Sorry to say, but I think you're sledding uphill with this, already. There's thatidiotic "combat" statement, and my favorite part of today's NY Times piece:

What’s left on the presidential campaign trail is a commanding daddy of a candidate, a disciplined fellow who talks about terrorism and fiscal order and about terrorism some more.

Whooey! A COMMANDING DADDY OF A CANDIDATE! One who had "combat experience"! The die has been cast, it appears. Rudy's the Daddy party, and the Dems are the Mommy party.

Sickening.

Thankyouthankyouthankyou: I'm a New Yorker who heard Harwood that night, and my head well-nigh exploded. What is wrong with these guys that they're allowing Rudy to market essentially an extended photo-op as national security credentials? There's still time to wake people up, and given Rudy's record it should be a snap, but sheesh...we know the media's next door to useless when there's a story they like, but what's wrong with his opponents?

You seem to be suggesting that pundits and reporters actually find evidence that supports their claims.

Are you high?

Is there any one point in time, or period of time, in which degradation of American journalism had its roots? Seriously? To me, it was the idiocy surrounding Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. But maybe it began before that point. I do know that after reading the Times piece on Giuliani, I had the sinking feeling that the "Commanding Daddy" theme was going to be a staple of the treatment by the media. (The fact that Giluiani is estranged from at least one of his children is, I guess, sort of inconvenient and therefore, to be ignored).

Think Progress is reporting that

Starting in January, New York City firefighters and family members of September 11th victims will be following former mayor Rudy Giuliani around nationally, challenging media claims that he “owns” the 9/11 attacks. “If somebody can tell me what he did on 9/11 that was so good, I’d love to hear it,” says Jim Riches, a deputy chief with the fire department whose son was killed in the World Trade Center attacks. “All he did was give information on the TV. He did nothing. He stood there with a TV reporter and told everyone what was going on. And he got it from everybody else down at the site.”

So, will it be the battle of the pro- and anti-Giuliani firefighters? Will there be a “Firefighters for Truth” campaign, modeled after the Swift Boat Vets? Will Ann Coulter come out of her coffin to smear the 9/11 families…again? Will the media pay any attention to this?

Guess we'll see soon enough.

I was on the ground during 9-11, too!

I'd still suck in a pitched gunbattle.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

I'm a New Yorker; I was on the ground that day; I got dusty; I gave blood. Make me a candidate for president, please.

Isn't there a silver lining here? If Rove taught us anything, it is to go after the candidate's strengths, not weaknesses, and it seems to me that if he were the nominee, he will have the strength that is easiest to attack (after all the Republican candidates have gone after him for his perceived weaknesses to their base). I mean, Romney actually is good at business and McCain is a hero that even the swift boaters could not deny, but Giuliani would be much easier to go after.

As someone pointed out above, it will be easy to find fire fighters, and other workers eager to denounce him for all of his actions before and after 9/11 and even that he was only so visible on 9/11 because he had helped put the command center at the World Trade Center.

It is infuriating how the press lets some people get away with anything (Bush) and attacks others for everything they do (Gore) but I think in this case it is better to hold fire until after the nominations. Am I missing something?

That said, I don't think he will win a single state anyway.

For years now, this CW about Giuliani has pervaded virtually every ostensibly straight news piece in which his name appears and even many in more center-left forums. Most often, at minimum, a reference is made to his "strong performance on 9/11", as though that interpretation has been burned into our brains.

Of course that sort of description could imply a superficial appearance (as in the line about a series of photo-ops). But I think to most people "strong performance", even when it is intended superficially, implies an active, decisive, commanding role.

No doubt that many who are more sympathetic to his candidacy including those whose main associations about him were fused on 9/11 and in the generally passive, lockstep reporting that followed, do think of an embattled leader making decisions on the ground and leading a major city through a crisis. (Along with the idea that prior to 9/11, Giuliani singlehandedly took a wretched, ungovernable city and made it livable again).

I don't know if Giuliani would be as vulnerable to a (principled, fact-based) attack on his supposed credentials, because unlike Kerry, so many Americans saw Giuliani's performance on TV that day and ad naseum afterwards. One final difference/concern: Kerry's perceived persona was used to feed doubts about his character and veracity as a distiguished combat vet. Is Giuliani vulnerable in the same way? The fact that so many fire-fighters and others whose lives were in danger that day are speaking up -- and loudly -- is certainly encouraging.

Indeed, well done. As someone who watched TV on 9/11 I'm now basically a Press Secretary also, maybe we should start a consulting firm based on our experience with both hard crime and national security? I mean, why should we put in all that sacrifice and hard work only to lose out on those lucrative speaking fees?

Rudy's only claim to fame is that he didn't flee to Nebraska like Bush did. He probably would have, except that he didn't have his own jet, and all the airports were closed. The result was that Bush's cowardice made Rudy's incompetence seem brave by comparison.

I've always had a certain grudging and twisted respect -- somewhat like my respect for viciously ruthless dictators who survive for decades -- for the way Repub leaders took a huge national security failure and turned it into political gold.

It happened on their watch, despite multiple warnings, and they managed to convince millions of people that not only did they handle it well but were the only people who could be trusted to protect them. That's amazing.

Rudy does own 9/11 simply because in the eyes of the media, perception trumps reality. It makes no sense, but it's pretty hard to combat because the media is fact averse.

I don't know why we should be surprised by this. Both the media and a huge chunk of the public were prefectly willing to grant Commander Guy combat hero status, based purely on his ability to climb up on a pile of rubble with a bullhorn and prance around the deck of an aircraft carrier in a borrowed flight suit. And it took many, many years of mindboggling incompetence and stupidity to finally disabuse all but about 28% of them of their illusions.

It just goes to show that after 60 years of exposure to TV, most Americans really can't tell the difference between play acting from the real thing. And that goes double for the gray eminences of the punditburo.