Tuesday, August 21, 2007

RUDY GIULIANI

Salon's Unfair, Inaccurate Shot at Giuliani

Salon (annoying ad at link) takes an unfair shot at Rudy Giuliani, accusing him of spending more time watching the Yankees in fall 2001 than spending at Ground Zero.

"By our count, Giuliani spent about 58 hours at Yankees games or flying to them in the 40 days between Sept. 25 and Nov. 4, roughly twice as long as he spent at ground zero in the 90 days between Sept. 17 and Dec. 16."

Right off the bat, we notice something unfair in their measuring stick; they're including travel time to Arizona for two World Series games. According to Orbitz, the average travel time from New York, NY to Phoenix, AZ is 5 hours and 40 minutes. So for a round trip flight, that's ten hours and twenty minutes. (As I understand it, it was one trip for two games two trips for two games*. And yes, I know the jet stream and weather can affect travel time, etc.)

Was it somehow indecent for Rudy to go to the World Series games? By late October and early November, the operations at Ground Zero were a recovery effort, not a rescue effort. Much of the nation had talked about the need for life to go on after the mourning, and the return of baseball was part of that.

Next question – why do we start counting at September 17? Because the Times writes, “A complete record of Mr. Giuliani’s exposure to the site is not available for the chaotic six days after the attack, when he was a frequent visitor.” Well, gee, do you think knowing the total amount of time in those first six days might affect the total number of hours spent at Ground Zero?

Can we assume Rudy spent three hours a day there those first six days? (I'm being deliberately cautious in undercounting - unless I'm remembering his autobiography incorrectly, Rudy spent much of the first 72 hours on site...)

So, just by this cautious calculation, the mayor's time at ground zero is forty-seven hours, and his time actually attending Yankee games is forty-six hours and twenty minutes. Salon puts Giuliani's in-stadium time at thirty-three hours, but admits they can't be certain Giuliani didn't leave early from any of them.

(And if the question is whether Giuliani spent enough time at the site to be exposed to pollutants, toxins, air particles, etc., wouldn’t those be worst in the first couple of days? Wouldn’t they have at least somewhat dispersed as time goes by?)

There's another question left unexamined by the jab at Giuliani - just what could, or should, a mayor do on site during those times? Wasn't the city management operating off-site? During those days, rescue and recovery efforts were digging into rubble. Wouldn't the mayor be getting in the way? The Times article notes that many of Giuliani's visits were escorting visiting officials and dignitaries through the site. Beyond that, what should the mayor be doing at the site?

Was it boneheaded for Rudy to say he spent more time at Ground Zero than many rescue workers? Sure. A lot of them put in twelve hour shifts; Rudy made many visits of an hour here, an hour and a half there. He shouldn't have compared the two. But Salon, eager to jump on the dogpile, is no better for ignoring Rudy's time in the first six days and blaming him for traveling to a Western city in November, long after the immediate crisis had passed.

* UPDATE: Alex Koppelman at Salon writes in, saying Giuliani took two trips to Arizona in two days. They point to an AP description: "four 2,500-mile plane rides at 5 1/2 hours each for a total of 10,000 miles and 22 hours in the air."

He further clarifies, "The 58 hours number is made up of three separate numbers; it's the 33 hours at post-season games, the 22 hours of travel in two trips to Arizona and the just under three hours (I believe it was 2:52, to be exact) that the Yankees first game back in New York after 9/11 lasted. It doesn't count pre-game ceremonies, or the time he spent on the field and in the clubhouse afterwards."

I appreciate his further details, but I think Salon's counting of travel time in his "Yankee time" that is a bit unfair. If the Mets or Phillies had won the NLCS, Giuliani would have spent a lot less time getting to the game.

More than one reader has asked a question in the vein of, "Hey, do they start the clock when the tower came down on top of where he was that morning?" Another reader asked if his time spent going to funerals of 9/11 victims should count toward his total. Considering how the entire controversy was spurred by the question of Giuliani's exposure to site-related health risks, I think not, but again, Salon's hyperbolic attack suggests Rudy was more interested in the Yankees than Ground Zero, an unfair and ludicrous charge.

Another reader asked how many hours the junior Senator spent at the site. As much as I'd like to poke at Hillary over this, if we're not sure whether the mayor would or could accomplish much on site, I'm not sure she would or could have accomplished much at the site, either.

08/21 09:16 AMShare