Finally!

I've never been a Rudy Giuliani fan. I think he did some decent things when he first became mayor of NYC and then he got crazy. He wanted to get rid of hot dog vendors and ticket people for jaywalking and all kinds of ridiculous things that meant that NYC would lose its character and cops would be wasting their time on stuff like pornography and jaywalkers.

And now, there's a lot of people in this country who never knew anything about him until 9/11 and he's based his entire campaign on his "heroism" on 9/11. The real deal is that many of the problems that happened in the towers that day were his fault. The cops and the firemen couldn't talk to each other because their radios were on different frequencies. The cops were able to get out of the buildings after being ordered to - the firemen never got the order because their radios weren't working properly - same issue they'd had the last time the towers were bombed.

Why didn’t the firefighters have equipment that worked? The Giuliani administration had in fact bought new radios less than a year before the September 11 attacks. The $33 million deal was struck with Motorola Corporation under a no-bid contract.

The radios, which were bought sight-unseen and without the field-testing that is required under the Fire Department’s regulations, were designed for use by intelligence agencies, with encryption functions that have no use in firefighting.

These radios were issued to firefighters and then recalled within barely one week after widespread failures, including one in which a probationary firefighter nearly lost his life.

And, even worse, Giuliani insisted that the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) be based at the towers on the 27th floor of WTC 7. You know, put the OEM at the #1 target in NYC and probably the entire US - remember, the towers had already been bombed in 1993.

Anyways, the firefighter's union is speaking out about all of this, which is great in my book. He has all these people swindled into thinking he's some sort of hero in the face of terrorism and the real heroes are now speaking out against him. (Oh yeah, and his staff keeps getting arrested and outed for stuff like illegal drugs and cheating on their wives with prostitutes. I'm sure the religious right totally digs that, along with the three marriages, etc etc etc.) But this is way better in my book because it speaks to what kind of President he would be (heavens forbid).