Comments on: Therapist in Chief

By: Jon H

Jon H — Mon, 07 May 2007 19:10:20 +0000

“How would his disaster handling skills compare with, say, those of the leaders of New Orleans?”

Just how well do you think Rudy would have handled it if much of the 5 boroughs was under water?

As bad as 9/11 was, the damage was highly localized to a small part of Manhattan, and people who lived anywhere but right near the WTC retained access to necessities of life.

By: Karol

Karol — Fri, 04 May 2007 22:39:19 +0000

I was in New York and I remember that most people just wanted to hide under their beds. We had no idea where the president was and Rudy just seemed fearless, out there by the towers, telling us that this is awful but that we’re going to be alright. It wasn’t his “performance”, exactly, it was his attitude. It helped us not freak out.

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 01 May 2007 23:50:52 +0000

How would his disaster handling skills compare with, say, those of the leaders of New Orleans?

By: Reality Man

Reality Man — Tue, 01 May 2007 19:44:56 +0000

The whole reason Giuliani was on TV so much was that his terrorism war room was in the WTC even though people had been telling him for years to put it underground in Brooklyn. If he had been smart and done that, he wouldn’t have been on TV so much and wouldn’t have been annointed hero of 9/11.

By: joeo

joeo — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 23:36:42 +0000

Jacob T. Levy is right. There was something to what Giuliani did. I don’t think every competent politician could have done it. Authoritarianism comes across well in a crises.

It doesn’t mean Giuliani would be a good president. He wouldn’t.

By: tom

tom — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 19:12:00 +0000

I’ve never really understood the rep Giuliani got for his performance around 9/11, either. Of course, I wasn’t in New York, so presumably I saw less of his supposedly heroic oratory than you did — just what was carried by the national media. Still, it seemed like journalists were primed to anoint heroes as quickly as possible, and Rudy got sucked into that phenomenon — as did the President and Bernie Kerik, although Giuliani’s the only one who hasn’t managed to nationally disgrace himself since then.

The nation’s first responders did too, of course, and more deservedly so. But since their storyline was basically one of martyrdom, all that could be done was to refer to them anonymously and make shitty movies in their honor. For individual glorification the press had to turn to the politicians, and I guess it didn’t really matter which ones were at hand.

By: Jacob T. Levy

Jacob T. Levy — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 18:08:02 +0000

Either the proxy story or the therapeutic story fits. I wouldn’t be *quite* so dismissive of the speech for its own sake– the ability to provide effective leadership/ inspiration/ solace simply through words has been a basic characteristic of good democratic leadership since Pericles, so there’s probably something to it, and undemocratic charismatic leaders are sometimes happy to step in where democratic leaders fail to be charismatic. At the end of the day I’m a wonk and care incomparably more about the actual work that gets done– but the speechifying does legitimately matter in its own right.

Part of the 9/11 effect– and I think this was especially true for those of us outside New York/ Washington, experiencing everything only as mediated by TV– was that Giuliani was on the air so much sooner, more often, and more confidently than Bush himself. It looked as if he had the capacity to spontaneously rise to the occasion– performing, sure, but doing so without the trappings of mere performance. And he didn’t act as grief-counselor-in-chief– he said very little that was ‘therapeutic’ in that hand-holding sense. So between [seeming to] effectively run the emergency response in NYC and [seeming to] be able to say appropriate words quickly, just relying on his own judgment, he created a pretty powerful effect.

Doesn’t mean he’d make a good president, and it owuld astonish me if all of that could elect a guy who’s never held office higher than mayor and hasn’t held any officefor six years. But he did a lot better than just not-panic, and in circumstances that seemed to suggest he was doing something more than just acting.