LA Times noted firefighter "wrath" at Giuliani but didn't explain the cause

A June 28 Los Angeles Times article, headlined "Terrorism: Giuliani's running mate," asserted that former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) is the only presidential candidate who "inspires both wrath and respect in firefighters for his actions in response to Sept. 11." But the article did not explain why Giuliani "inspires ...wrath ... in firefighters," despite the Times' own reporting on the issue several months ago. The article also touted "what he did in the terrifying hours and days that followed" the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as "an argument that Giuliani's experience is as close to presidential as it is possible to get without storing your BlackBerry in the Oval Office." However, the article made no mention of the criticism surrounding Giuliani's handling of the 9-11 terror attacks.

On April 8, the Times reported that:

Officials from a national firefighters union [IAFF], along with some relatives of Sept. 11 victims, say they will publicly attack decisions Giuliani made as New York mayor before and after the terrorist strikes.

Among other complaints, they say that Giuliani failed to support modernized radios that might have spared the lives of more firefighters at the World Trade Center, and that he located the city's main emergency command center in the complex, even though it had been targeted by terrorists eight years earlier.

As Media Matters for America has repeatedly noted, New York City's firefighters have been critical of Giuliani for what they cite as his failure to ensure that the New York police and fire departments had interoperable radios. At the time of the attacks, the New York fire department was using outdated VHF radios that were incompatible with the police department's UHF radios. On March 14, The New York Times reported Harold A. Schaitberger, general president of the IAFF, saying of Giuliani: "The whole issue of the radios is unforgivable. ... Everyone knew they needed a better system, and he didn't get it done."

However, the June 28 Los Angeles Times article simply described Giuliani as "the only one who inspires both wrath and respect in firefighters for his actions in response to Sept. 11" without offering readers any explanation for the reasons Giuliani has drawn their "wrath."

Additionally, the article reported that Giuliani's "candidacy is built on the rubble of the World Trade Center" and offered this description of Giuliani's actions on 9-11:

Giuliani's run for the White House is not based on the simple fact of Sept. 11, 2001, but who he was and what he did in the terrifying hours and days that followed. While President Bush disappeared to the safety of an airplane, the lame duck mayor of New York City headed to ground zero. He scoped out the damage firsthand, saw terrified people jump to their deaths from the burning skyscrapers, gave news conferences and planned ahead.

The article went on to quote the following line from Giuliani's book Leadership (Miramax Books, 2002):

After September 11, people would tell me that it was brave to go to the scene of the attacks. It was actually just carrying out my usual practice for any significant emergency ... of seeing things with your own eyes and of setting an example.

The Los Angeles Times asserted that this line "translates on the campaign trail into an argument that Giuliani's experience is as close to presidential as it is possible to get without storing your BlackBerry in the Oval Office."

But in touting the fact that Giuliani "headed to ground zero" on the day of the attacks and uncritically reporting Giuliani's claim that this represented his "usual practice ... of seeing things with your own eyes," the Los Angeles Times ignored the questions surrounding Giuliani's presence at "the scene of the attacks" that day.

As Media Matters has repeatedly documented, in the book Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11 (HarperCollins, 2006), Village Voice senior editor Wayne Barrett and CBSNews.com senior producer Dan Collins wrote that Giuliani's "original destination" wasn't "ground zero" but rather his "much-ballyhooed command center" nearby at 7 World Trade Center (Page 6). Indeed, in Leadership, Giuliani wrote that, after the first plane hit, he "headed" to his administration's "state-of-the-art command center ... located on the 23rd floor of 7 WTC" (Pages 4, 5). But, according to Barrett and Collins, then-New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, "who was waiting to meet [Giuliani], decided it was too dangerous to bring the mayor up to the command center [Giuliani] had so carefully and expensively built" (Page 340). Barrett and Collins wrote that "Giuliani then began a harrowing trek to find a temporary headquarters where the city could manage the unfolding disaster" (Page 6).

Barrett and Collins reported that Giuliani selected 7 World Trade Center as the site of his OEM command center after "overrul[ing]" warnings from former police commissioner Howard Safir and NYPD chief operating officer Lou Anemone not to locate it there and "[r]ejecting an already secure, technologically advanced city facility across the Brooklyn Bridge" because Giuliani "insisted on a command center within walking distance of City Hall" (Page 41). That building, 7 WTC, ultimately collapsed on 9-11. Thus, Barrett and Collins concluded that if the command center had not posed such a safety risk to Giuliani, "all the dramatic visuals ... would instead have been tense but tame footage from its barren press conference room" (Page 41).

The Times also omitted the criticism Giuliani has received regarding his failure to use a respirator during visits to Ground Zero. A May 14 New York Times article noted that "by late October [2001], only 29 percent of ground zero workers were wearing the sophisticated respirators that were required by OSHA [the Occupational Safety and Health Administration]. Even Mr. Giuliani sometimes showed up without one." Noting that fact, a May 22 New York Times editorial described Giuliani as "setting a terrible example" by visiting the site without a respirator. Similarly, Barrett and Collins wrote:

"It would have been just [an] important ... symbol for Giuliani to don a respirator when he actually went to the site, to show those closest to the pile that they should not feel they were being weak or malingerers if they wore the proper protection." (Page 256)

Furthermore, the June 28 Times article referred to Giuliani as "[t]he man who has been billed as 'America's Mayor' and who wants deeply to become America's next president." As Media Matters has repeatedly documented (here, here, here, here, here, and here), media figures have touted Giuliani's reputation as "America's Mayor" despite the numerous controversies marking his political career.

From the June 28 Los Angeles Times article:

The man who has been billed as "America's Mayor" and who wants deeply to become America's next president hewed most closely to his core campaign message last week as the days wore on, and the twin towers rose into high relief.

An arid hour on fiscal responsibility in Des Moines on Wednesday was followed by 12 minutes of terrorism and Fidel Castro in Hialeah, Fla., on Thursday. But a silent appearance at Friday's memorial service for nine firefighters killed in the line of duty in Charleston, S.C., distilled Giuliani's message better than anything he could actually say.

Bagpipes keened "Amazing Grace." The eulogies were all about danger and heroism; about brave souls who race toward the inferno, while everyone else heads for safety; about "the largest loss in the firefighting community since 9/11."

And there he was, head bowed, the man whose candidacy is built on the rubble of the World Trade Center, the constant threat of future attack and the need to stay vigilant. On Friday morning, he didn't have to say a word to get that point across.

Giuliani's run for the White House is not based on the simple fact of Sept. 11, 2001, but who he was and what he did in the terrifying hours and days that followed. While President Bush disappeared to the safety of an airplane, the lame duck mayor of New York City headed to ground zero. He scoped out the damage firsthand, saw terrified people jump to their deaths from the burning skyscrapers, gave news conferences and planned ahead.

In "Leadership," his 2002 business book-cum-autobiography, he wrote: "After September 11, people would tell me that it was brave to go to the scene of the attacks. It was actually just carrying out my usual practice for any significant emergency ... of seeing things with your own eyes and of setting an example."

That insouciant aside for chief executives translates on the campaign trail into an argument that Giuliani's experience is as close to presidential as it is possible to get without storing your BlackBerry in the Oval Office. In other words: Vote for me, I've almost been there.

[...]

Giuliani was supposed to fly from South Florida to Jacksonville, Fla., for a town hall meeting at a junior college.

But then the campaign got a call from Lewis Hayes, chairman of South Carolina Firefighters for Rudy, inviting the candidate to the memorial service.

So Jacksonville was out, and the candidate flew north to pay his respects. His staff stressed that the trip was just that, not an official campaign event.

Giuliani wasn't the only man who stepped off the trail Friday. Republican Mike Huckabee and Democrats Joseph R. Biden Jr., Christopher J. Dodd and John Edwards were all present. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama had called Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. to express their sympathy.

However, Giuliani is the only one who has written a book on leadership with a chapter called "Weddings Discretionary, Funerals Mandatory." The only one whose city lost 343 firefighters and 60 police officers on one horrible day in 2001.

He's the only one who inspires both wrath and respect in firefighters for his actions in response to Sept. 11.

And he is the only one who can sit in a cavernous auditorium amid thousands of uniformed first responders and give a campaign speech without saying a word.