Leadership

The NYTimes runs another fawning “America’s Mayor” piece on Rudy. The idiocy of trumpeting Rudy’s “leadership” is made manifest by this part:

Here is the rich irony for those who look askance at Mr. Giuliani’s myth-making moment. His march uptown should not have been necessary, many experts say.

Mr. Giuliani insisted in 1997 on placing his state-of-the-art emergency command center at 7 World Trade Center, mocking critics who warned that it was too close to a terror target. On Sept. 11, that building collapsed. Had the center been placed in Brooklyn, as a mayoral aide had suggested, the cameras might not have made a legend of a dust-shrouded mayor.

But there were other lapses of leadership amongst New York politicians that people forget. More.

I have had many a battle about racism in the Democratic Party and how it effected Freddie Ferrer’s chances to be the first Latino mayor of New York. I believe that Mark Green’s attempted exploitation of the racist stereotypes about the competence of non-whites in 2001 campaign should and will forever tarnish his reputation.

And his behavior, along with Mike Bloomberg’s after 9/11 should also be remembered. They both behaved disgracefully:

Even as the fires burned at ground zero, Democrats and Republicans campaigned in a mayoral election. In late September Mr. Giuliani summoned Mr. Green, who was running in the Democratic primary, to his command post.

Mr. Giuliani, as Mr. Green recalled, was blunt: I want to remain in office three more months. I have a great team, I can lobby Washington. I’m being reasonable, he cautioned; my supporters want me to run for a new term.

Oh yes, he added, I need your answer tonight.

Mr. Green was taken aback. Yom Kippur, the holiest of Jewish holidays, was hours away. His closest advisers, many of whom were Jewish, would not pick up the phone.

“He made it clear he would invest his Churchillian popularity in hitting whomever did not go along with him,” Mr. Green said in an interview.

That many wanted the mayor to stay on is undeniable. But American electoral democracy rarely pauses. Abraham Lincoln held elections in 1864. Franklin D. Roosevelt stood for re-election as World War II raged.

“It was a very dangerous idea,” said Mr. Schwarz, the former corporation counsel. “The knight on the white horse is always indispensable in his own mind.”

Five days after the attacks, anonymous leaflets urged Mr. Giuliani to run. The governor had postponed the Sept. 11 primary. But when a mayoral aide inquired about pushing back other election dates, Mr. Pataki refused.

A few advisers cautioned the mayor against draining his vast reservoir of good will. The mayor spoke at first against the idea of serving beyond his term. But many in his tightly held circle at City Hall urged him on, as did talk show hosts. World leaders lionized him; he would soon be knighted. You are needed to put the city back on its feet, advisers said.

“This wasn’t about ego; it was about recovery,” said Joseph J. Lhota, a former deputy mayor, referring to Mr. Giuliani’s effort to stay on. “It just lasted four days, maybe a week.”

In fact, the mayor’s campaign lasted nearly a month. Mr. Giuliani warmed to the task, jabbing at potential rivals as disaster neophytes. He wrote of a charity fund-raiser in October: “I got a kick out of Adam Sandler” who “managed to rhyme ‘Giuliani’ with ‘why must you be gone-ee?’ “

Mr. Giuliani tried to persuade the candidates, Mr. Green and Fernando Ferrer of the Democrats and Michael R. Bloomberg, the Republican, to support a term extension.

Mr. Green gave in, to his regret. Mr. Bloomberg acceded; Mr. Ferrer refused.

“In retrospect, I was wrong,” Mr. Green said.

Wrong? Yes indeed. Horribly wrong for even considering it. You should have done what Ferrer did when he was asked – immmediately without a thought said no. You needed to realize what he did – that in a democracy, we do not appoint dictators. You do not get to agree to that. Even if you are such a coward that you do.

You failed as a leader Mr Green, As you did when you allowed your campaign to race bait. Mark Green showed his colors in the moments of truth. No one should ever forget that. Just like Rudy did.