Gary Hart to Rudy: zip it

I don't like to copy/paste whole articles or letters, but this one is not very long, and I believe this one is important and hard hitting enough to bring it all to you.

The following is a letter from former Colorado Senator Gary Hart to GOP Presidential Candidate Rudy Giuliani. I read it on HuffPo a little while ago. Honestly, it's just another reason to love The Huffington Post - it's one of the best liberal blogs on the Internet.

Anyway, here it is. I've highlighted a few passages I feel are particularly strong.

Dear Mayor Giuliani:

Since you have based your presidential campaign almost exclusively on your reaction to terrorist attacks on New York City, and since you have recently accused Democrats of being on the defense against terrorism and therefore guilty of inviting more casualties, I have one question for you: Where were you on terrorism between January 31, 2001, and September 11th?

The first date was when the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century issued its final report warning, as did its previous reports, of the danger of terrorist attacks on America. The George W. Bush administration did nothing about these warnings and we lost 3,000 American lives. What did you do during those critical eight months? Where were you? Were you on the defensive, or were you even paying attention?

Before you qualify to criticize Democrats, Mr. Giuliani, you must account for your preparation of your city for these clearly predicted attacks. Tell us, please, what steps you took to make your city safer.

Until you do, then I strongly suggest you should keep your mouth shut about Democrats and terrorism.

You have not qualified [sic] to criticize others, let alone be president of the United States.

Gary Hart
(co-chair, U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century)

P.S. You might ask these same questions of George W. Bush while you are trying to find a better reason to run for president.

Not bad. This is a sound, valid criticism of Rudy Giuliani about 9-11.

I don't think that Giuliani could have prevented two airplanes from flying into both WTC towers on 9-11. For that, I blame the federal government and the president whose boots Rudy never misses a chance to lick - George W. Bush.

But, there's plenty of room to criticize Rudy, too. For instance, after it was recommended that NYC's emergency response center be put underground, why did he have it put in the World Trade Center anyway? (Especially in the aftermath of the 1993 bombing of the WTC complex.)

And, why didn't Giuliani take steps to improve and coordinate the city's various departments' response to a terrorist attack? It's well-documented that the radio system used by both the FDNY and NYPD were less-than-first-rate on 9-11.

We'll never know, but perhaps a better response would have resulted in fewer than the 343 firefighters lost when both towers collapsed. What's more, once the south tower collapsed, a more coordinated response may have saved more lives before the north tower collapsed.

I know what some might think - why go back and look at all of those things now? My response to that valid question is that Giuliani is cavorting from coast-to-coast, bragging and preening about his 9-11 leadership skills, so his actions as mayor leading up to and during 9-11 bear scrutiny. Republicans and Giuliani cannot have it both ways - if he's going to run on 9-11, he'd better be prepared to answer questions about some decisions that were made before, during and immediately after 9-11, all on his watch.

Does this line of thinking sound familiar? It should - it's precisely how Republicans justified their attacks on John Kerry in 2004. I certainly hope that Democrats (and organizations associated with the DemocratIC party) don't Swiftboat Giuliani like Republicans did to Kerry, but if Rudy is going to run as the "9-11 candidate," then his record should be examined and discussed.

And in light of his arrogant, inexcusable comments last week, he'd better be ready.