9/11 is well documented.
Against expert advice and common sense, Guiliani staged his disaster command center within the twin towers, despite a previous attack in 1993. When attacked again on 9/11 and they went down, he had no command center to coordinate effective response. His constant presence on television only gave an erroneous impression of effectiveness.
7
I think people are missing the point: That as bad as messed up as the Giuliani administration was, he at least recognized that in a crisis you have to put politics aside. You can either give him points for doing that, or less points for realizing that the BEST political action is to act like you're putting politics aside, whether you believe it or not.
It's also a bit tongue-in-cheek as Rudy now is portrayed on SNL as something between a zombie, a vampire, and a creep, with no morals at all.
The Bush admin at least faked concern well, but used it totally for political purposes to advance the Cheney-Rumsfeld agenda, and roll out the authoritarian Patriot Act (Maybe if we call something the Autocrat Act it will actually DEFEND our rights!) And, of course, 3 years later the Katrina catastrophe showed similar ineptness to now ("Heckuva job, Brownie!").
But most administrations learn from their mistakes, even the GWB admin. Bismarck remarked that a wise person didn't so much learned from their own mistakes but from OTHER people's mistakes! That was Obama in the Ebola crisis.
But Trump doesn't acknowledge his mistakes, therefore NEVER learns from them. Not once. Not ever. So he keeps messing up in crisis after crisis, and ALWAYS makes it political, to show how "brilliant" he is, and how "Inept and corrupt" Democrats are. He destroyed the safety nets Obama left SOLELY because Obama did it "so it's BAD, BAD, BAD!" (even when it's not). We're in trouble.
4
@Dadof2
“ It's also a bit tongue-in-cheek as Rudy now is portrayed on SNL as something between a zombie, a vampire, and a creep, with no morals at all.”
Spot on, I’d say.
2
@Dadof2
Yes, the Dems and the Leftist press are soooooo innocent.
They always report things EXACTLY as they are!
Nonsense.
But the Dems and the Leftist press can't help themselves.
They see an opening in politicizing this epidemic for a shot to remove Trump - so they're "all in".
I get it - they haven't "won one" in a long time so they have to grab onto to anything that they feel will work.
It doesn't matter people are ill or dying or that their hysteria is fueling the downturn on the markets so people are losing value in their retirement accounts.
Anything to beat, Trump, right?
1
This is like invoking the glory days of O.J. Simpson playing in the NFL.
What Simpson (and Giuliani) have done subsequently is so egregious that it blots out everything that came before it.
6
I've never understood the deification of Giuliani over his handling of 9/11. He stayed calm. That's not a small thing in a crisis, but it is part of the job description. If you can't stay calm in a crisis, then you've got no business being in politics.
Giuliani made plenty of mistakes. Such as putting the city's emergency offices in one of the World Trade Center buildings. You know, the place that had been the scene of a bombing seven or eight years earlier? One of the most high profile targets for terrorism in the city?
Also, I love how this op-ed is accompanied by a picture of Giuliani with Bernard Kerik! You know, the corrupt former NYC Police Commissioner, just pardoned by the corrupt president?
374
@Craig P: "Stayed calm"? Or was clueless, and busy looking for the cameras. Business as usual. And never, ever "America's Mayor", that's laughable.
33
@Craig P
Maybe they have no business being in politics if they can't stay calm, but look who is in the White House!
6
@Craig P
Giuliani was just as corrupt as
Kerik.
G also was very much like Trump,
a very angry man.
I interviewed both of them some 30 years ago.
When G. became Trump's lawyer, it
made sense. A good fit.
Finally, G. was not particuarly heroic
in his handling of 9/11.
He was calm because he was not
particularly upset for the people who had died in such a terrifying way.
G. was just pleased to have an opportunity to appear on TV as
"the man in charge."
A complete egomaniac.
27
Living in lower Manhattan during 9/11,
Anyone would have said the right thing - we contemporaneously noted that the closer to the site, the easier the right words came. For many, Jerry Hauer, the city's OEM director, was more important.
Giuliani's honeymoon dimmed over the following month and ended with his recommendation that his term limited 2nd term be extended.
4
@Bill Then Bloomberg came along and did take 3 terms. How in the heck are all these people STILL players on our stage?
1
Rudy Guiliani??? That was then.....THIS IS....NOW !!! The man has no credibility..NONE !!! It would not surprise me to hear that he and Shawn Hannity believe the Earth is flat and that we've Never actually been to the moon...because of course....those were Hoaxes promoted by the Deep State Democrats, Hillary Clinton, and the Lying Fake News Media !!!
11
I agree that it was reassuring to live in NY under Rudy in 9/11. However, Trump brings all of his close associates down to his level after prolonged contact. His crazy way or 'the highway' if you sign on, it is at your own peril.
We are in another national emergency now and I fear the same M.O. is clearly present. We need a true leader right now and for the foreseeable future.
5
I had a very enlightening conversation with a colleague in Italy yesterday. I was relating to her how for the first time in my lifetime, we cannot trust what our government was telling us. She laughed at first because disbelieving the Government is the default position in Italy.
Then it sunk in - we in the USA have never before been faced with a propaganda machine that trades in alternative facts. The new default position in the USA is that if Trump says it, it is false.
6
@bobbybow 3 1/2 years late is not too late.
1
@bobbybow
Watch ‘The Vietnam War’ by Ken Burns to be disabused of your impression. Pay special attention to the parts about Nixon.
2
@bobbybow
"Then it sunk in - we in the USA have never before been faced with a propaganda machine that trades in alternative facts."
You must be joking!
I would suggest that you Google:
"US Propaganda In History"
1
Sure, Rudy was humble--he had a lot to be humble about.
It was on his insistence, for the sake of convenience, that his personal "Batcave" emergency command center be located just a quick stroll from City Hall, at what turned out to be ground zero.
And let's not forget his "offer" after 9/11, to go around the City Charter and stay on as mayor beyond the legal term limit.
Bloomberg slipped that one over on us.
2
You know things are bad when Rudy is the better alternative.
15
Is it possible to praise Giuliani without bashing Trump?
Probably not.
Sigh!
LOL! Really? I never considered Giuliani "America's Mayor." He took a horrible event and used it as a prop for self-promotion. The real leaders were the public safety personnel, most of whom are battling various types of cancer from the tragedy. Giuliani did nothing but walk around the city with the TV cameras.
30
Almost 20 years ago, the Department of Homeland Security advised Americans to stock up on duct tape and plastic sheeting to seal ourselves in our houses in the event of a biological or chemical attack. Maybe that is good advise once again.
6
@MRod No, it's not. That may have been semi-reasonable in an attack, but not for an already-spreading virus epidemic. Wash your hands thoroughly, avoid crowds, no handshakes, no kissing, cough into your elbow and take care of your family.
1
@Slann I was being facetious!
I DO NOT long for Guliani.
7
Don't know what you are talking about; I always felt disgust when in Gulianni talked on TV. What reassurance? What did he know that every person did not?
6
When our safety is in question, be it from terrorism, communicable disease, or whatnot, we need to know that our leaders are in control of the situation. And Trump is out of control and far out of his depths. The only thing he is interested in managing is the official talking points.
12
We need another TV moment! Quick - round up the usual sycophants, sprinkled with a few legitimate professionals to serve as props for them. Then express shock - SHOCK! - that the facts contradict alternate reality!
Meanwhile, issue instructions that the rich soil being churned up by George Orwell spinning rapidly in his grave is to be farmed for additional fodder.
10
I live in Georgia. I've been a registered Democrat here since my 18th birthday. I've never voted for a Republican for governor, but I have to praise Gov. Brian Kemp for calmly, professionally announcing our state's first two coronavirus cases to the assembled press last night. He did not delay or cover it up. The press conference was announced via Twitter so everyone would have the opportunity to watch. He was flanked by state officials on the crisis response team, including the top public health officer. That's how you do it -- just do your job. Trump is utterly incapable of it.
269
@Sorka
Wrong. Trump took the essential action way back in January, which was the restricting flights from China. Absolutely correct, despite nasty opposition and absurd accusations of racism. That action has kept the US cases much lower than Europe's.
3
@Ted George
On January 31st, the administration finally starting screening people flying in from China.
But a friend of mine got off a cruise to Italy in the U.S. on Saturday, February 29th with nary a medical professional or thermometer in sight.
Europe got cases before we did because they are MUCH closer geographically. And also because a British man went there from Hong Kong before returning home.
Also, we frankly don't have any idea of how many cases we have, because unlike all of Europe we have only been able to test a handful. The administration claimed at its most recent press conference that 15,000 test kits would be distributed "soon". The CDC later clarified that they have actually sent out only 47.
As usual, the marketing team isn't talking to production.
31
@Ted George
Perhaps our initial numbers seemed so low because our initial testing had been so restrictive. If you don’t seek it out, you can state you don’t have it; Consequently our false low infection rate. The initial testing numbers on the West Coast were deplorable with a ridiculous criteria that ignored obvious symptoms. Hopefully negligence caused this, and not a deliberate attempt to mask the true #s of infected ( the Stock Market, you know).
13
Trump's, “healthy individuals should be able to fully recover,” would amount to the bluntest possible expression of the Republican survival of the fittest agenda ever uttered in polite company if polite company still had any place in the age of Trump.
12
I was at a fire house on Houston St. watching Rudy right after the catastrophe. It’s weird, but what I remember was he was lost and over-whelmed, panicked in fact. Not sure where this calm and in control myth comes from. At the time I was sympathetic, but sympathy has its limits.
35
@Mike Smith I've heard from folks who were downtown that he was a wreck, nearly collapsed, and that it was Pataki who held it together and basically held up Giuliani before the cameras. And as others have pointed out here, it was only a matter of days before he returned to his vindictive megalomaniacal self.
2
This essay provides a great example of what real leadership, political or otherwise, looks like. I remember watching Giuliani on 9/11 and the days immediately following. He was clearly heartbroken and didn’t try to hide it. Yet he found the strength to lead the city out of that terrible day. Among other things, he told people to go on with their lives. Otherwise, the terrorists win. He was truly inspiring, this thoroughly unlikable man, and more than once moved me to tears.
Our current political leaders are unworthy to stand in the same space that Giuliani occupied on 9/11.
4
You might mention another consequence of 9/11, the emergence of that opportunist Michael Bloomberg. He smelled blood in the water then, just as he does now with Joe Biden. Bloomberg rebuilt lower Manhattan so now it has become everything else he and his real estate buddies got their hands on, a playground for the rich. He also gave Goldman Sachs $1 billion in incentives to keep their HQ in NYC, after they made the absurdly hollow threat of moving to Jersey City. Bloomberg is a crony capitalist of the highest order, and the only way he can deal with mere mortals is through his slickly managed propaganda. The only match between him and Donald Trump I'd like to see is in a UFC competition.
8
That was Giuliani then. Now, 19 years later, with advancing age a much looser grip on reality, not so much.
12
@EskieF Exactly. Not the same Rudy.
3
Interesting to recall how effective Giuliani was on 9/11, but there's a world of difference between responding to a sudden, spectacular disaster that took thousands of lives in a matter of minutes and responding to one happening in slow motion whose dimensions are still uncertain. What's really notable is how trustworthy Giuliani was nearly 20 years ago compared to the utterly untrustworthy person he is today. I suspect the downslide began when he began exploiting his fame as "America's mayor" in his newfound profession of "security consultant." The richer he got, the more autocrats he lobbied, and the more homes he bought, the smaller he became. Not exactly a "tragic fall," but a familiar one.
8
@Charles Michener He was never trustworthy. Ask any New Yorker.
I long for President Bloomberg.
6
Hindsight with rose colored glasses is nostalgic fantasy, not opinion.
14
Worst mistake one can make in a crisis? Not knowing you’re in a crisis. The shortsightedness and abject lack of humility Trump has shown time and again will not let his mind go there, and for that we are in peril.
10
On 9/11, Guiliani's conduct seemed calm, professional and sensible, which was a shock to many of us. But his behavior appeared more virtuous by the comparison to bumbling Bush, who was flying around the country that morning like a fugitive on the lam. Bush along with Condi had dismissed recent warnings from security effortsof planes flying into buildings. Rudy in a public fight prior to 9/11 had insisted on placing the City's emergency center in the World Trade Center against security experts' recommendations.
What I long for is the leadership of Barack Obama during the Ebola crisis. Smart, sensible, calming and successful.
26
This reminds me of the misty-colored nonsense occasionally proffered with pining for George W. Bush because "at least he's not Trump."
Our country deserves better than Trump, the Bushes, AND Giuliani in times of normality AND in times of crisis! None of them were able to put their egos aside and adequately govern!
9
@Joel We deserve who we vote for. And no whining about the electoral college. It's been in place for a long time and it could have/still can be changed. The people must impress upon their legislator to do so.
@Chaz Most people don't vote, so in a sense, you're correct.
I long for someone like Mike Bloomberg to be in charge; you know, someone who can assemble a team and run things.
3
Thank you for the reminder of when Giuliani was sane and often (but not always) considerate.
Regarding the modern-day Giuliani - "Gollum" - what a perfect analogy! Looking for his stolen ring of power, I guess.
3
I was at the World Financial Center on 9/11. I continued to stay for 72 hours and work (at another location) downtown after the towers fell. I was part of the first group of workers to permanently return to WFC just weeks after 9/11. I am not certain where this writer was, but no one in the know at the firm I was affiliated with thought Rudy Giuliani, President Bush or Christine Todd Whitman (all Republicans) did a good job for the public. And with what we know now, holding up Giuliani as a role model for 9/11 response is laughable.
94
@artfuldodger1
I remember Whitman lying on NewsChannelOne ( a local news station) saying that it was save to be there, that the air was fine.
Even then, the Republican leaders would lie about anything just to stay in power. Many of the cancer victims were Republicans but they were not the power Republicans, and they did not matter at all.
1
@artfuldodger1 I was there too - lived in the neighborhood. No one who was actually there ever thought Guiliani was doing a good job....ever.
1
Doesn't really matter who is doing the communication, it is what's in it that matters. Trump and Pence have been wrong on everything so far. There aren't a million test kits available from the feds, a vaccine won't be ready for at least a year, ALL people need to be aware and take cautionary measures, the list goes on and on. And, just to be clear, all Rudy did was talk.
I won't miss any of them, now or ever.
43
My memory is that for a couple of days Guillani was able to channel the pain of the city. Then he began to think whatever he was feeling was what the rest of us were feeling. And that is when he became or went back to being the cruel vindictive Guillani he had always been.
I remember gagging when Oprah Winfrey at some event called him America's Mayor. I still very strongly associate her with that shameful comment.
16
Comparing Guiliani to Trump is most appropriate. As incompetent and self serving as Rudi is, he is at least capable of understanding problems and compassion. Trump is completely incapable of feeling compassion for anyone or adequately able to address problems beyond simple addition and subtraction of single digit numbers.
If the corona virus ends up killing thousands of Americans it will be all that more difficult for Trump as well as all members of the GOP to win any elections this November.
It would indeed be a strange irony if the deaths of Americans ended up saving our democracy.
3
Why did he put the Emergency Command Center in a proven terrorist target and handicap the emergency response? If Giuliani appeared calm, it was probably because he was heavily sedated with alcohol.
24
This is a rose colored view. His mayoralty was one of division and outrage, marked by burgeoning class inequality and racism.
40
Is your article a way to rehabilitate a person who has finally showed his true nature?
If Rudy Giuliani was a REAL honorable man he wouldn’t have worked for a very dubious, murky individual like Trump.
It’s not the case and his past can’t be deleted because Rudy is even today giving a hand to destroy this country.
11
We're stuck with a do-nothing President in a do-something situation. Please understand why 2017 was a grand parade on Wall Street. Unlike Trump people were quite sure that Clinton would do something when everybody was sure that you only needed to leave well enough alone! Were they right? We'll never know. Trump could never sit still and look busy. People knew something was wrong when he couldn't quit Twitter. Why? It's the tool of a demagogue whom Wikipedia defines as a person, "who gains popularity in a democracy by exploiting emotions, prejudice, and ignorance to arouse the common people against elites, whipping up the passions of the crowd and shutting down reasoned deliberation". Trump under fire is no President. He's a windbag who changes into a panic artist during a crisis. Now suppose this coronavirus is seasonal. It subsides then returns a year later. Do you really want the Trump gang running the government?
19
@Daedalus "panic artist" is the best description I've heard all day.
Bring back the old days of Guiliani and Kerik.
Where is Guiliani these days?
Traveling around COVID-19 infected Europe and looking for incriminating evidence against the Bidens?
They had better quarantine him upon his return to the US, for if that novel coronavirus is smart it will infect him and thereby facilitate its spread throughout the world as Rudy has intimate connections to everyone's ear.
8
You may forget the Rudy Giuliani was on his way out when September 11 occurred . He had already turned himself out to be a henchman mayor, ingratiating himself with fewer and fewer New Yorkers. He capitalized on 9/11 as a PR move, and has been acquiring with each year, a new level of sleaze and dishonesty which has culminated in his deeper associations with Donald Trump. Don’t long for Rudy Giuliani , it would be like trading one lethal virus for another.
34
The president will have a news conference tonight during tv reporting on Super Tuesday. He won't miss an opportunity like that to get maximum exposure.
7
The negative:
I will never forget that when he ran for senator (remember?) he made big deal about the so-called "Elephant dung Madonna." He fiendishly politicized religion for his own political gains and to the delight of the Brooklyn Museum which saw upticks in attendance and donations. As a Christian Orthodox I was offended that he saw himself as the sole defender of the Virgin Mary as though She was sole property of the Catholic Church.
The positive:
I will always remember his calm, cool, and collected composure post 9/11. All eleven of my then local FDNY members of Engine 160 and Rescue 5 were gone. Around the city I had eleven friends in FDNY and NYPD and it took eleven days for me to learn they were all alive and working the pile.
During that time of doubt I took comfort in Rudy's leadership.
And then....
3
What has the presidential race or Trump to do with Coronavirus. So many people and bloggers turn any event into a Trump issue. Enough!
4
@lieberma
Of course it's a Trump issue. What kind of person do you want in the Presidency in a time of crisis?
5
@lieberma. Trump got rid ofthe pandemic response team at the CDC and proposed a 19% budget cut for the same. THAT'S what our leader has to do with Covid 19.
11
@lieberma Good question! I'd say as far as policy effectiveness against the coronavirus, trump indeed has nothing to do with it. Now, if it "disappears" in a "miracle", we can then credit him with psychic abilities, right?
Perhaps you haven't noticed, but trump manages, in every talk or speech and every tweet, to turn things into "trump issues". Without fail.
4
President DonaldTrump
made a commitment to donate his salary while in office. Honoring that promise and to further protect the American people, he is donating his 2019 Q4 salary to
@HHSGov to support the efforts being undertaken to confront, contain, and combat #Coronavirus.
*No doubt Speaker Pelosi is going to do the same thing.
Thank you, Jennifer, for your brilliant take on this crisis.
What would the world do without the NYT Opinion Page?
4
@P&L Yes, he did forsake his $400,000 yearly salary, but he also, immediately upon his election, raised the annual Mar-a-Lago club fee from $100,000 to $$200,000. He's also spent well in excess of $100,000,000 in travel expenses for golf at HIS resorts, where the Secret Services agents pay ridiculous hotel room and board fees.
Pay attention to the man behind the curtain, P&L.
1
Oh Lordy, Jennifer longs for Giuliani.
The same man who put the Command Center across the street from the World Trade Center, the site of the first terrorist bombing. Because, as we know, the criminal never returns to the scene of the crime.
Truly, the mind reels.
15
@Will Flaherty Also the same man who never dealt with the communication problems between the fire and police department and other fire department communication issues, although fully warned after the first World Trade Center bombing. Many died because of the communication failures. Guiliani was and is
a fraud.
4
"Believe it or not, after 9/11 “America’s mayor” was calm, honest and humble — three things our president can’t manage."
Absolutely true.
2
I lived through the SARS scare in the SF bay area. Not much was said because not much was known....people there were terrified and we saw many people wearing masks daily. The city shut down.
This one is less deadly (statistically) but maybe more scary because it spreads so easily.
Seems like the 2 things a president could emphasize is
1. fast tracking vaccine development and
2. trying to block flights from countries enveloped in the spread of the virus.
Trump did both, and early.
I agree he is not Mr. Articulate. True. But I think he gets the main points right, even if his personality is somehow viewed as worse than Satan himself, which I think is clearly a reflection on those who think him "that bad."
5
@KB We don't have to "think" him that bad. He has proven time and again that he is that bad.
1
Nicely stated.
1
giuliani is now a complete nut job.
68
I don't remember Guiliani saying a damn thing about it not being safe to work at the 9-11 site, and I didn't see him testfiying before Congress every year when the Congress would try to shortchange healthcare for 9/11 responders.
76
There have been many dark days in the recent history of the House, but shortchanging first responders in need probably ranks at the top.
9
I was living on the UWS on 9/11. In the days that followed, the mayor did what any mayor would have/should have done. You don't get special treatment for doing your job.
36
This is such an interesting reading of Giuliani's manner and presentation during that critical period. I remember those TV appearances as well, and, though I didn't live in the city at the time and still relatively young, I saw only a smart politician at the end of his mayoral term who saw an opportunity to redeem his miserable and divisive legacy and transcend the politics of a city, where he was strongly disliked in many neighborhoods, by stepping into the national spotlight. The writer contrasts the more recent Giuliani of cable news rants with this calm, supposedly competent mayor, but somehow misses the context of the years leading up to 2001 and how divisiveness and incompetence of his mayoralty, which, not surprisingly, was much more consonant with the Rudy of 2020. I'm not so sure that his self possession in the aftermath of 9/11 "was impossible to fake."
18
One thing Trump said that really irked me was how it might dissipate in warmer weather.
Well thanks. While if in the unlikely event that is the case, I guess the entire southern hemisphere, which is heading towards winter, can just be written off.
10
@Bill Have you heard of the "lifeboat theory"?
2
As Anthony DePalma writes in City of Dust, later in the day on Sept. 11, 2001 Giuliani pressured Chancellor Harold Levy to reopen Lower Manhattan public schools on Sept. 12. Levy refused. Giuliani did this even though he could not have known if that action would put student's lives in danger.
We also know and DePalma writes that Giuliani gave assurances about the quality of air in Lower Manhattan as early as Sept. 12. He could not have known whether the air was dangerous or not because EPA had just started testing that day.
These are just two of a long list of examples that could be cited to show that in terms of his actions, the things he did not the image he projected, Giuliani was a poor leader before, on, and after 9/11.
49
Yes, in the bigger picture, Giuliani’s handling of 9/11 was nothing to celebrate. He covered up vital facts about the risks of the site, he abandoned first responders and everyone else who labored on and around the pile when health problems became apparent. His flaws came to the forefront again quickly and caused a ton of additional harm.
But I lived in NYC at the time and I think this column is correct on some important points. Giuliani presented a calm, humane, and capable appearance to people who needed reassurance, he stuck to facts and was mostly honest.
He could have done much better, especially as the days went on, if his policies and decisions had matched his public appearances. And it’s vital not to forget that.
I think most of us around the globe will come down with this. It is too easily spread for it to be contained, despite the heroic efforts.
Among other things, what happens when the President and the top two Democratic contenders are all in the high-risk category?
5
@Bill To quote the fraud, "We'll see."
Or, if you'd prefer: ""It's going to disappear. One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear,"
7
@Bill They all have chronic, long term health issues?
Do you also long for Christine Todd Whitman?
From Wikipedia:
"Whitman appeared twice in New York City after the September 11 attacks to inform New Yorkers that the toxins released by the attacks posed no threat to their health.[28]
On September 18, the EPA released a report in which Whitman said, "Given the scope of the tragedy from last week, I am glad to reassure the people of New York and Washington, D.C. that their air is safe to breathe ...."
She also said, "The concentrations are such that they don't pose a health hazard ... We're going to make sure everybody is safe."[29]
A 2003 report by the EPA's Inspector General determined that the assurance was misleading, because the EPA "did not have sufficient data and analyses" to justify it.[30]
Of the volunteers who searched the debris of 11 September for the impossible survivors, how many have died? And from what diseases?
37
Did you read the column?
The writer isn’t “longing” for Giuliani to be in charge. She’s taking some points from his behavior after 9/11 in order to illustrate what’s so appallingly missing from Trump & co.’s approach now.
Rudy made a mess of his 9/11 response in other ways. His actions then do not offer a good complete model for crisis management. And the column isn’t suggesting that they do.
I had a similar reaction to yours when I read the title. I thought oh god no, not more flimsy Rudy hagiography. He was a lousy mayor! Don’t let a few decent days cover all that up!
But the piece isn’t doing any of that. It selects a few points from 9/11 Rudy and shows how the Trump gang can’t even do that much.
92
@Robert Killheffer I had the same reaction as you, which goes to show how few of us bother to read full paragraphs of anything anymore. Thanks for reading it for me. And perhaps the Times could be a bit less wily in its choice of headline (and photo).
1
@Robert Killheffer Yes that his her point. That it sad, ironic, that Guilani looks good in retrospect.
1
Ha!
The NYT spends months shoving manure Guliani's way during the impeachment fiasco.
Now all of a sudden the NYT sings praises to him.
Are you for reals?
8
@AutumnLeaf Did you read the article? The author specifically contrasts Giuliani's demeanor post 9/11 with his current role as the "yowling Gollum of basic cable" (a great line btw). A person can perform well in one situation and then terribly 19 years later in a different situation.
12
@AutumnLeaf please read the article. Rudy then and Rudy now are clearly, and sadly, contrasted.
2
@Sarah He has also had considerable time to morph. Gollum wasn't built in a day.
Spot on. It’s terrifying to live with this threat when we have no reason to trust that this administration will defer to science and take action to protect people according to their needs. Trump is for Trump, not the American people. Giuliani was a despot and a bully in his earlier incarnation, but I had faith in his belief that there were principles and structures that were bigger than he was. That’s not the case anymore. Birds of a feather....
132
@Kyla K
Dr. Anthony Fauci is being silenced and forced to run anything past Pence.
The inmates are running the asylum and the only sane person there is being sqelched.
8
Jennifer thank you for this very thoughtful analysis. I live in Seattle where we have had six deaths so far. The topic of conversation with nearly everyone I encounter is the Coronations and the death count. When I drove into work today traffic was unusually light, were people staying home I wondered. In the Trader Joes I go to the shelves were emptied of things like pasta sauce, pasta, canned soups. Go anywhere in town to a store and you cant find a roll of toilet paper.
I was disgusted by trumps address. At a time when we want information and reassurance he takes a poke at Democrats. I suppose it was asking too much for reassurance from a narcissistic bombastic bully. So what does he do hide behind the wax museum figure, Mike Pence. This entire administration is so wrong. We need to end this nightmare.
441
@Steve
Sorry for the auto-correction of "Coronavirus".
15
@Steve Thanks for the clarification, but any apology is unnecessary. What might otherwise seem to be non sequitur is oddly appropriate to this administration, and as you say, so wrong.
19
@Steve No harm, no foul. It’s not as if it came out ‘covfefe’!
15
Rudy? I quote John Mulaney “Yeah, because no one else was mayor that day.” He was/is an amoral opportunist.
93
@Daniel
Thank you for that. So very true. I lived downtown.
8
@Daniel
Excellent.
Cheers.
2
Can’t believe someone actually living in NYC would say Giuliani handled 911 well.
55
Oh please. he was just doing his job more or less. And of course his decision to place the emergency center for NYC in the WTC was of course, another masterstroke.
18
"...After Sept. 11, “America’s mayor” was calm, honest and humble...
And a splendid warm-up act for you-know-who...
6
What is this narrative that Trump has “botched” or compromised our response to Coronavirus?
Right now there are six fatalities and about 60 new cases (excluding repatriations) in a nation of 330 million people.
Yes, it is likely to get worse but get real.
Trump Delusion Syndrome giving way to mass hysteria.
5
@Francis You do realize that there are more than 60 cases... many people have symptoms but are unable to get tested. There is less testing happening in this country than in any other... that is called "botching" our response to Coronavirus.
9
@Francis Is it TDS to underscore the fact that Trump's administration cut significant funding to CDC and other scientific agencies that are instrumental to providing quicker reaction to COVID-19? Including development of a possible vaccine, understanding the patterns of its spread, and adopting adequate precautions?
This administration has made removal of science and its methods one of its cornerstone policy. And we're about to see how well the quasi-theocracy of Pence, DeVos, and other Evangelicals embedded in this administration do to "pray away the virus" or send it to viral conversion therapy.
6
@Francis
No one is hysterical all people want is the truth kits that work. Give us accurate information and we can take care of ourselves
Unfortunately a large majority of us don’t have health care coverage so it’s walking time bombs who can’t afford to go to a hospital and take time off
Wonder how the GOP realize that as they think of ways to destroy Americans health care is front and center. The Supreme Court better realize that
The virus can strike anyone , we see age doesn’t matter young and old
Trump administration tell the truth this is not a hoax and Rush does have cancer or he is on weight watchers
1
First off it is the republican party that has botched the virus response. trump and all his action are on the party they own it.
10
He may have projected an air of calm reassurance but the actual details of his pre- and post-event incompetence are profoundly disturbing.
38
Al Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center and failed. They said they would try again, and succeeded the second time.
Rudy had put command and control in the World Trade Center, the only specific target they had named. The communication between firemen and police was bad, and many firemen died.
He has been praised for how he acted afterwards, but handled prevention miserably.
Also, how can you just ignore how he has acted recently, spreading lies about our own honest diplomats and many others. He is simply awful and incoherent on TV now. Can that really be what you are hoping for.
32
@Jerry S
Ms Senior, it seems, was hoping for the Rudy of 9/11, not the one of 3/3/2020. Then again, he did not go "Bambi" and then into hiding like Bush.
Reminding us all that Rudy used to be a sane and moderately intelligent human being only accentuates how corrupting and corrosive this President and Administration are. People who become a part of this Administration seem to lose their sense of decency, truthfulness and civility all to serve their leader. Giuliani is simply one of the most dramatic examples of his phenomenon.
10
@Dennis W
Yes he was sane ,divorced his wife on the 12 o’clock news. Had an affair with a staff member .
Trump goes skiing with girlfriend Marla while wife is on the same slope at the same time
These white men abuse women and believe they should be worshipped
Chris Mathews was forced to retire and these two fools are destroying America
It’s very sad that we don’t have anyone who can teach our president to do humility and humanity in a crisis, to admit that we don’t have all the answers, that things will get worse before they get better, that we will do everything we can to keep the elderly and infirm alive through this. Giuliani was amazing after Sept 11. Old age has really messed him up.
2
@Mark Josephson
Old age messes a good many of us up, and eventually messes all of us down. Have fun. It's later than you know.
1
@Mark Josephson '...someone who can teach our president humility and humanity...' wasn't that what Ivanka was for?
All Trump is thinking about now is how to make Coronavirus work to his advantage. Most likely we will be hearing more "strong border" and "wall" speeches, this time with regards to the invading virus. The base will love him. The rest of us will despise him. And the electoral college will decide things. There will be lots more propaganda and wishful thinking and cover-ups before we come out on the other side of this mess. To compare Trump to the Giuliani of 20 years ago is to compare a mentally-ill narcissist to a normal person.
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What does Lev Parnas have to say about the coronavirus?
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There are no saviors. There are no daddies to save us. That is the message of the misplaced gauzy views of Rudy Guiliani in the aftermath of 9/11. These leaders are kooks. And likely, to borrow baseball stathead nomenclature, a replacement level human being would have been as reassuring as Rudy was because most humans are capable of empathy and concern and reassurance. Stop looking backwards and it's time to grow up and be the adults we already are.
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I read the times every day and it is so sad that people like you blame trump for everything.never a good word about all the good things the that he has done. let me tell you we are done if Biden or crazy Bernie gets in.
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@nick we all look at things from our own viewpoint, but how can you suggest that allowing mining companies to despoil streams with tailings is a good thing? i know that some people would say that's important to lessen the regulatory burden on companies so they can produce goods and make money, but at what cost? And there's a long, long list of similar actions that he and his administration have taken.
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@nick One thing I absolutely love about Trump is that he helped ignite the Me Too movement. So there you go, I said a good word about him!
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@nick All the good things he has done? Can you name, say, three?
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I watched Vice President Pence dodge that question about Disneyland, which seemed perfectly reasonable and given the state of the epidemic (pandemic?) could have been answered in a way that assured a skittish public. All it took was a dose of humanity. Instead, he turned to his experts, and left the question unanswered. Not impressed with his leadership all. His pathetic political instincts are too finely tuned for that.
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As some of us Americans head to the Primary polls today, perhaps this virus is a good chance to define how we want leadership - both in calm and in crisis - to look like, act like, speak, and make decisions.
1. Maturity, integrity, honesty, intelligence, self-discipline, and wisdom under pressure
2. A compassionate and dignified sense of team-building, of a definable and inclusive 'us' .
3. A reliance on qualified experts for advice and guidance
4. Clearly taking seriously the concerns and fears of Americans, all Americans.
5. Creative agile in thinking, restraint and maturity in expression, unselfish and kind in demeanor.
6. Financially responsible to allocate resources to best help (all) Americans
Let us PLEASE choose our next President and their team with this lens firmly in place.
Guiliani? No. Just, no! Not then, not now, not ever.
But the corona virus is telling us, unambiguously - we absolutely must do better!
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Oh yeah. The firemen's equipment didn't work so when they were told to evacuate they did not hear. The city's headquarters for emergencies were in the WTC. The building had not passed tests for fireproofing-- it was supposed to be four hours until the beams failed -- the buildings were erected at the moment when a replacement for asbestos was first being used and the beams were probably not properly treated. The WTC made me very nervous the first time I set foot in the building -- it seemed underbuilt and the construction shoddy. Oh yeah, Giuliani -- utter ego maniac which is why bus stop signs are tilted out to the street and very high... not low and turned into the sidewalk where actual living people can read them... Anything else.
Trump hasn't done much except for firing too many at the CDC which for some reason those who remained botched the reagents for the testing kits. What a miracle that we can test for the virus.
Commonsense is totally lacking as is compassion. The ill need to be cared for; the rest of us need to not touch our faces, wash with soap hands.. and get proper food and rest. It will be fine.. We do not have the pollution problem of China.. nor do we sell bush meat so far as I know.
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@Anna
The Trump administration botched the testing kits. The CDC is not in charge the Trump flunky is , who has systematically destroyed the department and when they were questioned by the political they couldn’t answer the questions
Since Trump is in the alternate universe the administration can’t even speak about what is going on. So many lies, the Trump administration doesn’t know up from down and they just don’t care
Jennifer: You're looking at Giuliani through rose-colored glasses. His true colors emerged when he became Trump's attorney.
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Wow..that's a pretty low bar!
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I think you mean to say all hat, no cattle. I know Trump is a city slicker who has only ever seen a horse when he killed one at a race track. However, the sentiment describes the administration perfectly.
Coronavirus isn't like 9/11 at all. This is a Katrina moment. Something that happens unintentionally. However the tragedy is made worse through negligence, incompetence, and, yes, racism and politics.
People will die anyway. However, more people will die because Trump lacks intelligence and humility. That's the story here. No one sent a plane avenging thirty years of American political hypocrisy. The virus is a storm. It's not a living thing. The storm doesn't care what home it destroys. That's very different than 9/11.
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No. Just No.
Guillani did not warn first responders about the toxins they were breathing in for months post 911.
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@Vanessa
Remember when Christine Whitman from NJ said there weren’t anything toxic. We all remember the lies of Rudi and the bush administration
The govt is paying for the sick first responders because Jon Stewart stood up for them yet many died before the law after 18 years was passed,
He profited from it to make himself look like a hero, in the meantime it is his fault the emergency response center was in the World trade Center and what about the lack of communication between firemen and police, lacking radios?
Guiliani's claim to fame was getting rid of squeegee men on the Bowery. And when you think of what he has become now, Trumps corrupt lap dog, he is even more sickening.
And yes , and the wives....
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Giuliani flat out lied about the presence of asbestos and other toxins in the rubble of the trade centers thereby sentencing first responders to painful deaths from lung ailments.
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@JAN My family lived on Chambers Street near the Hudson River and neither we, nor our elected officials (such as Jerrold Nadler) could get a straight answer about the environmental conditions around our home in the months after 9/11. My feeling then as now is leaders like Giuliani and Bush "played well on television" - while not handling the crisis that well in other ways. The NY Times did not do the best job covering it either, unfortunately. I remember an article, "Looking Downtown, With Feeling" - that article and letters in response give a more accurate view of Giuliani's performance as well as the performance of the NY Times (in terms of reporting the genuine problems not being acknowledged or addressed). Thank you for you comment JAN, I could not agree more.
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@JAN
Christine Todd Whitman, Bush's head of the EPA and former governor of NJ, cleared everyone to return to work downtown after two weeks. I did not believe her then. Boy, was I right.
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@JAN
Well, partly true. But by the weekend basic common sense told any reasonable observer that 1. search and rescue was long past futile and 2. that inhaling whatever was burning in there could not possibly be good. Yet there were mobs of personnel down there for what amounted to emotional reasons. Imagine the outcry had they tried to force firemen off that pile. Certainly the EPA and NYC undersold the risks further down the road and let workers return to the area too soon, but lets be real -- in the immediate aftermath folks didn't stay down there because they were ill informed about the health risks. They could have cared less.
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We all change over time, sometimes for the better and then sometimes... well there's Rudy. But be patient for as Trump rocks and rolls with Barr you may see Rudy back in town as AG! Not a good thought but he would seem to fit in. As for Pence, even though his reality is very different than yours or mine he can at least sound articulate even if he doesn't know what he's talking about - being able to put a sentence together gives him a decided advantage over his boss.
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There is no simple answer to the coronavirus. The one thing President Trump indisputably did do well was so quickly close the border to travelers from affected regions. He did that despite criticism from the Left and it's clearly the best thing he could have done. Anyone who disputes that is only interested in politicizing.
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This is some wild revisionist history, or at least some incredibly rosy glasses.
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@B. L. I respectfully disagree. I was in lower Manhattan on 9/11 and remember the time described in the essay well. Giuliani had many faults as mayor and many many many more now, but on 9/11 and in the days after he was a steady leader that helped New York City during perhaps its most difficult days. It is striking what he became after he left office but at the time he was an extraordinary leader to a City that desperately needed it.
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@dscs16
Yes, the "missing" persons lie that went on for days, weeks, and months. As if there were ever any survivors. Lying is not leadership. People need the truth as quickly as possible so that they can react and make decisions. Everyone was suspended in a limbo state for far too long.
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This isn’t the same Giuliani.
You don’t want this one.
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@Grove
Or the other Giuliani, for that matter.
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Most of what Ms. Senior says is helpful. But this: "Let’s hope that when he and his team finally get around to it, their answers are humane and forthright" This is the analytical equivalent of curling into the fetal position. Anyone who's been paying any attention to the Trump administration should know better by now than to "hope" for humane and forthright behavior.
I don't mean just to nit-pick Ms. Senior. She represents a larger failure on the part of journalists, public health reps, and others, to recognize the likelihood, if not the certainty, that the Trump administration will put its political interest above public health and the public interest, and so botch this crisis, with dire results. The plain truth is that we're facing two crises: one public health, and a political crisis of authoritarian and sociopathic leadership whose political DNA--lie, misinform, demonize--leaves them simply incapable of not making the first crisis much worse.
I know, it's hard to believe that they could be that bad. But, well--they are, aren't they?
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Yes, he was fine and reassuring for part of the day, but just look at the first picture in the article. They took the time to set up a podium in the middle of the street to make it look official. This was all done live, on camera. I remember them working on it for almost an hour, getting it just right. Waiting and waiting for the mayor to speak when he finally makes his way there.
Anyhoo, he later sold us out for votes when he ran for president. All he could say was 9/11 again and again during the debates.
Many of us had ashes on our clothes that day, but only one tried to trade it in for political gold.
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Rudi always loved the camera and the spotlight. You notice once the buzz about 9/11 responders faded and they needed healthcare, he was nowhere to be found. Fortunately Jon Stewart filled the void to advocate before Congress.
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@Dave I lived in New York City during Rudy's tenure as mayor. One of the wags about town, probably a columnist, I can't remember which one, remarked that the most dangerous place in New York was between Rudy Giuliani and a microphone.
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@Dave
Any more, I find myself thinking that voters should flee in disgust and terror from anyone who *wants* to be elected to public office. I know that's awful, and that there have been great elected leaders, but it seems that the lure of personal aggrandizement and (barf) wealth of public office draws far too many sociopaths, preeners and freaks.
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9/11 happened in the space of a few hours. The coronavirus is playing out in slow motion over weeks and months. It will also reveal Trump's incompetence and malevolence in real time.
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@Charles Justice
greattttttttttttt post Charles. thanks to jon stewart. stewart still goes to all fundraising shows for vets(all vets)firefighters (stewart is from jersey)and cops. but especially all of the firefighters.
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@jennifer t. schultz
Jon Stewart has been the hero of New Yorkers for years. We love him because he had the platform to take these traitors on and he never forgot any of us,
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A lot of people seem fixated with the messenger, Giuliani versus trump. But forget the messenger, and consider the message. At least Giuliani provided facts. Trump wouldn't know a fact if he saw it in front of him. It's all about him and it's all about dissing the democrats.
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@bill
Giuliani never mentioned the poisoned air and surface contaminants within a very large area surrounding the bombed buildings. The brave men and women who came to find body parts and clean the area are still dying from contaminant caused CANCER.
No effective face masks, hazemat suits, gloves came up as a topic of Giuliani's Fireside Chats.
Mayor Giuliani wanted a third term as mayor, and said nothing.
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If only the President would preface any statements regarding the Federal government’s coronavirus response with ,”I have a plan for that...” I would feel so much more confident.
8
Fred,
yeah, so much better to hear, "we're ordering elements of medical." What does that tell us?
Trump is a moron and conspiracy theories are not going help us.
Blue wave 2020 !
Giuilain's actions in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attack was perhaps briefly reassuring to the majority of the public. However, it was absolutely not competence: it was megalomania that for people dazed by the horrific events of that day in 2001 may have inspired some confidence and provided a version of calm. As it became clear over time, he did not act responsibly throughout that period, he was not honest in all respects, and many felt that with his obsessive need to be in charge or in the limelight, he actually got in the way of needed responses by actual professionals. I am disappointed to see a Times columnist be taken in by Giuliani, especially in light of his recent behavior which is completely unhinged. In 2001, it was merely mildly unhinged, and the results were a mixture of both good and bad.
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@PMJ The article correctly contrasts the leaders' initial responses, not longer efforts to inform and/or comfort. On 9/11 "America's Mayor" did his job well. Later behavior is irrelevant to that.
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@BMac I suppose I wasn't clear enough. Although I acknowledged in my comment that many people may have been comforted by Mayor Giuliani's macho assertiveness and felt that they were being kept informed, it was abundantly clear to many on the day of the attack that Giuliani's behavior was more appearance than substance and that it was later understood that his presence at Ground Zero on that day was disruptive to first responders; furthermore, right from the start, he was a source of disinformation, much of which proved harmful to fire personnel, police, and others. Ask some veterans of the NYFD and NYPD about that, or about how they felt every time they saw Giuliani in his NYFD cap and jacket in the front row box seats in Yankee Stadium, ever calling attention to his would-be heroism. If you read Jonathan Mahler's in-depth portrait and recollection of Guiliani that appeared in the Times Magazine in January, you will understand that Giuliani has never wavered in being a 'shamelessly deceitful, power-hungry, 'publicity-obsessed' man. Even though some may derive comfort from such a man in a position of power, I would say that it is not such a good thing. Hence, my disagreement with the piece we are both commenting on. Instead of a Giuliani, or a blindly religious stick figure like Mike Pence, the spokespeople in a time of crisis like the one we have now should be knowledgeable professionals: epidemiologists, public health experts, virologists.
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I, too, lived through 9/11 living in NYC.
I know that Guiliani is praised with his steady leadership throughout the crises, but I guess I don't really recall it at all. I recall him telling people not to bring any more socks to the piers - literally that level of detail - but that is all I recall.
Anyone else live there at the time and in my same boat of not recollecting this?
I do recall, though, feeling as if we knew as much as we could know at the time. There wasn't a level of distrust with the government there is now nor was there twitter or facebook or instagram to share information and disinformation.
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I agree with you. Rudy said the right thing that day, but after that not much. Who let the firefighters work the pile without protection? It was obvious that no one would be found alive after the first day. Waiting until they had the proper equipment would have saved lives.
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Of course, that sad tragic day was a Tuesday.
Well I certainly don't. Guliani was a terrible mayor and is an even worse person.
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Giuliani is in lock down. You won't see him again in public.
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@Scott
Bellevue hospital i hope
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Giuliani covered the basics during 9/11 - it was all anyone could do and it was serviceable. The rest of his time as mayor cannot be so glibly pushed to the background because of his response to that terror attack. That's just ridiculous. The guy's behavior as mayor was abominable and the courts had to frequently correct him as he sought to bully everyone he didn't like. Before 9/11, Giuliani had a 20% approval rating - everyone was sick of the guy. To keep touting his response to 9/11 is just an exercise in history revisionism. He was a terrible mayor. His true colors are what you've been seeing lately. He's a rotten man and I wish people would stop rehashing his 9/11 performance to gloss over all the hateful, divisive, criminal behavior on show before the attack - and, more recently, once again on display.
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@Joe I agree with a lot of what you wrote here and I too lived through 9/11 while in lower Manhattan. But I don't think the author is glossing over anything. She is just comparing Giuliani's response to Trump's response, which were markedly different in many respects. He was a steady, and to many people, an inspirational leader during an awful period, even though he was in many respects before that a poor mayor.
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Joe is on the mark. Excellent comments.
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@Joe
Exactly correct. Giuliani did his job during 9/11, no more and no less. We sometimes forget that elected officials are supposed to be leaders during crises, probably because many of them are so incompetent.
And the Trump Administration seems to have hidden him away lately, perhaps finally realizing that he is an unstable crackpot. And in this administration that's really saying something.
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Coronavirus is not September 11th. Not even close. Trump's reaction to it I find adequate.
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@Crow Not close yet. But it could be. It could be worse in the long run. Which could be mitigated by strong measures now and clear information. History may show Trump's reaction to be adequate, it may show it to be inadequate. Who knows?
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@Crow
Trump's reaction to the coronavirus is to dismiss it as just causing a cold. He has called it a hoax and blamed it on Democrats. He has cut funding for the CDC and put Mike Pence - well known for denying science - in charge of the response.
Trump's response is what we have come to expect and fear. It is based on ignorance and disregard for pretty much everyone outside his circle.
Trump is not capable of solving any problem we face. He will only create another disaster.
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@RN
Please have your facts straight before spreading misleading information. Trump did cut funding for the CDC, it was mainly in administrative excesses. Trump did not cut funding for the infectious disease division, in fact he inflated it by 3% Please look it up.
The lack of timely, accurate information is stunning.
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"calm, honest and humble..." and Giuliani in the same headline?
Kooky, given where we are as a nation, and Giuliani's role in creating and deepening this mess.
Wait, I might take that back.
Kooky is a bit charitable.
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Strong disagree. Unfortunately a virus doesn't respond to brash patriotism and conservative defense strategies like terrorists and public sentiment do.
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Please, not the Giuliani of today. He would not help in any way, but he would be very likely to make things worse than Trump is now doing.
1
Oh puleez. A total opportunist, and now a huge grifter. Just leave him out of the conversation.
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That Rudy Giuliani was abducted by aliens.
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@Michael Hogan And an alien took his place. Look more closely if you don't believe this. Conspiracy theory: it's not the Russians, but the aliens that have taken over our politics. Not green, but orange creatures.
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Are you kidding? WTC was bombed in 1993 and what was Rudy's great idea? Lets put the command center at the World Trade Center. Guess what? It was destroyed on 9/11.
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As Murray Kempton liked to say, "Once ain't for always."
Guiliani was good after 9/11 (better than before indeed) up until he started talking about how maybe his mayoral term should be extended. Thence sadly it was downhill to where he is now (loved that Gollum metaphor)
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