Breaking: Rudy Spent 29 Hours At Ground Zero In Three Months
August 17, 2007 -- 8:24 AM EST // //
Twenty-nine hours.
That's the total amount of time Rudy Giuliani actually spent at Ground Zero in three months following the attacks, according to a report in this morning's New York Times.
Rudy, you'll recall, recently caused a huge controversy by saying he'd spent as much or more time at Ground Zero than "most" of the 9/11 recovery workers. These new revelations about his time at the site are almost certain to raise yet more questions about his efforts to run for President partly on his performance after 9/11 -- and to further enrage the firefighters, cops and rescue workers who despise him for those efforts and accuse him of falsely lionizing his own 9/11 performance.
Can we call Rudy's recovery-worker insult a gaffe now? Note to pundits who've largely ignored this, despite it being Rudy's worst political misstep to date -- any interest in this story yet?
The news is kind of buried in the Times piece, but it's big:
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. But an exhaustively detailed account from his mayoral archive, revised after the events to account for last-minute changes on scheduled stops, does exist for the period of Sept. 17 to Dec. 16, 2001. It shows he was there for a total of 29 hours in those three months, often for short periods or to visit locations adjacent to the rubble. In that same period, many rescue and recovery workers put in daily 12-hour shifts.That's roughly an average of 10 hours a month. Ahhh -- the sweet sound of real reporting.
Meanwhile, Michael Palladino, president of the Detectives Endowment Association, tells The Times that most of his members averaged more than 400 hours at the site (though it's unclear what time period he's referring to). And John McDonnell, president of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association in New York, tells the paper that many of his members worked consecutive 12-hour shifts at the site for weeks.
The revelations about Rudy's 29 hours at the site would also appear to be directly at odds with these Rudy quotes from September of 2006:
“I spent as much time here as anyone...I was here five, six times a day for four months. I kind of thought of it as living here.”Surely the pundits will all be talking about Rudy's tendency to be a "serial exaggerator" now, right?
The Times piece also sheds light on the type of work Rudy was doing at the site: "The 29 hours Mr. Giuliani spent at ground zero involved 41 appearances, mostly to give tours to other officials and foreign dignitaries. Many entries include meetings away from the site before the tour."
Those 29 hours at the site also include on-site interviews Rudy did with Oprah and Barbara Walters, according to a chart accompanying the Times piece.
Not exactly digging through the rubble.
Interestingly, when the Giuliani campaign was asked to respond to these revelations, the campaign supplied the following statement from former Giuliani deputy Mayor and Rudy loyalist Joe Lhota:
“Hundreds of thousands of people around the country and the world saw Rudy Giuliani’s steadfast and determined leadership firsthand at a time when we needed it most,” the statement said. “In the days surrounding September 11th, the safety and health of all those involved in the search and recovery efforts was Mayor Giuliani’s No. 1 one priority. Make no mistake, it is the very same concern Mayor Giuliani continues to express today when it comes to all those who have made tremendous sacrifices at ground zero.”No denial.
Meanwhile, here's the video of Rudy saying he'd spent as much or more time at the site than "most" of the workers, adding that he's "one of them":
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